<p>My sister has a 20 year old car with about 115,000 miles and it runs fine. When I am making my monthly car payment on my newer car, I envy her and her paid for car.</p>
<p>Our son got a used car from us not long ago. It is older than what we drive now but it is a slightly pricier, larger model (2.5 L not-the-cheapest model, vs 1.8 L almost-the-cheapest model.)</p>
<p>We think we have more driving experience so he should get a slightly safer car. Also, he has the worse weather to deal with.</p>
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<p>The LS400 was a well-made car that can last a long time.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.thesmokingtire.com/2014/matt-just-bought-a-900000-mile-lexus-ls400/”>http://www.thesmokingtire.com/2014/matt-just-bought-a-900000-mile-lexus-ls400/</a></p>
<p>I would take cost of repairs and insurance into consideration.</p>
<p>re Lexus. Yes- wish he would have sprung for the 1992 model instead of 1991 since they had added the external temp monitor. We switched to ES 350’s eventually (I had an RX 330 when it came out- downsized to a sedan when kid finished college) as the LS 400-430… series kept getting bigger and more expensive, plus being rear wheel drive. Car and Driver always dissed Lexus for its lack of excitement. Over the years have owned many different brands.</p>
<p>Subaru is a great car at its price point- I would keep it instead of switching brands. Good excuse to get that new car.</p>
<p>
I laughed when I read this.
In my whole life, I have been driving a car model which is similar to this car model, but it is usually newer. (I bought a couple of new ones and a couple of used ones of this kind of model in my life time. At least I have not driven a car as low end as Toyota Tercel. The colleage who drove that kind of car had a PhD in STEM from Stanford and his daughter was attending Princeton. Another colleague at that time drove a small beat-up pickup which does not have the bumper. He had a PhD in STEM from CMU. This makes you wonder how much a person can boost his/her life-time earnings by attending a brand-name school which is often so hyped in the CC community. The killer for their life-time accumulated earnings is that they were a little bit too serous, gung-ho about academics , spent too much in the schooling and especially stayed too long in the academic environment.)</p>
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<p>What STEM subject? The career prospects are all over the map for different STEM subjects.</p>
<p>In any case some people do not care to drive expensive cars, even if they could easily afford them.</p>
<p>We owned a Tercel…had it until it hit 150,000 miles in the day when that was unheard of. We loved that car. Loved it! And yes, we actually chose the Tercel over a Honda Civic. </p>
<p>Please don’t diss cars you have never actually driven!</p>
<p>Sorry about my careless use of the words which may imply that I diss that car. It was not my intention. I know Tercel is a good model. In those years when Corona (later Camry?), Corolla and Tercel roamed the roads, what I referred to was actually that, in terms of the size of the cars:</p>
<p>Corona (Camry) > Corolla > Tercel.</p>
<p>At one time, we almost bought a Tercel ourselves as we know it is a good car. But in the end, we prchased a base model of Corolla.</p>
<p>The priciest new car we have ever bought was an Accord. But somehow I personally did not like it (seating position is too low for me, even though I agree that the engine is more powerful and the handling is better - but it did not make a difference for us because we almost always drove on local roads in a quiet area where the speed limit is low.)</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, one’s major is physics - plasma physics specifically (he was likely 20 years older than me so it was quite some time ago.) The other’s major is EE (computer engineering, computer architecture more specifically speaking. He is about 15 years older than me.) Both of them went for the job in the moneyed corporate world only when they were much older - very “non-traditional students”. Thus likely having few years to reap the financial rewards. Not an ordinary case at all. (One is white whose family has been in US over 20 generations, one is the first generation from Brazil, if this matters.)</p>
<p>MCAT…I hate the Accord too. The Tercel was actually more comfortable!</p>
<p>Anyway…back to the topic. A five year old, well maintained Subaru is not an old car. Seems like the OP would be getting a used 2009 or 2010 car anyway. Why not give the college student THEIR used car instead of buying another. </p>
<p>Then the parents can get a new car!</p>
<p>I am totally clueless at how the last few posts turned…but I will also vouch for the fact that the Tercel we owned - which must have been going on 30 years ago when we did need to be (and still do) cost conscious was a fabulous car that we drove for well into the 100’s in mileage and still sold for a good price. </p>
<p>The least experienced driver should get the car with the most safety features. Safety features include the obvious; air bags, anti lock brakes, etc, and crash test results (iihs and gov) and have good handling and braking distances, and the other things that help to avoid a crash (land departure or blind spot warnings, front collision warning…). I know it is common to pass the old car down to the kids and get the newer one for the grown ups, but to me, safety is paramount, and that new car isn’t going to stay new forever anyway.
I did a lot of reading and research on this before we bought the car that our teen would be driving (currently a shared car).
The Outback has a good reputation as a safe car, but I’d recommend researching the year you have and comparing its safety features to something newer and then making your decision. </p>
<p>The “life story” that I heard indirectly was very touching for the 2nd person:</p>
<p>He is the eldest son of his (relatively large) family. His father passed away unexpectedly. So he became the fatherly figure to all of his siblings, many of them being much younger than him. He needed to quit the school to make money to raise his younger siblings because his family’s finance was not great. It is only when his siblings had grown up that he was able to go back to school. I heard he took the test and got into a college which is funded by their government or military branch of the government in the science/engineering fields. (It seems that that school has something to do with an aircraft company in Brazil which produces some of our regional jets whose name starts with “E”, which competes with a Canadian aircraft company for the third largest aircraft company in the world, behind the top two Boeing and Airbus – the aircraft company is this one:
<a href=“Embraer - Wikipedia”>http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer</a>
)</p>
<p>Later, in a much older age, he came to US as a non-traditional PhD student.</p>
<p>Both families (that I referred to before) seem to have produced very capable students. This was long before the word “tiger mother” was invented. Actually, I do not think the mother (or the father) from either family is anything like a tiger parent. But somehow they influenced their children in a very positive way in their daily life (including driving a Tercel? LOL.) I think I had some good luck of learning some parenting technique from them because they are >0.5 generation older than me.</p>
<p>To the OP…if you got your kiddo a used car…how old would THAT used car be?</p>
<p>Shoboemom, the 2009 Subaru has all of the safety features you note in the above post. It’s not a Corvair.</p>
<p>Is it even worth it to buy a used car for your kid? Seems like used car prices nowadays are hardly even a bargain – in order to get any significant savings you have to buy a car that’s so old it’s probably starting to have problems. I’m used to the way things were 20 years ago, when used cars that were only 1 or 2 years old cost 20% less than new cars. What’s changed?</p>
<p>LOL Thunper1, So that one may be the safer one, depending on what other car they decide to buy. Typically the newer cars are safer, but not every situation is typical. </p>
<p>Re: What changed?</p>
<p>I guess what happened are:
The car companies (thus their dealers as well) and rental car companies find that the used car market is a quite profitable market now. (Somewhat related phenomenon is that the wireless companies are now also interested in the prepaid customers.)</p>
<p>Also, I guess that, it is also because more people can only afford used cars now. This, coupled with the above factor, generates a quite sizable used car market.</p>
<p>Also, I guess many cars (not only a few car models like Tercel only) can run for much more years. The “lemons” disappear from the market due to the competition.</p>
<p>Just going to throw this out there (no experience with Subarus.
My first care was an early 2000s Saturn Vue. Good for a new driver in the snow north. Totaled it when I was a sophomore (flipped on the ice on the freeway).
Used the insurance money + car payments to get a 2010 Kia Rio in early 2011. Car was a year old, less than 20k miles, and under 10k when all was said and done including tax, interest, etc. </p>
<p>Love it! Thing runs like a dream and extremely minimal maintenance. Great on the snow and ice, surprisingly. Closing in 100k miles and not a problem in sight. It’s a college car though so it has some parking lot dings. </p>
<p>I was also t-boned by a Corrolla which ran a red light. Hit on the drivers side and my door was pretty screwed up but her entire front end came off. The Kia dealership went above and beyond while fixing my car. </p>
<p>Just a thought if anyone is considering a car for young college students 
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<p>I’d buy her a used Toyota. Corolla or Matrix.</p>
<p>I do know many people who, based on their job, should be making fairly large paychecks, but drive relatively modest cars (Corolla / Civic class cars (not necessarily that new), late 1990s Camry, etc.).</p>
<p>It is not a given that one “must” drive a status symbol that consumes a large portion of one’s income or wealth.</p>