so my wife spends a great deal of her time in the car for her business. over the past few years she has probably been averaging around 35,000 miles a year and she isn’t exactly the most forgiving on cars. the current one is getting pretty tired out and it is time to find the replacement.
her current vehicle is a 2007 nissan sentra that i suspect could give up the ghost at any old random time. last summer the transmission blew up on the way to a family vacation and the only thing that saved it was that nissan had happened to extend the warranty on those early years of the CVT tranny…otherwise i think we would have moved on earlier.
i was hoping to get some thoughts on what might be a good replacement. the requirements are basically as follows…
great gas mileage- mileage is our single biggest tax write off each year so our aim is always to beat the mileage rate by as much as possible.
sedan- needs 4 doors. i don’t know why…she just says it does.
small to medium size- the sentra is probably the biggest it should get. she isn’t so good about keeping track of where the corners of the car are…
very adjustable seat- she is short- 5’-0"…so if she can at least get her seat up higher it helps her not crash into more things.
$20k or less- i only expect this thing to last for 5 years or 150k miles…which ever comes first. i’m open to used and new. the wife seems to believe that a used car would mean i wouldn’t be allowed to get upset when she scuffs the shit out of the rims on a curb…
automatic transmission- she doesn’t know how to drive stick and i’m fairly certain our marriage would not survive me trying to teach her.
…would be great but not necessary
heated seats
AWD- she drives into some remote areas down here in southwestern PA…
120v outlet- she does a lot of work on the road so it would be convenient to have a built in dedicated 120v outlet to support her laptop. we have gone through literally dozens of inverters over the last 5 or 6 years and it just seems like it would be easier if it just came with an outlet from the factory.
another sentra is not an option. i think just about anything else is. thought?
3rd gen ford focus. Nothing older. The 3rd gens are pretty awesome
If she doesn’t mind driving an older car, an ek (96-00) civic would also be a great buy. I have a 98 I put 80 miles a day on and don’t worry one bit about
Also, Pontiac vibes / Toyota matrixs are great. They will blow through axles for some reason, but other than that, they’re very reliable and good on fuel. Plus They have a 110v outlet, and not only a super adjustable seat, but also a telescoping wheel
Do you get any kind of larger tax write off for a natural gas vehicle? You should look into it, as coldaccord sells them from time to time
corolla or civic will last the longest and provide the least amount of headaches and the resale on them with high miles is great. Buy one brand new for $17k and have piece of mind for the next 5 years.
I bought my wife a camry 5 years ago and have only done rear pads so far, the car has over 70k and is driven by a woman, it has never been in for service had a CEL or even an alignment, tire wear is great once I replaced the shitty oem tires that only lasted 20k, 2nd set is being replaced now at 70K. That said there is no fun in driving one, at all.
not sure about getting a car over a decade old…and the likelihood of finding a low mileage one.
i’ve considered the matrix since you can get it AWD but i wish i could get better fuel economy given that it isn’t all that big.
i’m sure there is some write off out there for natural gas, but given the nature of her business i would be afraid to commit to a fuel source that may be difficult to find in a pinch when on the road.
i’ve thought about the TDI option but again i’m somewhat concerned about finding diesel in a pinch when driving around in the boonies. also i would wager it would take less than a week for her to accidentally fill it up with gasoline.
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i’ve been looking at a lot of late model, upper trim level used civics…seems like i can get a lot of comfort and convenience without out too much $$$. i’m starting to feel like it would likely be the way we will go, but i’ll have to get her to drive one this weekend since she’ll be the one spending so many hours in it.
I just bought a new Civic LX. 40mpg, great resale, dead nuts reliable. Under $18k. The seat is uncomfortable, but it is height adjustable. Sounds like it might work for you too.
A corolla would be OK too. I just went Civic because I’m going to buy out my lease after 3 years and sell it and the resale on the Honda is a bit better.
At 35k/year the gas mileage becomes important enough that I’d skip Subarus. AWD is nice but not really important enough to sacrifice the gas mileage. Cruising message boards I found that Hyundais consistently got worse gas mileage than their EPA ratings, while Hondas got better.
TDIs are good idea but the cost to maintain a TDI with higher miles can become pricey, it is afterall a VW. The cost to drive a Civic per mile vs the TDI per mile is very close when driving 35,000 per year at the current price of fue.
87 Oct is $3.50 and Diesel is $3.99 at my local sunoco, you will save $100 per year by driving the TDI over the civic at those fuel prices. New TDI gets a combined 37 vs the civics combined 32
I know you mentioned sedans, but: I just drove the new Mazda CX-5 and the redesigned 2013 Escape back-to-back last night. The Mazda handles really well, great build quality, and in AWD guise gets 31 mpgs. The Escape had the 1.6L Ecoboost, looks amazing, also great quality, and is 30MPG in AWD. Roomy for small SUVs. Both solid side-choices.
That said, if sedan is the must, a Legacy is never, ever, a poor choice, plus resale on them is strong.
His wife drives 35,000 per year, a CPO VW only covers 2 years/ 24,000 bumper to bumper, your not fixing anything for 8 months. I am a huge VW fan, I don’t think a TDI is that exciting or comfortable, its still an economy car.
I can vouch for this, I had snows on my F-it last winter. They worked extrmely well the few times it did actually snow. You can also get 38-40 mpg if you are doing all highway.