Cars aren’t rational. If they were, we’d all be driving around in Priuses, and while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a Prius, it just doesn’t suit everyone, you know? The fact is, almost every driver cares about their vehicle in some way, from the parents who wouldn’t be caught dead in a minivan to the 20-something crustpunk who enjoys the space of a minivan for drums and stuff. We all have our reasons for spending our actual money on the vehicles we drive, so today on Autopian Asks, we want to ask why did you buy your car?
I’ll gladly go first, although I’m probably not the most rational buyer out there, for I tend to mostly buy cars on wants and have a habit of having cars find me. In the case of my Porsche, I wanted a particular Boxster with a particular set of options, and eventually, the right one chose me. Yep, it’s still brilliant, and was well worth the two-plus-year search. Now, with the 325i, things are a little more complicated.
I’ve always loved the E90, but I wouldn’t have ended up with this one if it weren’t for stupid rust belt problems. See, I used to own a relatively nice Infiniti G35, which was great until it wasn’t. Once the 120,000-mile mark was breached, the nickel-and-dime repairs just kept coming, from dampers to trim bits to fixing exhaust leaks. The natural sort of stuff you’d expect in the rust belt, and eventually, it all just grew tiresome enough that I sold the G35 and bought a BMW with far more previous owners and far more mileage under its belt that actually found its way to me through a Facebook group. So far, it’s been the more robust car, and it was a great one-car solution for when I could only have one car.
See, when you can only own one car, you need to balance your wants and needs. I wanted a manual gearbox, drive to the back, good steering, decent brakes, a banging stereo, and a zero-to-60 mph time in the rough area of six seconds. I needed space to move stuff, a rear seat for occasional carpooling and airport runs, decent fuel economy, plenty of parts support, and acceptable passive safety due to how undertrained many drivers are. The result? The sports sedan.
However, most people don’t fire the parts cannon at fully depreciated German cars, and most people don’t buy their cars outright or on their fancy either. So, why did you buy your car? Was it a great deal, did it just fit your life perfectly, was it a dream of yours? Regardless, I want to hear your rationale in the comments below.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)
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I’ve had Prius since ’06 due to my 100 miles per day commute. Worked great until I didn’t do the needed maintenance timely enough. Got another one a year newer. Kid needed a car for commuting, so got the Prius. Being where snow is normal, but not severe with occasional trips to Lake Tahoe, AWD was needed (regular Prius actively stops you from driving in snow, ugh). Thus a ’20 AWD Prius was obtained. Now that I don’t commute (WFH), I don’t need the MPG, but it is nice to not have to fill up often. And perfect for the occasional 700 mile trip to another kid’s place. Sort of enying my partners PHEV Rav4 as it does everything the Prius does, plus EV mode for our around the town driving and easier on the knees.
I had a really nice 2014 SS Camaro. I had modified it and we ran low 11s consistently in brackets at my local track. I bought a 2007 Focus off a buddy for $500. This was back in 2017. It needed an alternator, 2 window regulators,a grill, a headlight and a few fuses and other minor fixes. I fixed everything and the plan was just to drive it for one winter, then sell it. We’ll, a guy come along and offered me crazy money for the Camaro. I had outrun him several times at the track and he just had to have it. I sold it with every intention of buying the new, at the time, mid-engine Corvette. Then I looked in the mirror… I’m an old man. I don’t need to be racing anything. I bought my wife a brand new F150 and that little Focus is such a great, reliable car, that I’ve still got it! I’m retired and don’t drive much, but it’s my daily!
It was 2012 and I deep in a multi-year job search, wanting very much to be gone from Portland, OR, and feeling very sorry for myself. My wife saw me repeatedly ogling a neighbor’s friend’s slammed, patinated VW Type 3 fastback and announced that I needed a project. The door did not hit my butt. Part way into my not-so-fruitful VW search, she unearths a photo of my snot-colored 1970 Datsun roadster from my waning days in college. “Why wouldn’t you get one of these?” And the universe promptly gorked up a red ‘67 1600 for my consideration. $5K later, it was mine and remains so to this day.
One morning, waking up in my bed…
My girlfriend : “Do you like my friend’s car ?”
Me : “yes, of course, it’s gorgeous, but she’s selling it for more money than we have”
Girlfriend : “She tells me she will sell it to me for half the price…”
Me, thinking : (half the price is still to much for us, I know we need a car but did you really think using a 32 years convertible version of an economy car as a daily driver in a tropical country is a good idea ?)
Me (talking this time) : “Ok, lets do it…”
I still think it was the best decision.
I wanted a toy that was new enough that I didn’t have to worry about things breaking, got decent mileage so I can use it to keep miles off my lease, was nice enough that my wife was ok with riding in it, and still easy enough to modify. Add to that a small garage space because of my workbench, and shocker, Miata was the answer.
I have a lot of cars, this could be a long post but I’ll try to sum it up.
I bought my 80’sTurbo-Mopars because they were fun, cheap, and easy to modify back in the 90’s and early 00’s. Parts were everywhere back then and the shared K- based platforms make much of it interchangeable. I got in deep and built quite a collection that I have to this day. 86 GLHS, 87 GLHS, 87 CSX, 88 CSX-T, 89 Dakota,89 Shadow, 90 Caravan, 85 GLH, 86 Limo, 82 Rampage and a few others.
I bought my 05 Ram 2500 back in 08 when gas fist hit $4 a gallon and diesel was over $5. People were getting laid off and truck deals were great. I was concerned about towing with the new 5spd auto’s back then so I chose one with a 5.7 Hemi and G56 6spd manual. It has served me well and is happy hauling the car trailer and parts for the collection.
I bought my 05 Pt Cruiser GT by mistake in 2022 but it works well enough as a daily driver for someone who works at home and doesn’t drive daily. I had been looking for a manual trans GT, and well you know how crappy marketplace searches are, so this clean automatic one shows up nearby with low miles and an an honest seller. I looked, drove it, noted a few things it needed and said I would think about it. Guy calls a few days later asking if I was interested. I said not sure, maybe for xxx price (1k below his asking). But told him he could probably get more if he was patient, I wasn’t in love with it and my price was low for that reason. He accepted my offer so I bought it, fixed some $10 sway bar bushings and did a timing belt and it’s been my errand running grocery getter for the last 2 years. I don’t like the red color, or the automatic trans, or the leather interior, or the fact that it’s a PT cruiser, but somehow I still enjoy driving it and the utility it offers. If I get tired of it the 2.4 Turbo drivetrain gets swapped into the K-car limo or something else in the collection.
We have 2 cars. I got the Nova because I had one as my first car and wanted another. We got the Mirage Ralliart because it was the cheapest new car with the best warranty. We both also liked the stickers,fender flares, red trim and other goofy add ons it has.
Needed something bigger than the 2017 Equinox I was leasing (snap decision, and not a bad one, when my ’07 Silverado turned up needing >$5,500 in repairs at 183k mi.). The Traverse was bigger than I wanted, but the 2019 Acadia was just right, with six seats when we need them and plenty of cargo space when we don’t. As an aside, I’m disappointed that the 2025 Acadia is now a Traverse clone, eliminating the “Goldilocks” Acadia.
In 2015 I bought my 2010 GMC Canyon regular cab 2wd 5-speed with manual locks and windows to replace my rusted-out 1995 Chevrolet S-10 regular cab 2wd 5-speed with manual locks and windows. The S-10 cab had rusted away so much at the rocker panels and the bottom of the door jamb that the door would sometimes fly open while going around a corner.
In 2024 we bought a 2024 Trax LS just for road trips.
Coincidentally, my last car purchase was a Prius. It wasn’t entirely rational – I could have picked up a used Corolla for less and the mileage wouldn’t have been that much lower, but I find the engineering of the Prius to be fascinating and have always wanted to own one. It did delay the replacement of my truck because I’ve now put 60000 miles on the car instead of the truck, so there was some practical benefit.
The Corvette was something I’ve wanted since I was about 3 years old. A while back I realized that older ones had depreciated to the point where I could afford one. I found an absolute peach of a car and pulled the trigger.
Bought my diesel truck because I do mostly highway and towing. Got the Ram because at the time it was the only half ton diesel and it had the RamBoxes. Regretting that this week because it died from a common failure point while I was in the middle of South Dakota, which ended that vacation very early. Probably replacing it soon since this is not the first undrivable failure it has had in the past few years. At least I managed to hold out until full size truck incentives came back, I guess.
Honestly, it’s longer to explain my DD versus my fun car. The fun car (’05 Pontiac GTO or if you prefer it’s original name, Holden Monaro) I bought because I wanted a RWD V8 with a stick shift that I wasn’t going to see another of every day.
The DD is a 2012 Honda Accord I bought in 2022 during one of the worst parts of the used car price spikes and low availability. I had about a month to find a new car after an incident killed my prior one. 3 weeks passed, had two I liked but had flaws that prevented purchase and then stumbled across the Accord. It’s very good at being a car. Good in town, great on the highway, comfortable, HVAC works great, best factory sound system I’ve ever experienced and…I keep wanting to replace it. I had a previous gen. Accord I liked better. I don’t know why this one I can’t bond with. Maybe it’s because I felt forced into making the choice due to looming deadline.
On my recent car search, I wanted to treat myself to something a little nicer than the $5000-or-less beaters I’ve always bought. And since my kids are in the process of learning to drive, automatic was preferred. But if I’m going automatic, it was either gonna be a Tesla or a good plug in hybrid.
Also, I wanted something that reduces my carbon footprint.
So initially wanted to buy a used Tesla Model S as the Model S is my dream car in spite of the higher parts costs.
But then I got the insurance quote that was crazy… as in CAD$2000/year more compared to a Prius Prime or a C-Max Energi. I was prepared to pay more for insurance, but not nearly 3 times more.
And as far as BEVs go, right now due to charging network realities, if I’m getting a BEV, it’s gonna be a Tesla or nothing. That will change eventually as NACS gets supported by everyone else.
But I needed a car… so the next best thing was a plug in hybrid. And I narrowed it down to the Prius Prime and the C-Max Energi.
I went with a 2017 Ford C-Max Energi Titanium with just 108,000km for CAD$16500.
And that was around CAD$5000 cheaper compared to the Prius Primes with similar mileage near me.
The C-Max does everything I need and is the nicest and most luxurious vehicle I’ve owned. And I’ve also been averaging 2.5L/100km (around 94 MPG using US gallons)… which makes it the most efficient vehicle I’ve owned. And it also has the longest driving range of any vehicle I’ve owned. On my last tank, I drove 1800km (1100miles) on about 45L (12 US gallons) of fuel.
I took over a 2018 Mustang Ecoboost that was originally my wife’s daily driver. My commute to the Ford dealership is 70 miles round trip, so I racked up the miles rather quickly. As it was approaching 60K miles, I inquired about purchasing an extended warranty before the factory coverage expired.
A couple days later, a ’22 GT with the Ice White Package (mit stick, in case that even needs to be said) was parked in front of my desk on the showroom floor. At first, I wasn’t a fan of it, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. I also liked that it was different – the polar opposite of the typical blacked out Mustangs I see all over my area, so with the wife’s blessing I took the money I was going to spend on a warranty and used it as a down payment on the new Stang.
Not saying it’s anything special in the grand scheme of cars, but I’ve yet to see another Ice White Mustang of any kind around here, and it’s also my first V8 car, which makes it special to me.
In early 2020, I had a 2012 VW CC, which began burning more and more oil. I hoped to get another couple years out of it, since I bought a house in January of that year. In April 2020, it lost all compression on cylinder 1. While I liked the car well enough, a large black sedan isn’t really “me,” even if it did have a manual. I ended up trading it on a 2014 Sportwagen TDI 6MT, in bright red with tan upholstery (my ideal color combo). I got a good deal on it as the previous owner had lowered it, and I think they were having trouble moving it. It still had the Dieselgate warranty on it, and only had 34k miles. It was exactly what I wanted. It rode on the same platform as the 2009 GTI I had, so driving it felt like reuniting with an old friend. The diesel gets me 40+ mpg on the highway and mid 30s in town. I’ve managed to haul all manner of things in the back, from furniture to lumber to bricks, bagged dirt and mulch. I threw a set of gunmetal TSW wheels on it, and it looks pretty damn cool with the lowered stance.
The previous owner only installed lowering springs and left the factory shocks, so the shocks are now on their last legs. Later this month I’m having new lowering springs and shocks actually designed for lowering springs installed. I did that same job on my GTI and have no intention of doing it myaelf again. Having the timing belt done while it’s there, and it’ll finally be exactly how I want it. Oh, and I’ll be chipping it at some point. Should get me up to around 160hp and about 290 ft-lbs, up from 140 and 230. And I can keep my emission system intact.
Two stories:
My 1998 Tacoma was a result of a 2001 F250 that had (in 7 years of ownership and sold with less than 100k miles) a transmission replacement, fuel pump replacement, spark plug ejected from head, and various random electrical problems culminating in something that would instantly kill the battery about 1 out of 5 times I’d turn the key from ACC to RUN. My troubleshooting never got past checking the votage regulator and alternator but couldn’t get it to repeat after reassembling the charging system (keep in mind, it was intermittent to begin with). I couldn’t get it to repeat 10 consecutive times and promptly dumped it at a used car dealership chain. I opted to get the truck I should have got back when I bought my Ford but talked myself out of. I found a 100,000 mile extended cab TRD SR5 (this was 2012) at a dealer of all places, with full service records for the same price or less than any other one (all with at least almost double the miles) for sale in 3 states. The Tacoma’s been trouble-free aside from needing a new turn signal switch and scheduled maintenance.
My 2011 Scion Xb came about in 2019 when my wife and 1-year-old were T-boned by a woman running a stoplight totaling her paid-off Civic. We didn’t want a car payment at the time but wanted something inexpensive but reliable. I happened to notice Scions were drastically underpriced at the time, due to Toyota killing the brand and people “being afraid they couldn’t find parts” (it’s mechanically a Corolla with a Camry engine, there are parts) We took the insurance payoff and another $1200 and paid cash for a really clean example. Aside from scheduled maintenance, it’s been 100% trouble-free and a generally pretty good, very practical car. It became my daily when my wife bought her 2020 RAV4.
short story- in December of 2018, I blew the engine on my e30 convertible at 185k miles. shouldve never switched oil weights but you live and learn.
January 2019 I start a new job as an engineer at Milwaukee Tool. Drove a rental car for three weeks while i looked for a 4 door wrangler in budget. my wife was helping me look, and oon a whim one day she found a grey, low mile, well maintained 2013 X5 xDrive35 gasser with 60k miles and full maintenance history. drove to the dealership, agreed on 15k. signed on the dotted line. an easy $300/month.
Fast forward May 2019. Driving said X5 from MKE to Syracuse NY. Hit a deer in NE OH. Continued the drive. Drove back to MKE. 2,000 miles total, 1500 of which were after the deer. filed insurance claim. vehicle totaled. whatever. they let me keep the rental for the full 30 days.
Start hunting for a well-optioned E70 X5d within 100mi. everything disappointed. probably went and saw a dozen that looked good in pictures but just utter disappointments upon viewing. that soured me to buying a well optioned one that was far enough outside of my radius to be difficult. i resigned myself to maybe buying something brand new so we drove to the Fields Northfield to look at some newer cars. Outside of Fields Land Rover Jaguar sat a minimally optioned X5d with 80k miles that was literally traded in that morning.
We negotiated a reasonable price and the agreed to fix the check engine light and drivability errors that came on during the test drive. Heated front and rear seats and steering wheel and premium sound were probably the only options of note. But it was a diesel. and the diesels had potential.
Fast forward five years, that X5d is 185k miles. It’s served me for 100mi commutes one way for a year. It’s been deleted. It’s been lowered. It’s been tuned. it has four hidden light bars and one not-so-hidden light bar (look, i drive at night on country roads. a lot). it has squared 20×11 style 300M wheels. it has X6M front seats and other important interior bits. it’s been tinted. it’s been well maintained, and it’s never left me stranded. I’ve hauled cars, motorcycles, construction equipment, tools, my family, furniture, and anything else i’ve ever thrown at it and it’s never missed a beat.
The body is getting rough after 12 years, so it’ll be bedlined soon. it’s straight piped so it sounds like a school bus and my daughter loves it. it’s not overstated. it’s not flashy. it’s not an attention grabber. it serves the roles of ‘fun daily driver with real utility’ better than i could’ve ever imagined. and it’s helped me build a niche market for BMW diesel ‘maintenance’ on the eastern seaboard so i will drive that car until i can’t anymore.
I bought my 2008 Mitsubishi Colt Plus last month. (I don’t think you guys got it in the US. Look it up. Trust me, it’s worth it).
Mainly because I am a poor and therefore my choices were limited, but it stood out amongst the field of Honda Fits and Nissan Versas. In effect it’s like a Mitsubishi Colt wagon with bigger boot space. It looks pretty adorable too.
But also, I have prior experience with Mitsubishis, and while they are now a sad shadow of their past glories, their older models are mostly quite reliable if you treat them right. And this one seemed to be quite well taken care of.
Practical; New Maverick Hybrid, because I tend to gather interesting old mopeds, motorcycles, snowmobiles, art deco stuff. Cheap used Transit Connect because I collect interesting stuff in bad weather too. 2019 Fiat 500X for my wife because she liked the 500 she had, but I won’t work on her car anymore. 2001 Toyota Echo for my out of state daughter and when something goes truly bad on it, she knows to pull the plate, battery and spare, then walk away.
Impractical; 1954 Kaiser Manhattan two door inherited from my late father. Intermechanica Speedster replica / Ducati M900 because unwanted divorce. ’73 VW Sport Bug because duh! And more because why stop now?
I goofed and told Autopian to disallow notifications. I can’t figure out how to change it back. Help please?
Email them at the tips tab and they’ll get back to you pretty quickly
Well it’s working on my laptop. I assume I overreacted. Thanks for your post.
I was looking at RX-8’s as a dual-purpose track car + part-time daily driver with 2 car seats due to the access to those back seats through the clamshell doors. BMWs, G35/G37s, Cadillac ATS etc were also on the list for the combo of RWD, limited slip diff, and manual transmission, but the RX-8 seemed to consistently be the cheapest for the best condition, and then I found one at a dealer that they had flooded and just wanted to unload, so $4500 for a 2009 base model with 80k or so (in 2019) was too good of a deal to pass up.
Other semi recent purchases are a Pacifica hybrid about a month ago – really the only game in town for a PHEV minivan, and a 2012 Mazda5 for $5000 in 2021 to get the most recent manual trans minivan with the 6 speed and larger 2.5L MZR engine.
Bought my SC400 earlier this year after the loss of my SN95. Always wanted one since I was a kid and had the chance to buy a clean example with low mileage. Parts are rather expensive for it I have unfortunately found out but cant beat the comfort and reliability.
‘Cause I’m getting old and it s*cks! So, after a Miata NA, a 500 Abarth, two NCs and a ’81 Fiat X1/9, my old body now sits comfortably in a 2011 E88.
It does suck—but it sure beats the alternative!