What car?
 

What car would you buy suitable for vancouver? which one is not too expensive to run and not too expensive parts?
Please help as this would be our first purchase as we arrive. So many choices can't decide.:confused:

Re: What car?
 

Toyota Prius

Re: What car?
 

Nissan GTR

Re: What car?
 

What he said ^^^.

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:thumbsup:

Re: What car?
 

Accord, obviously!

Re: What car?
 

If you lived in a coastal area of the UK what would you buy? Given the similarity of the somewhat wet climates and salt air the decision should be the same or similar.
You cannot get an objective answer on here. The opinions will be too far-ranging.

Re: What car?
 

We bought a Dodge Caliber two weeks after we arrived. I now use it extensively for work and have covered over 60,000 kms this year and all it has needed is oil changes so far. Last serve at a Dodge dealer was $50.

Re: What car?
 

Jeep TJ or CJ or whatever the current one is. PT Cruiser or maybe a new Ford Fiesta - if you can actually get hold of one, there are mass delivery issues with them.

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Thank you guys. What I like can't afford. So we have to get the best with the minimum budget. It should look good.

Re: What car?
 

Ah... Was going to suggest my old faithful - Honda Civic - until I saw your "It should look good" criteria ;)

Seriously though - they may be uninspiring to look at (i.e. bland) but they are fantastic cars, extremely reliable and fuel efficient, and Honda are offering 0.9% over 5 years at the moment.

I've just bought my 5th Honda in succession a few weeks ago and I have never had a moment of trouble with any of them.

We had a Prelude which we only parted with because needed a "family" car <sob!>, a CR-V which we still have at 13 years old and around 400,000km on the clock. It's literally just starting to have issues (suspension stuff - the engine still runs like a dream).

We've also had 2x Civics (one being my latest purchase, and the other was the car I bought after selling the Prelude, kept for 5 years and then reluctantly sold when we emigrated...)

Edit:

Ermmm - ok, so that's only 4 Hondas in succession, LOL!

I think I got confused by the fact that my first car was a very reliable Rover 214 that had done well over 150,000 miles when it got written off, and that actually had a Honda engine in it too!

Re: What car?
 

Thank you. We heard from people in Vancouver that Honda is a very reliable car and keeps its price. But where did you buy your cars. Which dealers are reliable?! Many thanks

Re: What car?
 

If looking at a Honda Civic also consider Toyota Corolla same size, same price range, similar performance, same value holding properties. :thumbsup:

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Suzuki SX4 :wub:

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Subaru Forester.

Re: What car?
 

Um, depends whereabouts in Vancouver you're going to be living and what sort of commuting you're doing. But the traffic downtown is pretty intense, the Toyota Prius is pretty popular but the most popular car in Canada and certainly in Vancouver is the Honda Civic. The problem is that car thieves tend to focus on them.

Certainly they're cost-effective. One tip is that sometimes parts and servicing can be cheaper in the US and driving to the US from Vancouver is no big deal, however to be able to do it you need to buy a car of which there is a US equivalent (not really an issue for an oil change but for more serious stuff where they need to plug it into a computer for example I've found it can be).

Also I've found there is a lot of crap that dealers in Canada will tell you, for example I bought a new tire in the US and they told me it wasn't Canadian-spec which was rubbish, the only difference was the US DOT sticker on it. But they don't like being undercut by US dealers.

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That is good to know. Our CRV is 11 years old and hasn't needed anything more that routine service (still on second set of tires, second timing belt and third set of break pads). I thought we would replace it at 300,000 kms but there might be a few more years in the old thing yet.

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The way the drive in Vancouver.... a tank!:eek:

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Doesnt Vancouver have one of those car sharing schemes?

Ideal for occasional users I would think.

http://www.cooperativeauto.net/

Re: What car?
 

One way to get rid of the thieves and bring the cost down, both price and running costs is to get it with a manual transmission.

Re: What car?
 

I understand that Honda Civics are the most stolen car in Lower BC.

Toyota Corolla are everywhere, like a plague and are usually driven by the biggest retards.

If you want to drive defensively, you could get a jacked up Toyota 4Runner with monster truck wheels; they seem to be quite common on the 'extreme commute' (bunch of twots).

For me, i bought a Buick; novelty factor mainly (never heard of them before coming over here) a nice big sedan with a bench front seat, 3.1L V-summut and enough haulage space. Drive like a flying carpet.

Re: What car?
 

Absolutely - ours is a manual and that's what I wanted - since we plan to keep it until it falls apart and resale isn't an issue. I can see that it would make it far less desirable to thieves. There are many of our friends and neighbours who seemed impressed to hear that we know how to drive a manual car, when obviously it's nothing to most Brits. When we got ours, the garage had a half-dozen manual pre-owned Civics on the forecourt, but no automatics. They said it was because the auto's sold as soon as they came in, but some of their bargain price, fantastic condition, low mileage, fully loaded manual transmission ones had been sat there for almost 12 months!