We love cars in our family and have owned many.
My son races and self taught as a hobby (He is in tech) to work on his cars.
Bottom line is we are obsessed and have been for years.
This does not render me an expert, just some experiences to share.
To me, you rarely go wrong with a toyota product regarding reliability and resale. Yes, they are a bit pricier because of this. They just hold up really well long term.
Over the years daughter in law owned long term a mazda 3, my daughter a mazda 6, and she now owns a CX-5 for 5 years now. They are reliable, inexpensive to maintain and have a bit more “Style” interiors than Toyotas. All three have been great and very easy on the wallet in many aspects.
Im into Lexus sedan now because of predictive reliability. Toyota/Lexus infrequently innovates but instead perfects. They are not innovative leaders in segments but when they get there they do it very very well.
Read up in car forums and you’ll get a sense of whats going on with various models. Granted, most posters are there to work thru issues so it seem like the cars are problematic. Lets just say majority of drivers don’t go on forums to say they are happy. They are looking into solutions or modify their cars and obsess over customizations to stand out. Fun stuff for many.
Subaru’s have boxer engines and when they need to be pulled its very expensive. Very nice cars though.
Kia/Hyundai’s look very nice. I suspect some models have better histories than others. They come up on recalls a lot but there are alot of them out there. I’d go Mazda before I go there.
Wife drives an Audi. We keep our cars beyond warranty get them paid off quickly and thus find it works for us to just pay upkeep then buy new cars. She loves her car so if happy, its all good. German cars are very gratifying to drive and while maintenance is expensive one must keep up with it or the cars are a nightmare!
What should you do? No right or wrong. Do what works for family and ones budget. Cars are bad investments and provide either service to get from A-to-B, or an experience. I buy cars 3 years old with low miles and do not get extended warranties. Many things that will break do so in first year or so electronically. Obviously we stay away from cars with messy repair histories. So far its a formula that works for us. Again, no one way is “Best”.
2/14/2024 11:20 AM
That was a good smart purchase for your son. Mine managed to wrap his safe slow car around a lamp post on the route 70 on ramp screwing around in the rain. It was a 4Runner and meant to last him for years. None of the girls have had any car issues like that. My son, he's wrecked 2. Both in single car accidents. Luckily the 2nd one was a $500 Kia compact suv he used for work, but he managed to scare the crap out of me on that one.