Shopping for a new car under $10,000, suggestions? |
Download Hmmcast #68 mp4
My wife and I want to buy a new small car to buzz around town in, something brand new with a warranty but inexpensive and preferably something that gets a minimum of 30 miles per gallon gas mileage.
The 2005 Saturn Relay has been a great family vehicle but really isn’t very economical for driving around town and trips for just my wife and I. We would like to buy something that we can drive back and forth to Vegas or Reno a couple times a year (that’s 1500-2000 miles round trip) or up to Vancouver BC or over to Montana, plus buzz around town. When we take the kids we’ll use the Relay, but for just the two of us it doesn’t make much sense driving the bigger vehicle.
We do have an aging Suburu Loyale that we’ve got a lot of good mileage out of but it’s a little too old to be running greater distances.
We had hoped the next new car we’d buy would be some sort of hybrid, but we’re probably not going to have any luck in our price range unless we go used — and we don’t want to go used — so will probably need to wait to be all environmentally friendly with the next car purchase.
Our new car shopping criteria (video contains additional requirement details, please watch)
- must be less than $10,000 USD, preferably after tax, license and fees (we’re in Washington state, so figure 10% tax roughly), that means sticker price better be in $8,000-9,000 range
- must be brand new car and come with some kind of warranty
- car must have air conditioning, but no other features are required (we can put our own radio in it)
- cannot be a Hyundai, any other brand vehicle will be considered. We’ve had a miserable new car buyer experience with Hyundai in the past and will not buy another one of their vehicles again.
Additional details (not requirements)
- We would prefer to buy something from a local dealer where we can test drive the car first, not make this an online or eBay-type only purchase. We are happy to arrange to buy the vehicle online but we’d like to test drive it somewhere in the greater Puget Sound area first before committing. If you take a look at Google Maps you’ll see the greater Puget Sound area is like a 75 mile radius in/around Seattle, Washington.
- Would be nice if it’s domestic, not foreign, but I’m guessing the more inexpensive we go, the less likely it will be American made. Kind of a sad omission, but true yes/no?
- I’m guessing these cars will be lousy on death rates — smaller cars almost always are — but if there is any chance to get something inexpensive and safe we’d prefer that.
- to go with the above, we’ll probably pay a little more on insurance, we’re expecting that
- we don’t need a fancy stereo, electric locks and windows, leather seats, keyless entry, anti-theft, airbags, etc. All that stuff does is add onto the price. We can have our own stereo system installed and buy seat covers and mats if the interior isn’t it the greatest.
Got an idea for a good car that fits what we’re looking for? Please recommend away in the comments below. Feel free to link to specific car models in your posts, but any links that don’t follow the above criteria will be removed. We’re not looking for online dealership spam, we’re looking for a car that meets our needs and price range. If I was in auto sales in the local area I’d consider this a very warm lead to hot lead.
If you are a local Puget Sound dealership my telephone number is on the homepage under my picture, just call during office hours and ask for TDavid and mention you read about it here. If you know somebody who is a salesperson, maybe you can earn yourself a referral commission. Never hurts to try.
We plan to buy this new car at some point this year with an emphasis on sooner rather than later. We were already out this last Saturday hitting a few local dealerships. Ideas? Recommendations? Suggestions?
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Not sure how long you’re waiting… sounds like you want one now. lol. Toyota is working on a sub $6k car currently. I believe Renault has one, but unfortunately they don’t sell in US. I personally will be a life-long Toyota customer for the majority of my commute vehicles due to their outstanding service and maintenance. But anyhow… Yaris is a bit above your price limit though.
Comment by darkmoon — February 27, 2007 @ 5:37 am PST
If your seriously just going to bop around town in it, I’d suggest test driving a Kia. I just got one thats 3 years old, and still has about 2 years of warranty left on it. I don’t usually go for warranties - but this one came with it. I don’t think you can get a brand new one for $10,000. But that would get you a pretty nice used one. They come standard with a 10yr warranty so whatever is left gets transferred over. I get about 32MPG in mine.
Comment by Lestat — February 27, 2007 @ 8:24 am PST
added: I would like to link it up, but most sites and pages are for sales, and the links don’t last long. I’ve got an 03 Kia Spectra. The nice thing; 4 doors, the milage, and airbags. The down side is the model I bought pretty much comes with nothing. It’s 100% cookie cutter. Power nothing, and manual transmission. But I scooped it up for only $4,600
Comment by Lestat — February 27, 2007 @ 8:29 am PST
Kia was one of the lots we were at last weekend and the most inexpensive new car we saw was still $14,000.
Comment by TDavid — February 27, 2007 @ 8:35 am PST
[…] Over the weekend we hit a few more car dealerships in our search for a $10,000 new car with air conditioning and had a disturbing encounter at a nearby Chevrolet dealership. Readers that are car salesmen, listen up. We walked the Chevy lot and found this red Chevrolet Aveo 5 with a sticker price of a little over $10,000. It was small, fuel efficient, had good headroom and met our new car buying qualifications except one: no air conditioning. […]
Pingback by Car dealership shenanigans with our $10,000 new car quest » Make You Go Hmm — March 5, 2007 @ 10:22 am PST
In that price range it will be tough to find an American made car that is brand new. Saturn usually has good cars that are fairly affordable, you might want to check them out.
Comment by Tony — November 25, 2008 @ 6:28 am PST
Haha…. I just found out that a Nissan Versa 4-door sedan is $9,900 MSRP (2009). So in case you were looking to get rid of that PT Cruiser, TD.
Comment by darkmoon — November 25, 2008 @ 8:04 am PST
darkmoon - is that standard or automatic transmission?
Comment by TDavid — November 25, 2008 @ 8:05 am PST
Ahh.. true. I think it’s a stick. I didn’t look closely, but lowest price usually is stick. What… it’s not like P-town has that many hills. haha.
Comment by darkmoon — November 25, 2008 @ 8:11 am PST
Well now that we have the PT (and no, we aren’t selling) our next car will need to be automatic for the wife, who does not drive stick. So finding a $10,000 new car that is automatic could be even more challenging.
Comment by TDavid — November 25, 2008 @ 8:14 am PST
You could import a Tata! haha. I’d love to see those new Smart cars for cheaper, but they start at 11k.
Comment by darkmoon — November 25, 2008 @ 8:25 am PST