If I had a daughter I’d get her a 2 seater hard top with a stick, or maybe a Subaru Brz with a stick. And weld the passenger door shut.
@Johnnysmoke said:
If I had a daughter I’d get her a 2 seater hard top with a stick, or maybe a Subaru Brz with a stick. And weld the passenger door shut.
LOL. Then she’d want to emulate the Duke boys and slide in and out of the window. In her younger years we may or may not have done a donut or two in the snow with her yelling “Dukes of Hazzard!”.
I would not get them something small and low. I would get one of those monitoring devices to see how they drive. Don’t drive right car gone.
@PaddleDog52 said:
I would not get them something small and low. I would get one of those monitoring devices to see how they drive. Don’t drive right car gone.
Elaborate on small and low please.
@Deuce said:
@PaddleDog52 said:
I would not get them something small and low. I would get one of those monitoring devices to see how they drive. Don’t drive right car gone.Elaborate on small and low please.
Compact, sub compact.
Hmm, putting a novice driver in a large vehicle protects them but increases potential damage to the people they might hit. Putting them in a small one protects others but not them. Bit of a quandary. As a teen I drove the family’s VW bug and a huge '55 Chevy Nomad wagon. So I got a little of both!
Rather have my kid protected and taught. Should I put them on a motorcycle to protect others?
@PaddleDog52 said:
@Deuce said:
@PaddleDog52 said:
I would not get them something small and low. I would get one of those monitoring devices to see how they drive. Don’t drive right car gone.Elaborate on small and low please.
Compact, sub compact.
I don’t think you read my initial post.
Yes I did. I see what you were picking from
Heights of bumpers is huge in accidents when card hit. With so many trucks and large SUV’s running around it’s scary then you have vehicles that are lifted it’s even worse. I have a few Corvettes and to be hit in them by a truck would be devastating. I like my Dodge 3500 dually and Ford Excursion. I have a 2914 Chrysler 300 SRT-8 it’s not a small car but dwarfed by my trucks.
I had the sad experience of my foot coming off the brake slightly at a light when reaching g for dun glasses. I ever so slightly nudged the car in front mid size car. I said may they didn’t even feel it. Do lady pulls up no more than 4 feet. I put my Dodge 3500 in park or thought I did. I jump out and truck is moving forward. The lady is going to wall behind her car you look. It was either stop her or the truck from moving. I chose her. My truck with automatic transmission idled forwarded just 4 feet. It pushed her car under my bumper. It destroyed her rear bumper, trunk lid, two rear quarter panels. Just a nice slow crunching sound. I was horrified. Her two kids were in the back. They were not hardly moved and they were very nice about my dumb mistake. I can’t imagine hitting a regular car at even 20 mph. The way people drive now is scary not even moderate speeding but they cut in and out through traffic doing 60 mph literally by 2 feet. I have been in my trucks and braced for the bit they are so close many times. Meadowbrook Parkway here is littered with piles of flowers for memorials. So many fatalities I have no clue how they let it happen. I would bury the road in unmarked cars.
Guy hit my one year old Excursion when I was hooking it up to my race car trailer. Excursion nose was in the street about 4 '. I heard brakes and jumped back from hooking up my trailer. Guy had new midsized Honda. He totaled it. I had 15,000 + in damages in 2005. Guy was so drunk he could hardly walk. His head hit the windshield. Cops would not do a breathalyzer. My partner was yelling at cops. Later at my friend’s auto body I see this 20 year old kid had 6 PBA type cards lying on the seat with his wallet there. He even told the cops he was drinking around the corner for Cinco de Mayo. Go big on vehicles.
You’re right about drivers. Pretty frightening sometimes. I’m beginning to think Johnnysmoke is onto something with the Xterras. I’m seeing 03-04 models in apparently good condition (only seen online pics so far) with ~125k miles in the $3500 range. It’s funny, when I consider a rig I look for complaint patterns and the 04 and back Xterras have the fewest endemic issues of anything I’ve looked at.
Only drawback to the Xterra is horrible gas mileage (16/22).
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Don’t know where you are located but there’s an '04 Xterra with 95K on it here in Pittsburgh for $3,699. Would leave a lot of $ in the budget for even major repairs.
https://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/cto/d/2004-nissan-xterra-low-miles/6494237277.html
@willowleaf said:
Don’t know where you are located but there’s an '04 Xterra with 95K on it here in Pittsburgh for $3,699. Would leave a lot of $ in the budget for even major repairs.https://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/cto/d/2004-nissan-xterra-low-miles/6494237277.html
My thinking as well, willowleaf. I’ve been racking my brain for a while now trying to come up with a Toyota or Honda (ruled out Subies) that would work and everything in my price range is over 100k and in most cases has been a year model with numerous complaints about engine or transmission issues. If I’m gonna buy a 100k+ mileage rig it might as well be cheap, and carcomplaints.com bar graph on the Xterras looks like a city skyline with one story buildings until 2005 when transmission issues suddenly appear. It’s starting to make more and more sense.
BTW, I’m in Arkansas but have been looking within 500 miles which includes Texas. I like Texas vehicle odds. No road salt, flat terrain, etc.
@Deuce said:
BTW, I’m in Arkansas but have been looking within 500 miles which includes Texas. I like Texas vehicle odds. No road salt, flat terrain, etc.
Hurricane Harvey hit Texas last year.
https://www.autotrader.com/car-news/beware-of-flood-damaged-cars-196494
@Rookie said:
@Deuce said:
BTW, I’m in Arkansas but have been looking within 500 miles which includes Texas. I like Texas vehicle odds. No road salt, flat terrain, etc.
Hurricane Harvey hit Texas last year.
[edited because link is broken]
Good point and I’ll keep it in mind. Will of course have any potential purchase gone through by a mechanic. Thanks Rookie. BTW, turns out there are several Xterras with very good potential within 100 miles of me.
That is one drawback to buying here in Western PA – heavy road salt use. Both my Santa Fe and the last Subaru were starting to rust-through from under the wheel wells. Previous owners had obviously not been vigilant about keeping them cleaned out during the winter.
Funny how some brands and models can be exceptional values due to inexplicably low popularity. All I can guess that it might be for the Xterra’s is the odd little trim dip in the roofline. It’s weird what can put some people off.
I’ve had 3 Nissans – one when they were still Datsun in 1978 and then two of their pickup trucks in the late 80’s. Good solid cars that were easy to service.
Bit of trivia about Nissan: when Toyota was vying with Nissan in 1984 to maintain their prominence in the the Japanese compact market, Toyota came out with the MR2 model sports sedan. There was never an “official” explanation for the letter and number combination (like the Dodge Omni GLH for “goes like hell”) but it was an inside joke in Japan since “ni san” translates to “Mr. Two” in Japanese.
Another suggestion: Ford Ranger 4WD pickup truck, 4.0 liter 6 with a crew cab and a nice cap, preferably fiberglass with sliding windows. I had a 1999 as a company car for a while and loved it (had over 220K on it) and my ex boyfriend got a used one (2004 I think) 5 years ago with 70K on it for under $10,000 in great condition. Easy to get Fords serviced no matter where you are and they are durable and tight little trucks, also scaled well for the female driver.
A small pickup with cap, especially a Tacoma, is pretty standard amongst outdoorsy types.