These dimensions are pretty much orthogonal. In addition to these
dimensions, people can have constraints: must seat five,
should not draw excessive attention from highway patrol, can't spend
more than $6k out-of-pocket, etc. Choosing a car is an optimization
exercise with utility function that includes the dimensions (with
various weights, if it's even linear) and with the given constraints.
Many other people would include sexiness or appeal in the
dimensions list. For me personally, the sexiness dimension doesn't
matter. I shall not consider it any further. If you must get a car
that will help you impress your date, consider a Corvette or Viper
convertible or, if you can't afford that, something faddish, like a
MINI Cooper. But frankly, buying a dildo plus a practical car would
be a lot cheaper (and more effective, too).
Some would consider mechanical reliability a dimension. I include
that in cost. Most modern decent cars don't break often enough not to
be dependable for normal transportation, so it all boils down to how
much you'll spend on maintaining and repairing the vehicle.
Others still would consider fuel economy or environmental
friendliness a dimension. Fuel economy is clearly part of cost. Our
civilization has not yet invented any environmentally friendly cars.
If you care about that, get a less costly car and donate to charities
and/or spend some money on any new product (a laptop, a radio
transceiver such as a cellular telephone, etc.) that uses hydrogen
fuel cells. Also, support nuclear and hydro power plants! In the
meantime, if you insist on an environmentally friendly vehicle, you
are likely stuck with choices such as a horse-driven carriage or a
rikshaw. (But my bicycle gets me to work just fine in the summer.)
Different people will have different priorities. It's best to
start with understanding what is your main priority (cost,
performance, comfort, or safety) and a secondary priority.
Simple Constraints
Before we go any further, some people have constraints that make the
selection really simple.
Three Young Children or Four or More Children
One such constraint is the need to transport three children, none of
whom are old enough to ride without a child seat, or four or more
children of any age. If you are in this position, you need to get a
minivan. The back seat of all but some strange cars (Mercury
Marauder, anyone?) cannot safely fit three child seats: you need to
loosen up the belts so that the side seats wobble and are pushed out
towards the doors. This includes cars traditionally considered
``wide'' (Volvo, for example). Unless you place the safety of the
children to be transported very low on the priority list, you will
have to get a minivan.
No Money
There is no excuse to get a car loan (just as there is no excuse
except emergency for credit card debt). Car loans have rates
significantly higher than what you could get out of investments. This
is because they are taken out by people who can't afford to get the
car they are buying and the default rate is, therefore, high. You
should be prepared to pay for your car without ``financing'' it.
You may very well be in a situation where you don't have the money
to buy a car, but need it. You might be a recent graduate, a recent
immigrant, or you might have married, moved out of the city where you
didn't have a car and placed all your savings into a house down-payment
and are not yet eligible for equity loan (house equity loans are
better collateralized than car loans so the rate will be better,
therefore, if you intend to pay off the loan rather than default on
it, house equity loans are the better deal). (In this last case with
marriage, one might ask why didn't you budget for a car purchase?..)
If you're short on money, but need to get a car, you should get an
old, small Japanese car made by a second-tier company (Mazda or
Nissan). This car would cost you only 10-15 cents/mile long-term and
only $3-6k up front. (If you don't even have that much up front, borrow
the money from your employer, a relative or a friend; ``financing''
such cars is a disaster.) The car should have 70-110 thousand miles
on it, have no serious rust, and be mechanically sound. You
can get mechanically sound cars in this price range.
Typically they would only have one prior owner. Unless you're an
automotive mechanic, you're best off getting an unbiased mechanically
inclined friend (if you have one) or an independent mechanic (none of
that ``1000-point dealer inspection'' nonsense with a conflict of
interest) to help you select a mechanically sound car.
Such car will be cheap---both in terms of long-term cost and your
up front outlay---but you give up all the other dimensions.
Underpowered, noisy, smelly, with wobbly suspension, poorly working
air conditioner and often uncomfortable seats, small and severely
disadvantaged in multi-vehicle collisions, your car would not be a
keeper. But it can be very reliable. And, remember what we started
with? You had little money for a car. Well, this one is
cheap.
Oh yeah, negotiate fiercely. Read up on used car salesmen's
negotiation tactics and countertactics. I won't go into that. Two
most important, in my opinion, rules: be prepared to walk and take
your time.
A Note about Safety and SUVs
Statistically, one should be about equally concerned about safety in
multi-vehicle and single-vehicle accidents. For multi-vehicle
crashes, safety is, to a large extent, a zero-sum game: the occupants
of the heavier vehicle are less likely to die or be seriously injured.
However, there's another safety dimension: height. A higher vehicle,
such as an SUV or a pickup truck is both less safe in single-vehicle
crashes because of its propensity for rolling over and more likely to
kill occupants of a lower vehicle, such as a car, in a multi-vehicle
crash.
That's right, an SUV or a pickup is:
overall about as safe as (in fact, slightly less safe than) an
average car for its own occupants,
stricly less safe than a minivan or a heavy car for its own occupants,
less safe than a minivan or any car for the occupants of the other
vehicles.
SUVs are also quite a bit more expensive than cars or minivans,
offer less comfort, and can't compare with even very average cars in
performance. Given all this, SUV buyers would appear to be
dangerously irrational, if not downright delusional.
Dimension Combinations
We'll now go over various dimensions combinations to see which cars
might be good if you have certain priorities. First, a word about the
selection of priority dimensions. The selection is subjective and
there is, of course, no single answer. However, here are some sample
arguments that help to eliminate dimensions. You can decide
which of these arguments apply to you personally. To help in the
selection, I provide counterpoints; if a counterpoint applies strongly
to you, you might wish to consider the dimension more seriously.
Cost
If the cost of transportation is an insignificant fraction of your
other expenses you might not bother about it. (Counterpoint: The
vast majority of people will be concerned about cost; for most, it
should be the main priority.)
Performance
What are you going to do with the car? Where can you enjoy a
well-performing car? If you just want to have a car that's ``fun
to drive,'' you might actually want a car that's not a good
performer so that you can come closer to the limits of its
abilities without being hauled off to jail for reckless driving.
If you want to go to autocross events and the like, is this really
something that should govern the selection of such an expensive
thing as a car? You're going to spend most of the time driving it
on public roads anyway. (Counterpoint: a well-performing car is
one that makes it easier to avoid accidents; this is true whether
you drive it at its abilities or go slow. If you're a good
driver---and you can improve at a performance driving school---a
better performing vehicle is also a safer one.)
Comfort
Any new car bought today will have very nice suspension, air
conditioner, and quite comfortable seats. No matter what you buy,
you'll be traveling with more comfort than royalty used to have on
the road 100 years ago. (Counterpoint: While all that is true,
noise levels can still vary quite dramatically in different cars;
beyond a certain threshold, noise becomes tiresome and the
resulting fatigue will diminish safety. Also, if the car has more
than one driver, having a convenience feature that allows you to
restore your settings before you start driving will ensure that
you always drive with the mirrors set for you, not for your
spouse; driving a a car where everything is set just right is
safer.)
Safety
Car accidents are the number two cause of preventable death in the US, after
medical mistakes. However, the dangers of driving are distributed
unevenly: if you barely ever drive to the grocery store, your
concerns about safety might already be more than fully satisfied
by mandatory government crash testing and you should, instead of
worrying about automobile safety, spend your energy somewhere
else. (Counterpoint: Many times more people are injured in car
accidents than killed; having a safer car might mean the
difference between driving your car away from a minor accident
scene and being driven away in an ambulance to recover in the
hospital later, after perhaps having lost wages and with potential
lasting damage to your body.)
So, what are your priorities?
Performance, Comfort, and Safety
If you only care about performance, comfort, and safety (and don't
care about cost), you're in luck! You can have it all. You
should get a BMW M5 or a Mercedes S600. That one was too easy. (But,
really, if you don't care about cost, you can get amazing things, such
as the attentive, efficient, and hard-working personal assistant who
printed this web page out and highlighted this section for you. Note:
the web has something to do with computers and is one of those
places, along with the library, where your assistant fetches you
information.)
Subsequently, I will assume that you have at least a secondary
concern about cost.
Performance, Cost
No real contest here: Subaru Impreza WRX. Mazda Miata used to
dominate this category (as Edmunds editors put it, ``it's more fun to
drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow''), but the WRX wins now.
If cost is less important, BMW 3 series (M3 is the best). If you are
going to get WRX STi, keep in mind not only the initial higher outlay,
but the flashiness and all the extra attention from highway patrol.
Note: a front-wheel-drive performance car is an oxymoron.
If you really want performance and can pretty much forget about
cost, practicality, hassle from highway patrol and all, you need to
get the Dodge Viper (the baddest machine under $200k---before you buy
a Viper, you can try racing it at an autocross course at Skip Barber
performance driving school), or perhaps an Acura NSX (mid-engine, so
inherently better handling), or a Porsche (mid-engine). If you demand
good bang for the buck, but the WRX is too small a beast, a WRX STi, a
Honda S2000, or a Corvette Z06 might be what you want (the STi has
more space, but Honda's a convertible, if that strikes your fancy).
If you want a relatively inexpensive mid-engine car, Toyota MR2 is the
only choice available.
I mostly leave out the exotics with price tags outside of the Milky
Way, but include two Ferraris (with the lowest and the highest sticker
prices in the Ferrari line) just to see how they stack up in terms of
power-to-weight ratio.
Here's a quick summary (for year 2003):
hp
kg
$
$/mile
hp/kg
bang/buck
Subaru Impreza WRX STi
300
1470
31500
0.54
0.204
0.378
Chevrolet Corvette Z06
405
1410
52600
0.77
0.287
0.373
Subaru Impreza WRX
227
1400
24300
0.47
0.162
0.345
Honda S2000
240
1270
32900
0.55
0.189
0.344
Ford Mustang SVT Cobra
390
1715
38200
0.71
0.227
0.320
Toyota MR2 Spyder
138
1000
25000
0.45
0.138
0.307
Mazda Miata
142
1100
21200
0.43
0.129
0.300
Dodge Viper SRT-10
500
1530
80800
1.16
0.327
0.282
BMW M3
333
1550
54700
0.80
0.215
0.269
BMW 325i
184
1460
33100
0.54
0.126
0.233
Porsche Boxster S
258
1320
55100
0.78
0.195
0.251
Porsche 911 Carrera
315
1420
92400
1.17
0.222
0.190
Acura NSX
290
1430
89800
1.17
0.203
0.173
Ferrari 360 Modena
400
1390
145200
?.??
0.288
?.???
Ferrari Enzo
660
1364
644700
?.??
0.484
?.???
Notes:
Actual performance should be measured in units of seconds (lap
time on a given course, not shown), and is only very indirectly
related to the power-to-weight ratio (hp/kg in the table), which
is just one of the many factors that determine lap time.
The ``bang/buck'' column (more accurately written as
hp*mile/(kg*$)) is the ratio of the rough car's acceleration
ability (measured in units of hp/kg) and its total cost of
ownership (TCO, measured in units of $/mile). I don't claim that
it measures anything of interest to anyone but myself.
A racer in a Neon ACR would easily beat me in a Viper.
The ``$'' column shows the typical price paid (does not include
tax and fees).
The ``$/mile'' column shows cost per mile according to Edmunds
(under the assumption of owning the car for five years and driving
it 15000mi/year).
Of the cars mentioned above, I've only driven the WRX and the
Viper.
Comfort, Cost
A Lexus or an Acura would suit you well. But is comfort really
so important that you put it ahead of safety, performance, and cost?
Safety, Cost
One of the three good minivans, followed by Ford Crown Victoria (also
known as Mercury Grand Marquis). Just look at the crash scores and
statistics. If cost is much less of a concern and comfort is a
consideration, you might also look at Volvo S80, but you would get
little or no safety improvement out of it over the Crown Vic---and it
is still not as safe as a minivan.
Cost, Safety
Subaru Legacy. If you need more space than that, one of the three
good minivans.
If you're more concerned about cost (but not to the degree of the
buyer of a seriously used econobox), you should consider a Honda
Accord. One of the most reliable and economical cars, it is also one
of the best cars to be in if one is unfortunate enough to end up in a
single-vehicle collision.
Cost, Performance
If your primary consideration is cost, you should really try to talk
yourself out of buying a performance car (I'm trying it hard on myself
and have not yet caved in!). The WRX is what you're looking at. It
is not inexpensive. The initial outlay may not be significantly
larger than the initial outlay for a cheaper car, but insurance costs
and premium fuel will over time make a hole in your pocket.
I'm not really sure what to say here. When my Mazda econobox dies,
I'll look closely into this category. Perhaps a used BMW 3 series or
a used WRX? But some of the performance cars have been seriously
abused by their prior owners---and, I presume, the fraction of abused
cars is higher among used performance cars for sale than among
performance cars in general.
New or Used
The significant fall in price of fairly new vehicles either reflects
their poor reliability or doesn't happen.
Unless one is buying a rather old car that is not as comfortable as
when it was new and not as safe as more modern cars, either new or
used can be more costly, but new is more predictable. Buying a
vehicle new and driving it until it breaks really badly (while
maintaining it properly) seems to be a reasonable strategy.
However, bargains can be had with used cars, but not with new cars.
A bargain is a car that you know was maintained properly (typically by
an acquaintance or a relative) and whose owner irrationally wants to
get a newer and more fashionable car or whose owner's circumstances
have changed (perhaps marriage and children). The car must also suit
your needs. The probability of coming upon such a bargain is small
but there's no reason not to jump on it if it does come up. Just keep
in mind that you'll likely end up driving the faddish car of
yesteryear.
If you are buying a used car, know how to estimate its value
properly. In particular, the Blue Book (and all the other colors)
does not publish the estimate you want: it publishes the
average asking (initial) price, not the actual sale price. Dealers
often use this to trick the buyer into thinking that the car is cheap:
``Look, it's already below Blue/Black Book, and here's the book, let
me show you.'' Edmunds gives you a better value estimate with its
True Market Value (TMV) measurement.
Minivans
Three minivans of very similar designs compete against each other for
the title of the best minivan:
Honda Odyssey,
Toyota Sienna,
Ford Windstar.
The Odyssey has more power than the other two (a deciding factor for
me, given the absense of other major differences), but all are quite
close. The Sienna is a tad less safe than the other two. The Odyssey
and the Windstar are probably the safest vehicles on the market. The
Odyssey is likely to be the most comfortable of the three; it also has
the fold-away third row seat that vanishes into the floor and leaves
it flat. To me, Honda wins. If one had to buy a vehicle made by a US
company for sentimental or other reasons, he would not give up much by
going with the Windstar.
Honda makes the Odyssey in two trim levels: LX and EX (there are
also leather and navigation options if one is into luxuries). The
only worthwhile feature of the EX that the LX does not have is the
auto-off headlights (the LX will play a warning chime when driver's
door is opened after the engine is shut down if the lights are on, but
won't turn them off and won't give any warning if the driver exits
through a different door). To me it's rather clear that this feature,
while useful, is not worth the price hike. One also gets some useless
or worse than useless features with the EX, such as power sliding side
doors (remotely controlled from the key fob, no less!). True to its
American origin, even the LX trim level has several cup holders per
seat; can someone explain cup holders to me? I don't remember ever
using one.
Buying Process
This only applies to a new vehicle.
Forget going to the dealer and negotiating hard. Forget those
``Internet printouts,'' friends, and pads that are supposed to scare
the floor salesman. You're not going to waste your time while the
floor salesman goes ``to the manager to see if they can come down any
more'' (yeah, right: where's that coffee machine?). You're buying
through the guy whose business card says ``Internet manager'' or
``Fleet Manager.'' And you're getting a better price with much less
hassle.
Steps:
Research the vehicle you want and know the exact
model, trim level, model year, color, and optional equipment
(don't take any dealer-installed optional equipment).
Go to the nearest dealer that has what you want, come to any
salesman and say that you want to test-drive the car,
but would not be buying anything today.
Learn dealer cost: invoice price (can find on
Edmunds) minus holdback (depends on manufacturer, often something like
3% of MSRP) minus incentives (can find on Edmunds, be sure to use your
zip code to learn about regional ones).
Learn what others are paying in your area (look
up True Market Value on Edmunds), compare to dealer cost and decide
how much you're willing to spend at most---this should be less than
TMV.
Use dealer locate sites such as cars.com, autobytel.com,
automotive.com, edmunds.com, and whatever else Google throws your
way, to find and contact dealers via email about
the model you want.
Respond with a form letter to everyone who writes
to you (that you think is a reputable dealer) and say that you:
want to buy the car within a week or so (be sure to give a
specific date by which you want to have the vehicle);
pay cash;
have no trade-in;
want to know the VIN of the car in question if
they have in stock exactly what you need;
want to know the price;
want to know the drive-away or out-the-door price
(say that you'll bring a check in this amount);
are contacting several other dealers and will go with the
lowest offer.
When offers come in, write to everyone in the running but the
lowest bidder with the amount of the lowest bid (the drive-away
price), ask if they can beat the low bid (they were
supposed to have given you their best bid already, but I discovered
that they will go down further still, so don't leave money on the
table), and thank them for working with you.
Eliminate from the running those who do not beat
the lowest bid. If anyone beats the previous lowest bid, go to the
previous step.
Have your insurance agent fax proof of insurance
to the lowest bidder. Confirm method of payment (cashier's
check or personal) and obtain the necessary payment
instrument from your bank. Fax in your driver's
license if required.
Go to the dealership when agreed. Inspect the
vehicle carefully; take your time. Give them the check and
drive the vehicle away if nothing wrong found.
With this procedure I bought my Odyssey with no hassle at about $100
above invoice and significantly below TMV and paid less for
documentation than the dealer paid for my license plates (many buyers
pay above MSRP for it and then are hit with funny ``documentation''
fees). Based on what I have read, I was prepared to pay more and
would end up doing so if I went to a dealer. I would also have wasted
a lot of time. The dealer was OK with the transaction because I
wasted none of their time and they sold me a minivan that just arrived
on their lot, so they kept almost all the holdback.
