Add me to the Mazda CX-5 fans. Recently one of my close friends bought her daughter a CX-3 after giving me a list of must-haves and that’s what I recommended. I’ve had a Mazda MPV (they don’t make them anymore), and I like the Mazda brand in general for their niftiness, tech, and fun factor.
I currently drive a 2013 Ford Flex Ecoboost-it meets some of your requirements (like awd), but not others, and is probably larger than what you’re looking for. But it’s a huge amount of fun and I love it.
If safety is your top concern, look at the Mercedes GLA. Before you say aw it’s too much-it starts at $32,800, and you can get a certified pre-owned one for less. The warranty and coverage on the MB certified pre-owned is excellent-we have one (my H), and it makes owning a MB very cost-effective.
Ford Escapes SEL black on black leather, heated and cooled seats, moonroofs, awd, 4 cylinder 1.6 turbo, moonroof, ive owned 2 of them a 2015 and 2017,definetly recommend.
MOD, I drove a Mazda MPV. The $700 warranty we bought for it paid off big time - it covered $6,000 worth of major repairs (including a busted engine at a few miles before the odometer read 70k). I am not sad that Mazda does not make them anymore. But it looked cool because it looked much less minivanish than other minivan options available at that time.
In my case, it isn’t about politics, it is because of my experience with them, plus also being a gearhead with a network of gearheads who comment on cars. There are cars that appear to be good, cars that are okay, and cars I wouldn’t give you 50c for based on what I hear shrug. For example, while i like the design on new Volvos (the colors alone are light years better than the past), I also have heard from my informal network that Volvo’s quality is not that great, that typical of Volvo in the past things that are relatively minor break, like clips and wiring harness plugs and sensors, and they are expensive to replace. I also have heard that the tolerances on the engine and powertrain are not great, which is why you hear about oil burning, cars needing valve jobs at 50k miles, transmission seal failures and the like. Some of my network (a couple of whom are professional mechanics, at least one ME) said that Volvo is sourcing a lot of parts these days from China (not surprising, the company is Chinese owned) and they have problems with quality and with variances in dimensions on things like seals and valve seals and rings…All cars of course have their bouts of problems, Subaru did for a while, Nissan had some ugly problems, Toyota had its fall, Ford has had some issues with electrical systems and transmissions, it comes down to knowing when they have problems and if they actually fixed them shrug. It is funny how politics work, I had one guy comment that one of my cars is a Toyota Camry Solara, and said why didn’t I buy American…the joke being that the Camry is made in the US, and 80% of its parts were locally sourced in the US, technically it is a domestic car, while the car he was driving at the time was made in Mexico and something like 60% of its parts were made outside the US…
I’ve had my Volvo since 2008, and have had no problems at all. But I am paying attention to this thread. I may buy a new suv next year.
We’ve had multiple Mazdas, multiple Subarus, and several Hondas (1 mini-Van, 2 accords, at least 1 civic, and now a CrossTour). They have all been fine.
I know some people LOVE Toyotas, but my personal experience turned me off of them.
I’ve heard Subaru had some problems, but it sounds like they are doing much better these days.
my family swears by subaru. I’ve been considering the AWD mitsubishi lancer for my next car - though i’m hoping the current one lasts me another 20 months or so! Knock on wood!
After a good amount of research and test driving, we bought a new Toyota RAV4 (Limited Hybrid in blizzard white) in May and am very happy with it. We do mostly suburban driving, but did take it on a road trip from the Chicago area to Ohio and back. We are very happy with the purchase. Also, my husband says, in the future, he’ll only purchase vehicles with the tech package.
They are still dealing with oil consumption problems on the FB25 and FB20 engines, but it seems to be more of an issue for those with manual transmission models.
Personally, I would avoid Mitsubishi, I am not convinced that the management of the company has learned their lesson, they had major flaws in some of their designs and deliberately covered it up rather than recalling the cars, and they also continued to have quality problems in their powertrains and electrical systems from what I hear, that if you get a decent one it is a nice car, but that their quality overall is all over the place. A lot of the people behind the messes that finally got them a massive fine are still running things, so it makes me seriously wonder.
We got one of the rare “vanilla” Subaru 2016 outbacks- no options except floor mats. It was very, very reasonably priced and has tons of standard options. It is the smoothest, quietest, most comfortable car we have ever driven and we just love it!
I purchased our last two cars as internet sales through Cars.Com.
I set up a gmail account just for this purpose.
We test drove the cars in our area before settling on our choice.
When I began with Cars.com I did not put a phone number and specified that I would
only communicate through email. If I was forced to put in a phone I put my office number in so just went to a recording.
This is a number of years ago so it is vague.
Anyway, one morning I contacted a few and said I was ready to buy and here is my phone number.
The phone started ringing immediately.
Last car, an Eleantra, ended in a bidding war between two dealerships.
Off to the dealership, met with the internet sales person and walked out with a car.
Seriously love doing it this way. Oh! and the Hyundai manager offered me a job… :-/
Sites like cars.com or edmunds can give you an idea of the price of a car, but won’t list what the real selling prices are (on cars.com, the dealer listings are basically sticker price). There are sites like trucar.com that have listings of what cars are selling for (I believe they charge a fee), that can help you see what cars are selling for.
Using cars.com can be handy, though, because you can show interest in a car and let the dealer come back to you with a price…or if you have a price in mind, make an offer to a dealer listing a car and see what happens. A lot depends on the time of year, when car sales are slow (after the new year) or when new model years are coming out (like now), you can generally get a better deal.
You can also use buying services like AAA and Costco offer, but to be honest, I don’t know too many people who were happy with them.
I was very happy with Costco.com and used it for our Subaru purchase. There was shortage of the outbacks at the dealerships when I bought, and I only had a weekend to buy a new car. I went through Costco and got the price and luckily the dealer recieved ONE vanilla model with almost no options on it that very day. I snapped it up. The dealership did try to upsell us some other junk, warrenties, etc, but we didn’t fall for that.
