Updated: Best Cars for Teens

I would add another to your list (not entirely sure which one I would oust)
The Scion xD. With a wide range of equipment and a purchase price under $17000 I think it makes alot of sense.
It was rated as the most reliable car according to J.D. Power too.
Also, with two years of prepaid maintenance it would get the teen used to regular maintenance. (they also get two years of roadside assistance so if they lock their keys in their car etc…..)
Just sayin’.

I wonder if bluetooth calling and Ford Sync style systems are really a good choice for young drivers.
Studies have shown that hands free is not that big of an improvement over talking on a cell phone.
The best choice would be for them to not use Cells or music players at all when driving IMHO. But how to enforce it is a seperate issue all together.

I can’t say that I disagree with any of the cars on the list as being decent inexpensive (for today’s prices) cars.

I will say that in my mind, the best car for a teen is an older car that has been well kept, and is either paid for, or can be paid for in cash. I just don’t see the rationale in buying a brand new car for a teenager. If they’re buying it themselves, that’s a different story. However, even then, this money is better spent on getting an education, and not a brand new car.

The other side of this is that with today’s teens, I’m not sure how many of these cars would actually have buyers. It seems as if most teens today are less interested in cars than they are social networking, techno stuff, and saving the planet. Certainly, some teens are like us older folks who just couldn’t wait to get our driver’s license and our first car. The majority, it seems, are exactly the opposite, and don’t even want to be bothered with cars.

I’m working with a young lady (about 22yrs old) right now who needs to make some minor repairs to her used car, and is throwing an absolute fit because she bought this car for $3000 and actually has to do something more than put gas in it and drive it. She’s incensed that this car would dare to cost her a couple hundred bucks or less to repair, and can’t wait to get it fixed so she can sell it and go back to riding a bicycle. My 17 year old nephew just got his driver’s license, but, wasn’t in any hurry to do so. He couldn’t tell you the name of a car to save his soul, and doesn’t care.

New cars are going to be extremely hard to market to today’s youth.

I agree with Eric.

When my two daughters were teens, both drove used cars that we gave them. And, both daughters had wrecks before their 17th birthdays.

Neither girl was hurt, but the point is that most teenagers are wrecks looking for a place to happen, and it seems foolish to put them anything new.

Actually, the safest thing to put a teen in might be a regular-cab pickup truck. It would use too much gas for them to get very far, and they could never carry more than one passenger.

Amen Steve!

My first car was a 75 Ford Thunderbird that looked horrible, but, ran great. It had a 460 V8 that got 13mpg on the highway with a tailwind, and took 10 seconds to make 60mph. I was a careful driver for a young driver, but, I still had two accidents with it in the two years I had the car; one was a small deer that ran into the front fender while I was going a mere 20mph, and the other was a guy who lost traction in snow on a curve we were both in, He hit me, and caved in the left rear quarter behind the wheel. Never hurt in either incident, and the last accident I even drove away from. That would never happen in a modern car.

Neither accident was my fault, save for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but, they still happened. Had I had a brand new car, it would have been trashed before the warranty was even up.

Eric, suffice it say that your old T-bird was mostly responsible for today’climatic problems

The Honda Insight and Smart Fortwo need to be removed from this list.

The Honda Insight’s body shape gives it a very small back windshield to start with, and to make matters worse, the back windshield is actually two windows separated by about a 3″ gap that they use to house the trunk handle and lock. As a result, visibility out of the rear window is abysmal if you have the back seats up, or if you have anything in the car. Do you really want to put somebody who just got their license in a car with zero visibility? Also, the handling isn’t particularly good, and the car accelerates noticeably slower than anything but the…

…Smart ForTwo, which makes turning left in Houston, TX a rather terrifying experience because of its lack of power. This car is also incredibly bare-bones, as Smart tried to make the car extremely cheap. Also, it’s about half the size and weight of a normal sedan or hatchback. If your child gets involved in an accident with an SUV or pickup, the end result will not be pretty. There’s not a whole lot of metal between the rear of that Escalade and your child’s head…

My parents just got me a Honda Fit (I’m 21, and drove the other two cars within the past year). It’s less than $1,000 more than the Smartcar, (although mine is a base model Fit with a manual transmission), but it is vastly superior to both of these in almost every way. The car has a satisfactory amount of power, and handles well, even in rain or snow (good luck with either of the others). The visibility is amazing, and it has a lot more cargo room than the frankly puny Insight (unlike the Insight, the Fit’s seats can fold flat or be moved to a configuration to accommodate tall objects). The Fit also has a lot more built-in safety features than the Smart (although the Insight is on par, as they’re both Hondas). I would remove the SmartCar from the list because it’s a death trap, and put the Fit on the list.

Anybody the recommends a Smart for a teenager is an idiot. Actually, anybody who buys a Smart is an idiot.

I concur with you Guys. The Smart and a Yugo would be the last thing I’d get for a teenager. If you want micro then the IQ is good. Having driven a Smart, I really have to say that it is a totally worthless and embarrassing ride. It makes no social statement other than the driver is strange.

Gotta agree that a good used car can be the way to go. When my twin sons got to driving age, I got a used Camry at a local lot that was a strippy – had only 45,000 miles, but the dealer couldn’t sell it because it had a manual transmission and virtually nothing else on it. I got it at a terrific price, the boys went to the same college, and, after 11 years and 230,000 additional miles, one of the boys finally let it go. I’m not a great Toyota or Camry fan, but I admit this was a great car to get them through college and (for one of them) beyond. A good used car can really be a bargain for a teen.

Better a wrecked car than a dead kid. I have a 1969 Dodge Polara, and it’s a tank, but it’s the *last* car I’d let my teen drive. Same with an old pickup truck — I’d rather have the latest safety features than a stiff vehicle with sub-par handling, overly-long braking distances, and (for pickups) terrible weight distribution that won’t compress in a crash. — Aaron

Well, the good thing today is that nearly all 10 year old used cars that can be bought for a few thousand dollars have anti-lock brakes, decent suspension (compared to cars from the 60-70’s), at least a couple of airbags, and “crushable” bodies to absorb impact. They even have decent AM/FM/CD stereos. They might not have stability control, and 25 airbags, but, I have a feeling that the vast majority of them will survive. We did.

The Smart for Two is just too small to be a good teens car – if the Kia Seol with the hamsters hit the Smart for Two – the kids in the Smart for Two would be very dead.

Seriously, what if the Smart for Two hit much of anything?

Great Fifth Gear segment on what happens to the Smart in a high-speed crash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOYvrFQv8WA

Aaron

Im my neighbourhood on the West Coast, the high school parking lot is chock full of BMWs, easily the most owned vehicle of teenagers here. Of course since all their friends had one I had to get my two sons one also, a cabriolet. What I did though unlike other parents was to insist that the car have a small engine so the kids would not be enticed to attempt to race. It worked, as the 320 ci engine is plenty of power but cannot match the more powerful engines.

All your picks are new. Buying new for a kid is a bad idea. While I agree with safety being a top concern, cars over the past decade or so have become quite safe.Almost every kid dings up their first car somehow. Buying new leaves you feeling angry and them feeling bad. Not fair to either one of you.

This list is a good thing for parents to keep in mind if they are buying a car that will be driven occasionally by a teen driver. The parents should like the low cost of ownership and very few small cars are penalty boxes these days.

My biggest question is about the Insight and the Soul. Wouldn’t the “green” screen on the Insight be a distraction with the video game look? Is high center of gravity an issue with the Soul?

The Soul was aimed at younger buyers, but tall drivers, regardless of age, are buying the Soul for comfort and ease of entrance. The Soul would be a good choice for tall parents or a tall teen driver, center of gravity issues aside.

I really like the Fit as the all around pick for teens. It’s manoeuvrable, quick, not fast, handles well, good on gas and cheap to repair. Next best pick would be the Golf if they were responsible enough to handle the speed.

The Fifth Gear video is interesting in that it demonstrates how well the Smart survives a crash. Nevertheless it also illustrates how a stiff safety cage is only one element in safety engineering designed around passengers. There can be little doubt that a longer crumple zone would further protect passengers up to a higher speed keeping all else equal. After all, how well the car survives a crash isn’t the issue.