<p>I imagine that many of us may be shopping for ‘first’ cars and that safety is a priority. What have you found in your research?</p>
<p>I know some feel that older, large cars are better, but from what I have read, this isn’t true. Newer cars have more safety features. This includes things like airbags and antilock brakes that we think of as safety features, but also improvements in handling, etc that help drivers avoid accidents in the first place. </p>
<p>I know I have to be reasonable, so the armored tank is probably out of the question…lol</p>
<p>So, what do you think are the safest cars, and WHY?</p>
<p>When I was learning to drive I always felt much safer, and in control, of my brother’s Grand Am versus our large SUV I had to often drive. Now that I’ve been driving about ten years now I still prefer compact cars since I feel a lot more in control of them. I was recently looking at some newer models and saw they’ve even started coming with side/curtain airbags standard.</p>
<p>Being able to avoid an accident has always seemed one of the best ways to stay safe to me.</p>
<p>Our 12 year old cars ALL have antilock brakes, and airbags. Two even have side airbags. Surely you are not planning on buying a car older than 12 years. If you are…I have three I can sell you:)</p>
<p>If I were buying a car for a new driver to use, I’d buy a four- or five-year-old Accord, Camry, Subaru Legacy or something similar, with a four-cylinder engine.</p>
<p>New enough to have plenty of safety features (except probably for vehicle stability control), but old enough to have depreciated in value some. And still new enough that it’s likely to be free of major mechanical problems for several years. </p>
<p>Also large enough to be safe in most collisions, but small enough to be manageable on most roads and in most parking lots. (This is especially true of a Subaru, which I’ve always found a bit smaller than an Accord or a Camry.)</p>
<p>They’re all sedans instead of SUVs or crossovers. I think more modern crossovers are less prone to roll over than older body-on-frame trucks and sport utilities were, but they still have higher centers of gravity than sedans do. And they’re all a little bit…staid. I don’t think a new driver needs a car that issues the tacit challenge, “Show us all just how cool you can be in your car.”</p>
<p>The four-cylinder engine in those cars provides more than enough acceleration for safely making left turns and merging onto highways. An experienced driver who wants a six-cylinder engine and doesn’t mind paying for it is welcome to have one, but I wouldn’t buy one on purpose for my teen.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t buy a new car. Aside from not wanting to drop in excess of 20 large on a car for my kid to drive (when my wife and I are both driving 10-year-old Hondas ourselves!), I think it’s likely that a new driver is going to crash that first car–possibly crash it badly enough that it won’t ever be the same again. Why give her something so valuable to mess up?</p>
<p>We have had a great experience with a Honda Element. Aside form the usual safety features, we also liked that it carries only 3 passengers. In addition, it has a manual transmission that forces the driver to concentrate on driving. The storage is phenomenal for trips back and forth to school - and my kids liked its rather funky look.</p>
<p>LOL yes, some older cars have those features, although I think it is only the newer ones that seem to have airbags all over the place (side airbags…) but I was mostly listing those as things we typically think of as safety features, wanting to point out that handling is also something that should be considered as a safety feature.</p>
<p>I agree. I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to hand down a '75 Pinto or a '66 Corvair, but a '92 Honda? Certainly.</p>
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<p>And, I would submit, so is reliability. I think getting stranded somewhere, especially but not only at night, is as serious a safety concern for an inexperienced driver as avoiding or surviving a crash.</p>
<p>DS14 is salivating over the possibility of inheriting our '97 Sentra with 180K miles. The same car he was “ashamed to be seen in” when Dad picked him up from school driving it.</p>
<p>@thumper…A lot of people seem to think the same thing…that kids get the older car, grown ups get the newer cars; but from what I have read…from a safety perspective, this can be a mistake (of course it depends on the individual cars in question)…because of the overall improvements in handling and safety features, it might be wise for the least experienced driver to have the safest car. </p>
<p>@sikorsky…I am thinking along the same lines, but maybe 2 yrs old. You have some good thoughts with the 4 cyl. idea. I hadn’t thought about that.</p>
<p>Have to think about this for the D who is turning 16 in December. The 19YO S drives a hand me down 11YO Toyota Highlander which seems to be disintegrating at just under 200K miles (burns oil, check engine light, parking brake is barely hanging in there) and the next oldest car is a 3YO Volvo which is my daily driver (too new and it’s a T5 which is too powerful).</p>
<p>My main concern is getting the right car that isn’t beat up…we buy new and keep for many years so I have not had to look at used cars in a long time. I am tempted to spring for a basic ($15K) new car but there is the size issue. One alternative is a CPO car but I wonder if those are overpriced…</p>
<p>Sho…no one is saying you should give your kid a 1980 Ford. Before you go out and get your kid a brand new car, check the insurance costs. The younger driver on that NEW car is going to be pricey. There is nothing wrong with a used car that has the safety features…antilock brakes, airbags…that have been available on MANY cars since the late 1990s. </p>
<p>We went with a used Accord for one of our kids. It’s a 2003, and had 72,000 miles on it when we bought it two years ago. It’s a great car…handles well. The kid did NOT need a new car.</p>
<p>If you are looking for new…what is your price range?</p>
<p>Insuring a new car with a young driver as a primary sure isn’t pretty . . .<br>
When our kids learned to drive/first got a license, they got the hand me downs. The high school parking lot alone was a reason not to let them have anything nice-ish. Do I worry about safety? Sometimes, but not enough to shell out for newer car. I guess if I considered the car safe enough for me to drive with the kids as passengers, it ought to be safe enough for them as drivers.</p>
<p>What would I pick if I had to car shop for d2? Probably a small sedan or wagon/ hatchback. I do not want my teen bombing around in an SUV or a big honkin’ truck. There’s their own safety, but the safety of others is worth considering, too. Anything that holds too many other kids is a bad idea, too.</p>
<p>FWIW, h just got a new car, and it’s the first car we’ve ever owned with a “2” as the first digit in the sticker. We buy new, we buy cheap, and we drive them until they’re worth so little we just give them away to someone who needs a car – usually someone at the church outreach ministry.</p>
<p>the 4 cylinder vs 6 cylinder is an interesting thought. I’ve driven both and generally don’t have much of a preference either way, but I have noticed that my mom’s large sedan with a 4 cylinder is a lot harder to drive than her last car, which was the same vehicle with a 6-- the handling is kind of yucky. Our smaller compact car has a 4 and I don’t notice anything off about the way it handles.</p>
<p>My first car was a focus that was only a year or two old, because it was my dad’s car and we shared. After that I graduated to a '97 grand am… I am glad I drive the older car now because I scraped the paint at some point, but my parents also had to cover a lot of immensely expensive car repairs that it just would have been completely unreasonable to expect me to pay for at that point in my life. No way I could have afforded it, I just wouldn’t have had a car. If they wanted me to both a) have a car to drive, and b) be fully financially responsible for the car, buying a newer and more reliable car might have been a smarter idea. I am hoping that the next car I buy will still be a few years old but not THIS old. This car has had no accidents and has still required well over 5k in repairs in the year we’ve had it, probably getting to be more like 7 or 8k. But, it does have airbags, antilock brakes, etc. It just doesn’t run sometimes. And sometimes doesn’t have power steering. And it burns oil.</p>
<p>Hammer’s post reminds me of something I’ve read recently: we may all find that the difference in price between new cars and late-model used cars isn’t as great as we expect. There are a couple of forces at work (if I recall correctly).</p>
<p>One is that the recent economic troubles have led a lot of consumers to look for value when they buy cars. More people have been looking for gently used cars than was the case before 2008.</p>
<p>Another is that the post-crash “cash for clunkers” incentives created a spike in new-car sales, and we’re still kind of in the shadow of that spike. People who bought a new car during cash for clunkers don’t need a new car yet. Especially since they were buyers with older cars then, and cars are just built better than they were when we were kids. So the number of people shopping for new cars is still somewhat reduced.</p>
<p>This makes the difference in purchase price less than it once was. At least, that’s how I remember what I read. I encourage you to do your own research. And it has nothing to do with other ownership costs, such as insurance.</p>
<p>We found this to be very true when shopping for a car for our college student (not the new driver). What we could get “gently” used was nearly as much as some of the new low-end models.</p>
<p>We are a Subaru family, so any hand me down cars have been the old Subarus. When my kids bought their own cars with their own funds, they went with used Subarus.I like the all wheel drive, the brakes, the extra airbags in this line of cars.</p>
<p>I’m 17, and have been driving for over a year now. No tickets, accidents, or damage done so far. I got a hand me down '04 Honda Pilot, and I can’t imagine learning to drive in anything else. Excellent visibility, great safety features, and it’s a pretty big suv, meaning that it forces you to focus a bit more when you park. I’d recommend an SUV, because they really are safer when things might go wrong.</p>
And sometimes doesn’t have power steering. And it burns oil.</p>