Cars We Drive!

Ex-wife has a MDX and it does the job I suppose. Efficient and extremely reliable yet boring. Before that she had...another MDX. And before that a Honda Accord. And a Prelude. Get the picture?


Now I'm going to call a spade a spade. Althought they have come a loooooong way German cars are still finicky and less reliable than Japanese ones.

I'm going to stick my neck out here and ask if anyone has any recent experience in cross shopping more plebeian small cars. The wife and I are looking to replace her '99 Nissan Sentra with something a little less stone-age. While getting our Santa Fe serviced we sat in a '13 Elantra Limited and I was thoroughly impressed. Had just about every bell and whistle imaginable this side of cooled seats. The last time I shopped for a small car was in '05 right out of college so there's been quite a bit of turn over since then. Without doing a ton of research I think we'll start looking at the Focus, Elantra, Cruze, and Sentra. The Corolla and Civic are out on principal alone and the Mazda 3 is pretty obnoxious looking, so that's out too. I am having a hard time separating my needs (power & comfort) with the needs of my wife (mpg & comfort) so if anyone has a suggestion I'm all ears.

I should also note that I don't want to spend more than $22k, but I'd go higher if I was absolutely blown away by something.



upthewazzu said:

I'm going to stick my neck out here and ask if anyone has any recent experience in cross shopping more plebeian small cars. The wife and I are looking to replace her '99 Nissan Sentra with something a little less stone-age. While getting our Santa Fe serviced we sat in a '13 Elantra Limited and I was thoroughly impressed. Had just about every bell and whistle imaginable this side of cooled seats. The last time I shopped for a small car was in '05 right out of college so there's been quite a bit of turn over since then. Without doing a ton of research I think we'll start looking at the Focus, Elantra, Cruze, and Sentra. The Corolla and Civic are out on principal alone and the Mazda 3 is pretty obnoxious looking, so that's out too. I am having a hard time separating my needs (power & comfort) with the needs of my wife (mpg & comfort) so if anyone has a suggestion I'm all ears.

I should also note that I don't want to spend more than $22k, but I'd go higher if I was absolutely blown away by something.

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I had the newest Altima for a rental recently and that car was quite nice.

It has all the creature comforts, drives pretty well, and looks good to boot.

I highly recommend you check it out.

I've also heard good things about the new civic and I saw one recently and it looks pretty striking (in a good way).

Definitely scrap the corolla, though.

New record. 13 posts w/o **W mentioned. Come on boys, get to 20, you can do it.



upthewazzu said:

I'm going to stick my neck out here and ask if anyone has any recent experience in cross shopping more plebeian small cars. The wife and I are looking to replace her '99 Nissan Sentra with something a little less stone-age. While getting our Santa Fe serviced we sat in a '13 Elantra Limited and I was thoroughly impressed. Had just about every bell and whistle imaginable this side of cooled seats. The last time I shopped for a small car was in '05 right out of college so there's been quite a bit of turn over since then. Without doing a ton of research I think we'll start looking at the Focus, Elantra, Cruze, and Sentra. The Corolla and Civic are out on principal alone and the Mazda 3 is pretty obnoxious looking, so that's out too. I am having a hard time separating my needs (power & comfort) with the needs of my wife (mpg & comfort) so if anyone has a suggestion I'm all ears.

I should also note that I don't want to spend more than $22k, but I'd go higher if I was absolutely blown away by something.

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Hyundai, Kia and Ford are all worth looking at.

Bought the A6 today. Too good a deal to pass up.



Cary Grant said:

Bought the A6 today. Too good a deal to pass up.

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Congrats!

Pics!



Cary Grant said:

Hyundai, Kia and Ford are all worth looking at.

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Ford has some solid ****. Best large scale US car maker by 1000 miles.

Cary Grant said:

Bought the A6 today. Too good a deal to pass up.

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What year?

I loved my 2000 A6 2.7T 6 speed, put 100k miles on that car. Never even hiccuped. Great engine and transmission. Horrid instrument console.

CG, more deets please

Skinnygoomba, rumpelatiltskin, that's about what I thought, I bought an accord out of school. Bought it for the reliability per my parents request and it was a good move with all the amount of driving my first job required. But looked and felt pretty dull. Went to the Honda dealer when it came time to trade -despite having hated any Honda dealer I ever visited- and was disgusted by the leather condition in a 15k mile CPO. I do remember some pretty bad blind spots as well. Glad to have walked away from Honda but the reliability cannot be denied.

Wish I could've afforded an A6 but happily settled with a Passat. Hasn't been the unreliable mess everyone warned me about. Ride and interior comfort definitely beat the accord, tho its no M or RS.

Upthewazzu, my folks own a little fleet of Nissans that they love. Rogue for my mom, Altima for my dad and a frontier for towing the boat, Home Depot trips etc. Ford and hyundai definitely seem to be making strides too. 22k can get a wide variety of CPO cars if you know what you want.



Cary Grant said:

Bought the A6 today. Too good a deal to pass up.

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I hear that is the best snow vehicle in the world!



Cary Grant said:

Bought the A6 today. Too good a deal to pass up.

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Enjoy!!!



Piobaire said:

I hear that is the best snow vehicle in the world!

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the best thing about the A6 is that it literally has no fanbois. and its owners are very accepting and open towards other marques, unlike owners of other cars



HRoi said:

the best thing about the A6 is that it literally has no fanbois. and its owners are very accepting and open towards other marques, unlike owners of other cars

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Brah, brah, brah! Did you forget idfnl drives an A6?!

2008 A6 3.2 tiptronic
55,000 miles, certified (2 year warranty)
They replaced brakes and rotors front and back, new tires, alignment. Premium audio. Free oil changes for the duration. Quite a few options including Xenon, adjusting lamps etc.
Only thing it doesn't have that I'll miss is Bluetooth/hands-free. It's prepped for BT but not installed. Factory is $600 and their non-OEM is $300. Don't need it that badly.

Big leap from the FIAT.



Piobaire said:

I hear that is the best snow vehicle in the world!

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Let's hope .