can i get some car reviews

[Turbo617]

with all due respect I'd like reviews from someone who is responsible and has experience in heavy weather.

Well, I'm car shopping for my girl. She would love a CB, but we cant find any clean sedan automatics, so next up, I'm thinking of getting a modern car This will strictly be a DD,. She would also like to build credit so we would look to finance

Been looking at a few cars. ( all automatic - all sedan )
plan is to own car for as long as we can. car may at most travel close to 100 miles a day towards the future... budget around 10k. less obviously being preferred

lexus is300 -small. maybe it has too much power for her.. and with New England weather getting worst, I'm afraid, even with snow tires and the " snow " button, that itll still be difficult for her

07 TL / TSX easy maint. good daily, comfy. safe. quite spacious but with the theives leaving these cars on cynderblocks, id like to look at others. but other than that, I'm in favor of one of these..

07 Accord. good daily. easy maint. Again, have to worry about theives

08 BMW... ehh although the AWD would come in handy, good new england car, Id love one but i keep hearing horror stories about them leaking oil because some seals arent strong enough? sorry forgot exactly what was said.

02ish civic ( that model) good car. only negative is the recall they had due to airbags randomly going off ( it has killed 2 from i last read.. )

06 CRV AWD. good car overall. i wouldnt mind it . all that extra space would come in handy..

but at the end of the day, CB has them all beat, and is much much cheaper. handles perfect in blizzards, heavy rain, hurricanes and tornadoes ( my CB was solid ) only thing those cars have the CB beat is, being modern, the extra pointless luxuries and of course able to build credit

sorry if I'm all over the place

[Theos92VR4]

stay away from 01-05 civics. That body style (with the exception of the si, because it has the k20) was plagued with headgasket issues. Stick with either the previous generation, or the generation after that (06-11) and you will be much better off

[cb9love]

Go south young man go south to the land of clean CB's

[Turbo617]

If it was strictly up to me Id have her get a 2000 civic sedan. So she can enjoy the 15-20 that it takes to fill up.she can get some driving experience and parking experience. Also learn how to take care of the car.

And when she is done trade it in for a modern car or a cb if she wishes.

But not only are those cars even easier to steal, her family doesn't want her in a " old " car like the civic. Yeah yeah she's an adult, yada yada. They already hate me, I don't want to give them another reason to hate me :x

[deevergote]

Being in NJ, I haven't dealt with weather quite as severe as you have to work with... but close enough. As someone that spends a LOT of time driving in all weather, much of it in the mountains and cities of North Jersey during heavy snow (since 2006), I've experienced pretty much everything there is. I've done so in a handful of cars, as well.
I'll run down your list with my thoughts, and give a few of my own suggestions as well:

IS300 - avoid. It's a cool car, but it's really not great in the snow. Additionally, it's old... and parts aren't shared with any other Toyota models (except the Supra, which is worse. )

TL/TSX - Not a bad choice. Shared parts with Accords, so some repairs may not be outrageous. The Acura name will increase the purchase price, though... and possibly increase insurance as well. Of the two, I'd go with the TSX. 4 cylinders = more practical.

Accord - Probably the most reasonable choice. Good for the same reasons as the Acuras, minus the downside of the Acuras.

BMW - Avoid. An 8 year old BMW will have no warranty, and it's right around the time when it's going to start braking. Add in AWD, and you have even more expensive stuff to break! I'd love a BMW myself, but I won't be buying one for those very reasons... until I can afford to treat one as a toy.

Older Civic - not bad... but as one of the oldest cars on your list, reliability will be affected by MANY things. I'd worry about that as a target for theft before anything else, as well.

CRV - Good, and AWD is a great thing in snow. I'm not a fan of the style, but everyone I know that has owned one has loved it. While AWD stuff is more expensive to fix, I think this would be among the cheapest AWD options to own.

In your list, I'd say the CRV and the Accord are the best options.

I would also suggest the Fit. I've put nearly 400,000 miles on mine, and driven it through all sorts of weather. It's been very reliable, and I've never gotten stuck in the snow so bad that I couldn't get out! Lots of very useful space, 40mpg when driven conservatively (even the autos, I've heard). Cheap enough to buy, not terribly pricey to repair, and actually quite fun to drive.

The Subaru Forrester is also a pretty good choice. Not the most efficient, but roomy and incredibly safe. I know those things command a premium price up there, though. And I believe they tend to rust.

[Turbo617]

I like how you just knocked through the list like nothing, thats pretty much what i was looking for.

but of the choices, it comes down to the 07 tsx and accord.. gotta point them out to my girl, see which one she likes most.

i chose specifically 07 for the acuras because apparently for the 07/08 models they replaced the transmission on them ( im guessing the TLs since i have yet to hear anything bad on the tsx )

thanks again. I just knocked out a college game detail working alongside campus, city and state police. I'm beat. time to pass out until retirement age

[deevergote]

Of those two, I say stick to the Accord. The TSX is nice, but old... and you don't need to be paying Acura repair prices when the Accord will give you 85% of what you'll get from the TSX! I do like the TSX better overall in terms of style, but anything not shared with the Accord is going to cost more to replace.
I didn't realize the TSX ever had any transmission issues. Weren't most of Honda's automatic problems mainly with the V6-equipped stuff during the late 90s and early 00s?

[h22sparkle]

Out of all these cars I never heard you mention the 08 si. It's true what you said man.I was passing around in certain parts of NY I don't know what it was but people well thieves went rim shopping and cars were left on blocks.

The people got their headlights taken one of them was the tsx. I saw one si that got his rims taken but this was during the blizzard talk about timing.

[Turbo617]

Of those two, I say stick to the Accord. The TSX is nice, but old... and you don't need to be paying Acura repair prices when the Accord will give you 85% of what you'll get from the TSX! I do like the TSX better overall in terms of style, but anything not shared with the Accord is going to cost more to replace.
I didn't realize the TSX ever had any transmission issues. Weren't most of Honda's automatic problems mainly with the V6-equipped stuff during the late 90s and early 00s?

from what I noticed, yes. the V6 CD5, V6 CG1? ( or just the 98-02 automatic accords in general. Friend had a 01 accord, automatic. had transmission problems. his father flushed it, seen metal shavings. flushed it a few more times and now its smooth, so not sure whats going on with them now )

the TLs are known to have transmission problems, and according tothe TL community, Acrua learned their lesson and added the RL Transmission to the 07 /08 model.

I'll have to do research on the Accord, find out the cons. Time to look up forum groups.

Out of all these cars I never heard you mention the 08 si. It's true what you said man.I was passing around in certain parts of NY I don't know what it was but people well thieves went rim shopping and cars were left on blocks.

The people got their headlights taken one of them was the tsx. I saw one si that got his rims taken but this was during the blizzard talk about timing.

thats pretty much all these cars. i hate theives. no car is safe.

My girl did mention a Subaru (* NOT STI * ) before. but seeing horror stories from the subaru community, scares me. Yes, most of them are modified or driven like they are rentals.. Don't really see subarus doing pure highway travels, ( i do see a crapton of accords though! 90-2014 accords on the highways. Honda is doing something right! )

edit : once shes back from Florida ill also point the fit in her direction, see what she thinks about it

[deevergote]

I think a Subaru might prove to be either beat up, or overpriced.


Another to consider would be Mazda. Both the 3 and the 6 are great cars, and have been pretty solid through their entire run so far. I ALMOST bought a Mazda 3 instead of my Fit!
It's a shame automatic is a necessity... the Mazdaspeed 6 is AWD, with plenty of power. Fun AND practical! But manual only, I believe.

[h22sparkle]

Another thing you want to consider is the availability and accessibility to parts along with price. It doesnt makes sense to have a car and you can't find parts or worse it'll be expensive as shit or bad reliability till the point it drives you crazy.

[Raf99]

Another thing you want to consider is the availability and accessibility to parts along with price. It doesnt makes sense to have a car and you can't find parts or worse it'll be expensive as shit or bad reliability till the point it drives you crazy.

^This. Prime example is if you have to replace an front axle on that Acura it can be $700+, where as the Honda will be less than half that price. I'm sure BMW and Lexus are not cheap too. Personally I'd stay away from Mazda as mazda = ford but the 5 and 6s do have a good reputatioin. Subaru is amazing in the weather but just as good as the CRV. I know many who have the CRV and they are great!

It sounds like you should go with a Honda as it may be something you are familiar with and repairs will be cheap. I wouldn't go with anything light as it will suck in the wind, have skinny tires, and lack power.

[deevergote]

New Mazda isn't Ford anymore. Older Mazda 3s were based on the same platform as the European Ford Focus, which was actually significantly better than the crap we got in North America. The Volvo C30 is based on that same platform.
The Mazda6 is built on the Mazda G platform, which is shared with the Ford Fusion (and a few other Fords.) It's a Mazda-designed platform, though... so essentially, those Fords are Mazdas, rather than the other way around!


I agree that the familiarity of Honda is probably a good idea... and Hondas made in the last decade or so were good. And its true that the light cars on small tires like the Fit do get blown around a bit... but it's really not an issue unless you do a lot of driving on mountain roads, or high speed interstates with lots of big trucks (I actually do both... and it's really not an issue then either!) Something small like the Fit is cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, cheap to fuel, cheap to fix, and offers plenty of comfort. They're not powerful, but I've never had an issue merging into NJ highways (and if you've ever driven in NJ, you'll know that 65mph is the minimum speed, even in the right lane... and people aren't too keen on letting anyone in front of them.)

[h22sparkle]

These statements are very true. Iv'e kept my eyes on Mazda for quite some time and checked out both the mazdaspeed6 and the speed 3 both were some decent cars but when the owners had issues with their parts in need of replacement no good.

Even in the forums looking for parts you may still end up being frustrated because of the lack of research and development as well as vendors that can push the right quality products because of the lack of supply and demand in request for quality parts for that specific car.

The whole idea is that we need more shops with good vendors to help make these parts more available that have good quality. The only thing I saw as far as Mazda especially for those motormounts were corsport and they barely answered the phone which is bad for business on their end which benefits the dealership. And I'm sure unless anyone likes going there for things that can easily be accessed

. I'm not sure how it is now for parts on these particular cars but all I have to say is this if you get a sports car make sure you know what your going to be spending and choose the right vendor according to your budget because if you don't your going to find yourself trying to get that problem off your hands which will be the car.

[deevergote]

That is very true. For those Mazdas especially, parts are likely limited. That's one great thing about giants like Honda and Toyota, and I suppose Nissan as well... TONS of replacement parts available, especially for the volume sellers like the Accord, Civic, Corolla, Camry, etc... Dealers stock factory parts, aftermarket manufacturers make replacement parts... because they KNOW they will be able to sell them. The Mazdaspeed6 is an awesome car... but yeah, if something in that AWD system fails, there aren't enough of those cars around to warrant an abundance of replacement parts. If that Mazdaspeed6 needs a new transfer case or rear differential, you could find yourself waiting 3 weeks and spending thousands of dollars to replace those things. Good point!

Honestly, the newest Civic or Accord you can buy would probably be the safest choice.