I’m curious if anyone has purchased after market safety features and installed them on an older car. My cousin gifted my son a 2008 Chevy Malibu and it drives like a dream with low mileage (the kid is lucky—my sister and I shared an Accord that we partially paid for with no AC in the South with 200K+ miles). The Malibu is like a boat—longer than my small SUV and does not have a good turning radius. Slow pick up and not at all cool—it feels perfect for a new teen driver.

DS is getting his license in the coming month and it would be really helpful for him to drive himself to sports. He wants to drive to school, but I am terrified of distracted teen drivers. I see it all the time when I pick up DS from soccer and when the high schools let out after school.

I’m fully committed to holding him accountable and by all means possible helping him understand how dangerous and reckless the phones are while driving. And, with everyone on the phones (pedestrians while walking!!) I am wondering if a few were in gadgets that beep or somehow help alert are worth it. I’ve seen that are back up cameras, front collision alert systems and blind spot detectors that can be added on.

Any thoughts/insights/recommendations? I was in a bad accident in high school (one person died due to complications from injuries) and I’m tightly wound. If I am looking in the wrong direction to support a new driver, please call me out in this.

We have two teen drivers, and we would like to get cars for them. They go to different schools and have jobs. One is going to be graduating and will likely be local for college and/or work. My husband and I have cars that are 7 and 9 years old but pretty low mileage. One of the cars is a larger SUV and the other is a luxury brand (but lowest model). The cars certainly suit us fine and have all the bells and whistles, but we are wondering whether it makes sense to give them our cars to use and we get new (or slightly used) ones instead of buying 3-6 year old used cars for them. We are finding it somewhat challenging finding used cars that are in the $13,000-$17,000 range that have the safety features we would like for them but have not have 2+ owners, been in a accident, or have 150K+ miles.

DH replaced his 2012 SUV with a new EV, so we now have 3 cars. DS is 6 months from getting his license.

Problem is that DS (and DH and I) are more comfortable with DS in my 2018 sedan than DH's older SUV. So now I'm trying to figure out how DS and I will share the sedan and SUV. I really don't want to drive that monster on my 40- mile- each- way commute every day. But I want DS to have something he's comfortable in for driving to practice after school. I guess we'll figure it out in 6 months!

Either way, it won't be newer than 2018 or older than 2012. Safety features from that era are pretty good. Both mainstream.

Anonymous wrote:If you can afford to then buy them a car that lasts until they are full time employed and financially stable enough to buy one themselves. Not many are able to do that before 26.

That’s one of the reasons we got our kid a 2019 Honda Fit.

OP here we are getting closer to a decision. We have agreed to look at used cars 2019 or newer with less than 50,000 miles. Minimum safety features of a rear camera and blind spot monitoring bonus for more. Kid doesn't have a preference between car or SUV so considering the following: Subaru Crosstrek,
Buick Encore GX, Honda Civic, Honda CRV, Toyota Corolla and Corolla Cross.

A hand me down car isn't an option since we both love our current cars and they are way nicer than a teen needs.

Anonymous wrote:Ours will get our EV and I'll be getting a new car. It will be our oldest vehicle, but still has all the safety features we would want. If I was buying one for them, I'd go with a 2020-2022 CRV or similar car.

You sound like us. I got a new car and we handed down the EV to our teen. They learned to drive on EV and ICE cars, so that wasn't a problem. I didn't think the teen needed a brand new car and it made more sense for one of the adults to get one. If we had chosen to buy for the teen, it would have been a CRV or RAV-4.

Anonymous wrote:DH purchased a 2023 Tesla Model X for DS college graduation and a 2023 model 3 for DD high school graduation. Both have self driving packages.

Great idea. They can put the car in self drive while they devote their entire consciousness to their phone. They’ll never even learn how to be a driver. Just enough to pass the test and then into the robot car.


Do you realize what you’re doing to them? To all of us, who have to be on the road with people like them?

It’s absurd to put new drivers in high performance EV’s. Not only is it more car than they can handle, but it’s a hugely expensive insurance loss if they wreck it, which affects your rates and everyone else’s.

FFS, just get your kid a 5 year old Corolla or Camry like a normal person.

We are a few years off from having teen drivers but am interested to see people putting their kids in EVs. We have a Mach-e and I sometimes find myself going faster than I thought I was going because of the lack of noise and quick pickup.

2023 Tesla model 3 base model

I WFH so thought we could get away with my newly licensed driver driving my five year old german 5 passenger small hatchback. She got in a minor accident and the body repair shop told me to get her into a honda or toyota as parts are way cheaper and easier to repair than my german car which will keep our insurance costs reasonable.

DH purchased a 2023 Tesla Model X for DS college graduation and a 2023 model 3 for DD high school graduation. Both have self driving packages.

Mazda Cx-30 or Corolla Cross. They don't have to be new. New drivers are hard on tires. Suv's have bigger/stronger times.
No new driver wants to drive a big car.