Car for commuting 43m one way/day

Maintenance/Repairs
21

“sparky” at this link tells us that he left the Nissan dealer in his new Leaf with an 80% charge & drove 50 miles home at a steady 60 MPH. The range meter indicated he could have driven another 41 miles.

It would be interesting to know the range at higher speeds & with a 100% charge. Top speed of the Leaf is about 80 MPH, but i’d bet that is a range killer. Depending on your cruising speed & with a 100% charge the Leaf might work out for you.

See what Leaf owners have to say about their cars at this link

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2099&start=290

22

I don’t think there is a lease out there that you will come away unscathed at the end of the lease in mileage penalties. You’re doing well over 22k miles per year just for work, the most leases offer is 15k per year with something like 25 cents per mile over that. 66k minus 45k miles multiplied by 25 cents per miles; you’d pay over 5 grand in penalties alone.

Whatever you look at, take for a long test drive, not just around the block, you’ll have to live with the car regardless of you making the right, or wrong, decision. So make sure you’re comfortable using it for long periods of time.

Right now Mazda has 0% financing for 60 months on most of their lineup, so they’d be one to look at. I’ve had my CX-7 close to a year now and generally recommend it(though some might be getting tired of it by now :p) for those who want a little more sportiness in an suv. The normal 4 cyl FWD model will get 28 mpg highway(turbo 4 will get 24 or 21mpg depending on F/AWD), a Mazda 3 hatchback will get 29 and the Mazda 6 4cyl will get 31 mpg. If you live where it snows a lot, and not all the roads you travel are plowed, the CX-7 has 8 inches of ground clearance to help you out. And you can also get a heated cloth seat if you don’t want to front the extra money for the trim with leather seats

23

Lease or buy? You simply drive too many miles a year to be a candidate for any lease. You are talking about 30K miles per year if you use this car on weekends.

With this high mileage you have to pay attention to mpg. With gas prices heading up you need 34+ mpg highway or more.

Tires, you’ll go through a set every 40K miles. Therefore no fancy tires with low profiles, or run flats. Stick to standard wheels fitted with normal sized tires that are going to be less expensive to replace.

You are going to either get a new car every 2 years or run a car well beyond 100K miles. You need to look at brands with cars that hold up for lots of years and miles with low repairs. That rules out Volvo, BMW, VW, and lot of others. Ford, GM are propects. Best bets for holding up a lot of miles is Honda, and next Toyota.

I’m partial to Honda and would look at Civic or Accord depending on the interior space you need. Civic is my first choice given your need for max mpg. Since I assume most of your miles are on the highway with little stop and go, I’d stick to a conventional motor. If you are doing a lot of stop and go then perhaps a hybrid, but 43 miles of stop and go would be a 2 hour + commute, so you must be going at highway speeds primarily.

24

Hyundai Elantra gets 40 mpg as well as a longer powertrain warranty. 6MT of the Hyundai vs 5MT of the Ford is a plus point in my book as well.

25

43 Miles One-Way ! That’s 11,160 One-Way.

CSA

26

I would like to bust a couple of myths here. Small cars are not necessarily more uncomfortable than intermediate or large cars. The comfort is a matter of the seat. If it fits your back and butt, then it will be comfortable. A comfortable seat for one person can be tortuous to someone else. The most comfortable car I ever drove was a 90 Dodge Colt.

Next on comfort is noise. Unfortunately, small cars do tend to be noisier that larger cars. Small pickups can be really noisy, where larger trucks can be very quiet. Noise can also be affected by tires, so a change in tires can help here. I think some of the car manufacturers have an opportunity here to put more sound proofing in their small vehicles so they equal the larger ones, but since the margin on small vehicles is smaller, they really don’t have an incentive here to do that.

Third on the comfort list is ride quality. Most people think this is at the top of the list, but its not. Bigger vehicles do have an inherent advantage here. Tire and wheel selection can go a long way here. Ultra low profile tires will ruin the ride on any vehicle, and of course tire balance is very important too.

Basically you have a lot of decisions to make first. If the car is only used for commuting for yourself, things will be easier. I have an 02 Saturn that has been my commuter car. Out of the 232k miles on it, 221k have been for commuting. My wife’s car is our travel/shopping/going out vehicle and my small pickup serves the rest of my needs.

If you need a vehicle for multi purposes and multi drivers, then you need to make sure all those needs are met.

And last, I’d suggest ranking vehicles that meet your needs by total owner cost. Total owner cost includes fuel economy, insurance and maintenance costs. Then start driving them, a minimum of one hour or the time it takes to make a one way commute, which ever is more and pick one you can live with.

A lot of people here are branded, that is they will only consider one brand. For some, that may come from experience. For example, the seats used in a Honda may fit them better that other manufacturers, personally, they don’t fit me well. The Saturn doesn’t fit me well either but its ok for one hour, but I found out when I took a trip in it that an hour and a minute is the upper limit. Be open minded, you might be more comfortable in a brand that you might not otherwise consider.

27

I agree a lot of the valid comments & also the depreciation cost.

From purely Hwy mileage point of view:

  • Prius: 51 city/48 hwy mpg
  • Insight: 40/43
  • Fiesta: 28 cty/37 hwy mpg
  • CRZ: 31 city/37 (hybrid)

I think that Prius will deliver 48 hwy miles/gal
If traffic slows down, the hybrid will push it up