What car, and from where - East Bay edition

November 26, 2014 12:32 PM

In January we (family of 3) are moving to the East Bay area and need to buy a car. Our budget is ideally around $10,000 but we could stretch. What cars should we be focussing our search on? Should we be buying new (obviously more than $10,000 - is the expense justified?), a manufacturer certified second hand vehicle, second hand on Craigslist, or ...? Is having a warranty important?

Criteria in rough order of importance:

- reliability (the car we're selling before we move is the first new vehicle I have ever owned and it not breaking down constantly has been So Good)

- small 5 door automatic

- good crash test results

- decent fuel economy

- reasonably pleasant and easy to drive and park.

Unimportant: looks, sportiness, trim and accessories.

The car would be used for errands and occasional longer highway trips. It is uncertain how long we would keep it for - maybe only a few years. If buying from a dealer is the way to go, can anyone recommend one in the East Bay? Thanks!

posted by ogorki to Travel & Transportation (20 answers total)

My number 1 recommendation for a cheap, small car that is reliable and affordable is a 1st generation Honda CRV. They are available for less the 5k, parts and repairs are cheap and infrequent if you maintain them and they are pretty competent at everything, but really excell at nothing (so the perfect do it all family car). If you are willing/able to spend a little more (10-15k) get a second generation CRV. The equivalent year model Toyota RAV4 is also a solid bet. I think the new ones are too big and heavy and have strayed too far from their roots to be great cars anymore (still good cars and you won't regret buying them, but they have changed).

A Honda odyssey or Toyota sienna minivan is also a solid bet if you need more space or cargo hauling. Minivans are THE best road trip car, especially with kids.

I personally feel the after market warranties are NOT worth it and largely a scam. Just saving some money every month (and not a lot-50 bucks a month really adds up over a year) for repairs/expenses and being meticulous about maintenance is MUCH better warranty than some dodgy aftermarket company.

The problem, however, with any car in the northeast US (I am assuming East Bay is boston?) is rust from the god awful amount of salt they put down every time a cloud passes over. I have always lived in the western US and rust really isn't an issue out here, so older used cars are pretty good if they haven't been abused. A new or barely used (1-2 year old car) is much safer in that regard if you live where salt is an issue.
posted by bartonlong at 12:46 PM on November 26, 2014

Response by poster: Oops, sorry, East Bay is San Francisco, so I guess salt is not a factor.
posted by ogorki at 12:58 PM on November 26, 2014

My experience with "Honda Certified" vehicles is that it ain't worth the paper it's printed on. I bought a "Honda Certified" vehicle that turned out to have been in an accident, which they covered up, and then wouldn't pay for later issues that came up as a result of said accident.

So my opinion is now "manufactured certified used" = "take it to a mechanic for a 2nd opinion"

It doesn't mean don't buy it, it just means some dealerships are total scams and they don't have your best interests in mind, so treat it like a private sale.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:24 PM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Maybe a Honda Fit? There are tons of them around the East Bay, and so one that is around 5 years old is in your price range, right now several are listed on Craigslist. Those things carry a ton of cargo, and are strangely small from the outside and huge on the inside, like some kind of space-time warp. My used Honda that I bought about 7 years from manufacture ran and ran and ran, with great reliability and easy to find parts. I only sold it because I had to.
NHTSA safety rating is pretty good, and so is gas mileage.
Memail me if you want a good mechanic in Oakland, not the cheapest, but honest and trustworthy. Has never failed to fix it on the first try. They checked my Honda before I bought it, and it's a good thing. Owner fixed a problem before I bought it.

Welcome to the Sunny Side of the Bay!
posted by k8oglyph at 2:03 PM on November 26, 2014

What are your criteria for being pleasant to drive?
posted by invitapriore at 2:28 PM on November 26, 2014

The nicest subaru forester you can find for that much.

My parents made that call for the same amount of money basically a decade ago. ~250k miles in its just now needing it's first real non-maintenance repair, and it's the head gasket thing, which isn't even an issue on newer ones.

It's safe, comfortable, large inside for how relatively compact it is, easy to drive even long distances, and shrugs off basically any weather(and not just moving forward, it tracks very confidently braking in shitty conditions too, like a volvo).

I still drive that car all the time. And at the repair shop they take it too, plenty that age still come in for minor work still trucking along with a kabillion miles. There's tons of them this age in my area too.

It's had the crap abused out of it hauling tons of stuff all the time too. It's just a diehard solid car.

My other recommendation would be something Toyota makes in that size. Matrix, scion xb/xd/xa. But mostly subaru.

Anyone who wants a bigger than small sedan car, that's where I send them.
posted by emptythought at 3:11 PM on November 26, 2014

I have a Honda Civic, Husbunny has a Fit. We LOVE our Hondas. This is my third and his second.

Another option is a totally electric car. Here in Georgia you get $7,000 in tax incentives to buy one, making the Leaf a fantastic deal.

In California (and other states) you can use the HOV lane, and if you're driving into the city, that is HUGE!

Here's info in general

$2,500 to $7,500 from the Feds

California EPA offers $2,500

There are lots of choices, and the incentives, combined with your $10,000 could get you into a new, electric vehicle without even a squeak.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 3:36 PM on November 26, 2014

Best answer: Regarding Subarus and other all-wheel drive vehicles, consider very carefully whether AWD is actually something you're going to need based on where you live and the severity of the weather you're going to be driving in day in and day out. If you don't need it (and you probably don't), you're going to be paying for all that extra equipment in added weight, lower gas mileage, and added repairs (it's just one more thing that can go wrong), and added tire expenses (with AWD, you need to replace the tires in sets, so if you've got two marginal tires and two decent ones, you can't put off replacing the good ones; you've got to replace all four whether they need it or not).

FWIW, I've been driving in Northeastern winters for the past 25 years and never felt I needed AWD, but others' experiences may be different. Front-wheel drive has gotten me through everything just fine. If the weather is bad enough that AWD is going to be the difference in getting there, then you probably shouldn't be on the road in the first place.

I would look into a lightly-used Elantra, which you should be able to find for under 10K with low miles. It has the room you need with a couple of growing kids and will serve you well for many years to come. The comparable Honda and Toyota models will be considerably more expensive and/or more heavily used at that price.
posted by Leatherstocking at 4:45 PM on November 26, 2014

I have a 10-year-old Toyota Prius that has never had a problem...I'd recommend getting a used Prius. There are a LOT in the East Bay (the other day I pulled up to an intersection in Berkeley, and all four cars were white Priuses). Very reliable, great gas mileage, comfortable, etc.
posted by three_red_balloons at 4:50 PM on November 26, 2014

Best answer: We bought a used 2001 Prius off craigslist a bunch of years ago (maybe 8 or 9 or thereabouts) and it's soon going to turn 200K miles; we got the battery replaced just about a year ago. We have an excellent all-hybrid specialty garage here in San Francisco that we take it to, and I bet there's a similar one or more on the other side of the bridge. Our biggest cost is tires. It is a 4-door, though, not a hatchback.
posted by rtha at 5:48 PM on November 26, 2014

Thirding three_red_balloons and rtha. My 11-year-old Prius with 125K miles has been through some terrible Chicago winters, including a lot of salt on the roads, and is in pristine condition. Kelly Blue Book says it's worth about $5700, and if I needed a car I would buy this one in a minute.
posted by Joleta at 6:48 PM on November 26, 2014

Response by poster: What are your criteria for being pleasant to drive?

An ideal combination would include responsive steering (tight turning circle), quiet cabin at highway speeds and good visibility (i.e. good sightlines via windows, mirrors etc). Our current car is rather tanklike and a beast to park. Lots of power/acceleration, on the other hand, is not so vital. "Pleasant" rather than "fun"!
posted by ogorki at 5:15 AM on November 27, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions so far. I hadn't considered the Prius before. Looking at craigslist it seems like Prii (!) in my price range with clean titles often have pretty high mileage (150,000+). I had assumed that high-mileage cars should be avoided if reliability is important. Is the reliability of the Prius so much better that mileage is less of a consideration? Can anyone point me to any data on this?
posted by ogorki at 5:52 AM on November 27, 2014

Best answer: Much to my surprise (they are very complex cars) the Prius is consistently among the most reliable and cheapest to own cars you can buy (in the US anyway). I don't like them as a driving car-they are just not a fun, engaging car to drive but they work really well and deliver pretty good mileage.
posted by bartonlong at 5:41 PM on November 27, 2014

Best answer: Should we be buying new (obviously more than $10,000 - is the expense justified?)

No, pretty much not ever. I used to sell new cars for a living and much of my family is now or has been in the cars business for decades. The initial depreciation hit is big enough and being driven around for a few years has so little effect on a car's condition that I will never recommend that anyone buy a new car over a used one unless they make so much money that a new car isn't really a big purchase. This is even more true if you might only have the car for a few years.

I'm not really clear on how big you want this car to be. Is a compact going to be big enough or do you need a small SUV or even minivan? In general I think you should get as small a car as you can get away with. To that end, 3rd'ing the Honda Fit and I would add a Mazda3 5-door hatchback. With the Mazda, you need to make sure that you're looking at one that is new enough to have the "Skyactiv" engine as that design took a BIG step up in fuel efficiency (24/33 mpg vs. 28/40 mpg) with a slight increase in power. According to Edmunds.com (my go-to website for car research) you'd need to look for at least a 2013 in the "Sport" trim level or higher (so basically just not the base SV trim).

We have an '07 Mazda 3 sedan and it's been great. It handles really well, has good power, the ride is nice, the steering and handling are excellent, and I can park it anywhere with ease. The A/C blew out on us on one really hot day when I was stuck in stop-and-go traffic and other than that, we've only changed the oil. The only complaint I have is the gas mileage but the Skyactiv engine fixed that. However, it might be a bit outside of your budget depending on what you can find in the area.
posted by VTX at 7:43 PM on November 27, 2014

Response by poster: I'm not really clear on how big you want this car to be.

I had been thinking of a hatchback compact - a small car, but one we can use for occasional transporting of largish objects/camping trips. I'm pretty sure I don't want an SUV, and definitely not a minivan.

With the Mazda 3 (which sounds great!) everything on craigslist in my price range has +100,000 miles. Where I live now people change cars like their socks, and 160,000 km would be unusually high and mean steep reductions in the asking price (see here for example). So, if I could ask a follow-up: are these typical mileages for used cars in the US, which no-one bats an eye at? Or a sign that this car is out of my price range?
posted by ogorki at 6:09 AM on November 28, 2014

Best answer: I answered a similar question here with a little bit of follow up here.

In the US 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year is considered average (19,500 to 24,000 km if you're more used to thinking of distances in metric) so I would expect a car with 160,000 miles to be 10 or so years old. Plenty of people keep their cars that long or longer sell them and the next owners get a lot more use out of it so that one thing, in and of itself wouldn't scare me. I probably wouldn't buy a 2010 with that many miles on it without a VERY thorough inspection and an equally thorough history explaining why it has that many miles on it and the maintenance history.

There are also plenty of people who get a new car every 2-years like clockwork and everything in between. I had always been told that, on average, people in the US get a new car every 3-5 years but I can't cite that, it was one of these facts that everyone in the car business takes for granted without ever looking into (the average person also visits 4 dealerships before making a purchase [citation needed]) so take that with a grain of salt. Transportation in the US is really setup around the automobile making a car something of a necessity for most people so I expect you'll see a LOT more variance car ownership behavior in the US than most other places (especially Europe).

It will depend on how much gear you take camping but I think a small hatch would work great. A small SUV (like the Honda CRV mentioned above) might also be a good fit. They are usually similar in size to hatchbacks but they're taller giving you both more ground clearance and more volume inside the car. Many of them are basically tall hatchbacks with extra ground clearance because Americans don't buy wagons (which is a crying shame and is changing a little).

If you need a little more space than that, you might also look at the Mazda5. It kind of splits the difference between a minivan and a compact.
posted by VTX at 7:46 AM on November 28, 2014

If I could put in a shout out for a Ford Focus. I got one with 150,000 miles on it in the Bay area and because it is the Bay area it runs great with no problems. If this was anywhere else in the country, with humidity rotting it or salt or cold or whatever, it would be a disaster. But it runs great here, is easy to park (hatchback) and the mileage is pretty good. Also requires little maintenance, and is cheap to fix up when necessary. If you plan to drive a lot, then go Prius. I imagine you could really do just fine with one with a lot of mileage because there are loads of cars here with oodles of mileage (how many VW buses have you seen from the 1960's!!) and the weather keeps them in decent condition. Just don't try to make it to Tahoe in February...
posted by Toddles at 8:17 PM on November 29, 2014

Oh, if I could add, the used Ford cost well under $10K and being a hatchback we can actually fit A LOT in there - we've moved plenty of Ikea bookcases and have stuffed it full for travel.

I think an SUV will be a hassle for you - it'll eat up gas and be difficult to park. Go hatchback!
posted by Toddles at 8:21 PM on November 29, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks, all, this has given me lots of new leads to follow.
posted by ogorki at 12:22 AM on December 1, 2014