Ahh...my love/hate relationship with car shopping...

iaresee

iaresee

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Coming up on needing a second car here. I love and hate car shopping. With Car #1 it was pretty easy. We were only getting the one car, I pretty much new exactly what I wanted, and so that's what I went out and got. I drove a few other cars around it, but there were limitations on who would deal with a Canadian, new to the country with zero credit history, and not fleece me. Overall I'm really happy with the car, but we need a second ride now that the kids are in school/day care and work is keeping me away from home at all kinds of weird hours.

Our drive now is an A4 and that'll likely be "my car" come January. What I need to figure out is what the wife+kid car should be and I'm looking for help from you guys to narrow down the field.

They do a lot of in-town driving getting to school and back and running errands but not much highway driving. And it's generally all good weather driving here in the SFBay area. I'd like to keep it sub-$35k, good mileage and a roomy back seat so the growing boys have leg room. The A4 is pretty tight in the back with the car seats in there. I'm not anti-hybrid, but we can't go full-electric (the Leaf would be pretty cool for them) because our building doesn't have charging stations yet.

I tend to lean towards VW because it's in line with the styling I like. I think a 325i would be nice, but probably just as small in the back as the A4. Dunno really...lots of options! Any Fractalites want to help guide me in my search?
 
Wife and kids transportation spells mini van... sorry man but that's the deal :lol. Chrysler Town and country, A buddy of mine just picked up a used one today a lot of freeway miles but pretty clean. $4,000 150k Miles, All wheel drive, remote side doors, leather interior well taken care of and full maintenance records. Pick up something like that with less miles and save your cash. Your wife will thank you when she picks up the kids with all their friends after the soccer game and has to grocery shop.
 
The choice is pretty clear. BMW M5 for yourself, A4 goes to the wife. She can pull the seat forward so it won't be as cramped in the back.
 
plexi59 said:
The choice is pretty clear. BMW M5 for yourself, A4 goes to the wife. She can pull the seat forward so it won't be as cramped in the back.
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I like the way you think! :)

I was trying to figure out how to make Car #2 something for me -- an S4 or S5, or even something like a Gensis Coupe. But facing the facts: they need a little more room than the A4 offers to make their lives more comfortable. And let's face it: I'm not exactly suffering taking the A4!
 
iaresee said:
I like the way you think! :)

I was trying to figure out how to make Car #2 something for me -- an S4 or S5, or even something like a Gensis Coupe. But facing the facts: they need a little more room than the A4 offers to make their lives more comfortable. And let's face it: I'm not exactly suffering taking the A4!
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560 horsepower man. No need to think. :)
 
I absolutely *love* my VW Golf TDi. I get 1100 km (685 miles) on a fillup, i.e. 48mpg, and at 330,000km / 10 years, it's still an amazingly fun, sporty amd safe drive. Plus, it's a hatchback, which means plenty of cargo space.

If you find it a little cramped for back seat occupants, VW makes the substantially bigger Golf Wagon (which is an amazing deal).

As a second car (TDi or gas), you can't go wrong.

From a maintenance point of view, it depends on where you get it serviced. I had problems with one dealership.
 
My parents just got a Suburu Forester and it's pretty nice. It get's decent gas mileage and has won a ton of awards, especially for safety. They love it.
 
I love my Honda Fit. Great mileage, around 16k fully loaded (this was in 2007, so a bit more now), and pretty bulletproof reliability-wise. I got it when we had our kid and I needed something with 4 doors and a decent back seat to put a child seat in. The seats fold, so you can turn it into a mini-wagon. It's amazingly versatile.
 
I'm considering the Golf Wagon TDI and a Subaru is on our list to test drive. Sadly not an STi. The Fit is a little smaller than what I want but we'll provably test drive a civic and an accord. I find those two models a tad bland but maybe I'll feel differently after driving them...

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!
 
Looked at WVs this year when car shopping. I used to like them (owned a GTI VR6 in the past), but nowadays they're owned by Audi (or vice versa), and they make the interiors cheap as hell to avoid cannibalization of those fat Audi margins. So what they really want you to buy if you need a hatchback is Audi A3.
 
plexi59 said:
So what they really want you to buy if you need a hatchback is Audi A3.
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The A3's backseat is too small for us, otherwise a TDFI A3 would be it. I'm looking for used A6 wagons but they're hard to come by here. Even rarer are A4 wagons, though one would still suffer from the smallish back seat my A4 sedan has. I'm disappointed the 2014 A3 will only be a sedan here in North America. I think Audi is losing out there, but I guess they're trying to keep VW and Audi very distinct and separate.
 
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