What kind of car did you buy your 16 yo?

[Anonymous]

Get a new homes accord and they can keep it through college and later

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking to stay under 30k ish.

Under 30K? I would certainly hope so. On the other hand most likely you are a snobby private school parent whose child would not be caught dead driving a 15K car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. I received my own brand new car when I was 16. I am still here and none of my friends died or were maimed. We will likely buy a new car for a parent and pass down a car to our daughter.

+1 I'm 26 and my parents bought me a brand new Honda Civic for my 16th birthday. It was paid for but I had to pay my own insurance, gas, etc.

[Anonymous]

HAHAHAHAHA.

No. Unless gramma and grampa want to get her a car. Though I'd suggest putting that $ away for college, anyway. (Not hard up for cash; I just think of owning a car as being a very expensive, risky luxury for a teenager).

We live in the city--walk.

[Anonymous]

Subaru Forester. Safe, reliable and can carry all their stuff when they go to college. We bought one for our 16 year old six years ago and it has been a great car.

[Anonymous]

I guess if you are stupid wealthy you could buy a new car for a teen. Otherwise it's a truly stupid use of money all the way around.

[Anonymous]

Honda civic great safety ratings and reliability

[Anonymous]

No car till HS graduation.

[Anonymous]

I encouraged my child to save and she purchased her grandparents honda accord for $2500.

If they had not sold her that we would have helped her purchase a used (safe) car by her using her savings ($3000) from working and augmenting with a 60 month loan from mom & dad for the balance with a low payment at 0% APR. Good first practice at making payments. I also do not believe in buying teens a car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess if you are stupid wealthy you could buy a new car for a teen. Otherwise it's a truly stupid use of money all the way around.

Not always the case. My DC went to private school with no bus service/no public transit. Once DC could drive to school it freed up a lot of my time which I can then charge to clients. So that additional productivity more than paid for the car. Not to mention the bonus of not being stuck in traffic every day. Same with college - DC being able to drive to and from college means that it saves us a day of time driving there and back several times a year. It's not that I didn't like spending time in the car with my kids but I did it for 16 years and was happy to have a break from it.

[Anonymous]

We got DS a used CR-V.

[Anonymous]

Toyota Rav4

[Anonymous]

Literally LOL. If my son is very, very lucky, my '04 MDX will survive until he is ready to drive it. Otherwise, he'll get a beater old Volvo -- cheap, safe and ugly as hell.

[Anonymous]

5 year old used Honda Accord sedan. We didn't actually buy him the car. We bought this as a third family car to teach our kids on when learning to drive. They were allowed to use it with our permission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess if you are stupid wealthy you could buy a new car for a teen. Otherwise it's a truly stupid use of money all the way around.

Not always the case. My DC went to private school with no bus service/no public transit. Once DC could drive to school it freed up a lot of my time which I can then charge to clients. So that additional productivity more than paid for the car. Not to mention the bonus of not being stuck in traffic every day. Same with college - DC being able to drive to and from college means that it saves us a day of time driving there and back several times a year. It's not that I didn't like spending time in the car with my kids but I did it for 16 years and was happy to have a break from it.

I didn't say it was dumb to get them a car. Just a new one. Especially if you need to get a loan for it. New drivers of any age are hard on cars and make them depreciate faster than usual. Insurance on new cars is usually higher, too. Be smart and buy used.