The best new car for teens is a new-to-them econobox hand-me-down with 90,000 miles on it.
Yep. Last Summer, my GF's teen got a 2006 Honda Accord with 130K.
Mine was an old base model VW Rabbit with 110k on it back in the ‘80s.
Am I missing something? This community is about cars, for car enthusiasts. I was a huge car enthusiast when I was a teen. I had a giant list of cars I wanted. No I couldn't afford a new car, yes I got a hand me down shit box, but I loved it.
This is their hobby. For those of you down voting and talking about making them bus, or bike, you're being negative about their hobby. Stop. Depending on where they live, they might not have that choice, or maybe they do bus or bike, but want a car too.
This community is for car enthusiasts.
Is buying a new car for a teen a “hobby”?
While this may be a car community I think the article is a bit tone deaf because most people think buying a brand new car for a teen is a bad idea on top of the fact that buying a brand new car for a teen is an incredibly expensive venture that most people cannot afford. Not only is the car expensive but insurance premiums on a new car with a teen as the driver are going to be outrageous.
You don’t buy halo or specialty cars that enthusiasts desire for teens, either. At least not for average families.
So this community may be for enthusiasts, but IMO I don’t think this article fits on multiple levels.
Yes! It is a hobby for some people. I personally didn't live in a family that could do that, but I went to school with families that could. And their parents were excited to share their hobby with their teen when they turned 16.
Was I jealous as hell? Yes! But some of those people were my friends, we played on the same sports teams, went to the same classes etc.
My dad was no different, we just did it with shit boxes. If these people want to buy expensive cars for their teens then so be it. Just means it gets sold on the used market eventually. Let me give another example, I think the concept of low riders is dumb. I'm not ever going to a show for them. The culture doesn't make sense to me. But I still respect it. Do the same friend.
Don't be a gatekeeper.
I don’t know how you got the idea I was gatekeeping when my argument was the tone-deafness of the article when the vast majority of people can’t swing such an expense, along with the fact that new cars for teens isn’t usually a great idea. It’s like asking what new Ferrari you should buy a teen, it’s every bit as relevant. If people want to buy a new car for their kid IDGAF, but I think most people are interested in a used Miata they can tune and have fun with in an enthusiast group like this vs buying a new car for a kid.
If it makes you feel better, Consumer Reports still operates like it's the year 1990 and is completely detached from the world of media today. There are YouTube content producers who make far better content than Consumer Reports does, in every category. Sites like RTings and YouTubers like Project Farm or Vacuum Wars completely obliterate Consumer Reports in terms of quality, freshness, and usefulness.
Look at the way cars are even rated on Consumer Reports. They post "samples of the data" from their surveys, and you get examples like somebody having an ancient phone and not being able to Bluetooth pair it to their car ending up lowering the reliability rating of the car. It makes no sense.
Articles like the one linked are what you get when you have a clueless, outdated organization with management who have their head in the sand, feeding some SEO suggestions from ChatGPT to their writers. It's just layers of badness and poor decisionmaking.
Because this post got a lot of flak, I just thought it was mildly interesting and some more posts on the sub would be great for engagement. I love cars to my bone and I want to see more activity on here. Could I have chosen a better article? Definitely.
Bus
c/Cars is the largest automotive enthusiast community on Lemmy and the fediverse. We're your central hub for vehicle-related discussion, industry news, reviews, projects, DIY guides, advice, stories, and more.
