I agree. Your first car needs to be a beater, just because bad things happen, and when you've been driving for less than a year, chances are that the insurance company will say the bad things were your fault.

My younger brother, with about a month's worth of driving experience, totaled my old car against a mountain and gave his ex g/f 21 stitches. RIP 86 Nissan Stanza station wagon (For reference, if a golf cart and a cardboard box had unnatural sex, that's what this car looked like, and although it leaked 3 different types of fluids, it was still my old car).

And use the money you save now to get something pimping once you hit 19. Trust me, it's worth it. (That's what I did )

Also, you learn some valuable driving skills on shitty cars, mostly like learning how to recognize the limits of your car and react to them instantaneously. There's a big advantage to learning what tire-slip feels like and how to correct it at 15MPH as opposed to 35MPH.

 

My first car was my dad's old '90 Legend LS Coupe (this was in 1998). I got in three fender benders and some little punk freshmen kids threw a pumpkin through the rear window on Halloween one year. I kicked their asses but yeah, making a comprehensive claim on insurance for a $900 piece of glass that has to be shipped direct from Japan is a pain. It kind of sucked to be driving around a "quality luxury automobile" that kept needing to be fixed.

Your first car doesn't need to be a beater per se, but don't get something that's gonna be too upset about if and when you mess it up. There are plenty of cheap and fun cars out there that are relatively easy to insure.

 

i highly recommend a 1986 VW golf gl. that thing was like a tank. i got 3 ft of air in it once, and the only thing i had to ever fix was recharge the a/c system.:bigok:

 

If your gonna get a first car get somethin that isnt fast, my first car waznt even close to that, it topped out at 98mph and did 19 seconds in the 1/4 mile, now that i blew two trannies and did lots of experimenting and lived and learned, after two years i moved up to a 98 LS which is four hundred times better than my old car, actually it is worth it to wait and get a nicer car than what you had cause when you get your new car it brings so much JOY to you and you start to treat it a little bit better than wut you did with your old one.

 

Oh yea, that thing about the live once, im totally with you on that one, i'll spend so much money outa my paycheck for my car that i dont care how much i have left till next pay day.

 

I saved up when I was 15 and when I turned 16, I bought my 1988 Cadillac. I think a Teg would be a nice choice for a first car, but not a GSR.

 

MY first car was an 86 Toyota Corolla... I told my dad I wanted a car so I could give mom back her car (Dodge Neon ACR) so my dad said "get a job." I got a job, and 2 weeks and $500 later I had my first car... I have since had several vehicles (1993 Nissan Sentra XE, 1989 Jeep Cherokee 2-dr, and my current 1995 Honda Civic hatch). I treated my Corolla like crap, and have since replaced nearly everything on it (except the engine itself... only 109K) so it's nearly new... I gave it to my dad for his b-day 'cause he needed a commuter car...

Moral of the story: by a nice, older vehicle that is cheap on gas & insurance, because when you first get your liscence you will want to drive everywhere, sometimes being stupid as well. The cheaper your insurance is to start out with, the easier it will be to afford if/when you get into a wreck, b/c if you are in a wreck before your 19th b-day... chances are your insurance will go up pretty high...

 

Thanks for everything guys. We just got some major money problems in my household, so we have to go with a domestic small car. It'll probably be a Chevy Lumina.

He said once we're outta this jam he will pay a majority of the car during my senior year (05). So all I do is gotta wait.... with a domestic car.... arg h:

Thanks all - Erik