Ray, my 2002 Tundra has over 225,000 miles, and I would like to stick with a Toyota/Lexus SUV or sedan as a replacement for the reliability. My problem is that I hate the current Toyota front end styling. The front bumpers are now buried under massive grills and trim components. My guess is that even a low speed bump will cost $2000 in expensive body components. Am I alone in not wanting to be a slave to styling stupidity.
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Just about any vehicle you buy today will require thousands of dollars in repair for even relatively minor damage. Body and paint work is not cheap, and every step of the process is labor intensive. I had someone bump into me at a stop light about two years ago. The bumper cover was not damaged, the only damage was a chip in the paint. The repair cost was $720. I went to three body shops to get estimates and they were all within $40 of each other. They removed the bumper cover, prepped it for paint, and painted the whole thing. There wasn’t any need for blending, as the car was just a year old and has pristine paint. The guy who hit me paid out of pocket for the repair.
Anyway that’s the reason for comprehensive insurance.
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As @FoDaddy pointed out, any time the paint gun comes out, 5 $100 bills leap from your wallet. There is barely a car, truck or SUV that doesn’t have a painted front bumper cover. The plastic grills are pretty cheap by comparison and just pop it.
If you are concerned about your front end damage… maybe you should drive more carefully? Front hits are usually caused by the driver of the car taking the damage. Side and rear hits are someone else’s fault. I’ll second the reason for comprehensive insurance!
And once again my old S-10 Blazer is looking great. The front bumper was $80 a few years ago and a complete head light was less than $8. Not to mention that liability insurance is less than $160/yr. That old beater cost me $1,000 20 years ago and I haven’t spent much over that for maintenance and repairs since I got it.
Yeah, but it’ll be similar no matter what you get. The thing I don’t like about the Lexus bumper is that the parking sensors are slightly recessed. That’s fine, until it starts snowing heavily. Then the recessions fill up with snow, and the parking sensors freak out when you slow down. Dumb.
I rented a 2019 Corolla over the summer and the front end grill area is definitely problematic. It was my biggest complaint about that car. Not only is it ugly, it protrudes so far forward and sits so low it would be very easy to bump into curbs and damage it when parking. I was surprised in fact that never happened during the week I was driving it. No problem like that exists for my own older Corolla.
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Hi Rich and Merry Christmas. So, I wonder why you don’t just keep driving your '02 Tundra? At 225k, it should easily get another 100,000 miles. Or more! On the other hand, the newer generation Tundras are awesome vehicles. Incredibly reliable, tough, tremendous safety features, comfortable and spacious. The biggest knock is the fuel mileage. I also had an '02 Tundra and now have an '18 Tundra. The newer truck is more comfortable, spacious and capable of more payload. The fuel mileage is similar. Cost of repairs and maintenance still on par with the competition.
That Corolla doesn’t look too different than the “Catmobile” from “Courageous Cat & Minute Mouse” (1960’s TV cartoons)
https://travsd.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/forgotten-shows-of-my-nonage-84-courageous-cat/