Second Guessing Your Parent's Car Choices

"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii) 05/15/2015 at 11:07 • Filed to: Hypotheticals

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I’m going to guess that the majority of us had a parent buy a new car at some point during their childhood. I just thought it’d be fun to second guess their choices. The purchase I’ll be second guessing is my parent’s purchase of the 1996 Impala SS. As you may have guessed from my previous article( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) I’m a bit partial to it. But I still wonder, what would I have purchased in 1996 with a budget of ~26,000 dollars. Apparently the Pontiac Grand Prix was also on my parent’s shortlist o_0

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Now some basic guidelines for this hypothetical. If you were one of 7 kids, you can’t replace your mom’s Suburban purchase with a Miata. Try to keep the car’s basic purpose in mind, but feel free to answer it in your way. For example, did your dad by that 5 series sedan? You and I both know he should have bought the Touring. Also let’s keep it to new (at the time) cars. This should make it simpler. (can you even find used car prices from 1996? that’s a rabbit hole I would love/hate to be stuck in) This should also limit car purchases as investments. Since we have the benefit of hindsight and it can’t be unseen, you can use that knowledge in your pick (sorry Volkswagen). However, If your parents were unlucky and bought an outlier, like one of the few lemon Camry’s, try to keep that in mind.

My choice:

1996 Nissan Maxima SE (a fully optioned tester priced at $26,480, I could forgo the sunroof if needed)

While it lacks the V8 and special qualities of the more limited Impala SS, it also has a chassis that was developed after the Iranian Revolution. The Maxima is down on power and torque, but also down on mass so acceleration is similar. The Maxima has a long proven record of reliability so it could have taken well over 200k of use as a DD and roadtrip car also (seriously GM, how do you fuck up an odometer?) Importantly, the Maxima offered a manual transmission, always a plus. Now it’s not a perfect sports sedan (boo torsion beam rear suspension), but it was one of the better ones and was priced well under the class standard (328i started at $32,900) If I had $26k in 1996, I’m going to the Nissan dealership.

What would you pick?

Azrek > LongbowMkII 05/15/2015 at 11:45

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I always held to a principle that you should always want to borrow your parents’ car as it should be infinitely better than yours. My parents managed to go the other way with this...I wasn’t interested in borrowing the (at the time new) 90s Camry or dad’s 80s Mazda truck. I am just fine in my 80s 4Runner.

Mom would offer the Camry for a date or a job interview and I’d refuse. I think I drove that thing like 4 times before she got a newer one I’ve never touched as I left by then.

Mom is retired now and I am trying to encourage her to get a VW Golf GTI.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > LongbowMkII 05/15/2015 at 11:52

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My parents bought a few new cars when I was a kid, but I’ll focus on just one. They had an ‘86 Caprice Wagon, and my dad had grand designs of swapping in an LT1 and some C4 Corvette “turbine” wheels on it. A week before it was to go in the shop for its transformation, it got totaled in an accident. The replacement was a 1991 GMC Safari AWD minivan. It ended up being great, it made a lot of road trips - the best part was my dad would take the back seat out and put sleeping bags back there so my sister and I could go sleep while we were traveling, and the AWD in that thing was unfailable. But what I would have rather seen, in hind sight, was another Caprice wagon. If only because wagons are just so cool.

LongbowMkII > Azrek 05/15/2015 at 11:54

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That’s a good principle.

Nibbles > LongbowMkII 05/15/2015 at 11:54

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My parents bought a new 1992 F-250 XLT (460!) and a new 1994 Crown Vic LX

I cannot second guess these purchasing decisions

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > LongbowMkII 05/15/2015 at 14:59

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My dad paid $45,000 for a lifted (dealer customized) 2004 Silverado with no options other than heavy duty mechanicals, the 5.3L V8, 4WD, and power windows/locks.

In 2004, that could have bought a fully loaded Yukon Denali, which would’ve been a way better replacement for the 1999 Tahoe we were coming from.

That’s the only purchase decision of theirs that I feel could have been SO MUCH BETTER.

LongbowMkII > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 05/15/2015 at 15:08

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Yeah, probably, but I look at all dealer installed accessories skeptically.

I didn’t want to think of this question as “better” necessarily, but more suited to my tastes. of course with gas a $1.09 I may have just gone with the V8 anyways haha

bob and john > LongbowMkII 05/19/2015 at 14:55

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we never bought a new car, with on exception... Our A3 TDI. It was my dads 20th annerversiry gift.

he REALLY wanted a diesel. And being in canada, they are actually kinda hard to find, and i was not going to let him drive something the masses would (he is fairly sucessfully, and i think his cars should reflect that) so no golfs.

This left a A3 TDI, and the E90 BMW 335D. how I wished he got the 335. but it was another 25k on top of the audi (which he could have gone for...) but being RWD onlyt, and living in canada, and 425 lb-ft of torque...he played it safe and got the 4 rings.

Ad_absurdum_per_aspera > LongbowMkII 05/21/2015 at 14:00

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Curiously, my parents never bought a new car at any point in my childhood, and only one in my lifetime.

Dad always had an eye for value in a late-model used car, and drove them until something big and expensive went wrong (usually within shouting distance of 200,000 miles back when that was a bigger feat than presently), though in his Chicago days sometimes he’d retire a still serviceable car because the rust monsters had chewed too many holes in the sides.

He was partial to American sedans with husky V8’s — mostly Chryslers, though Oldsmobiles, Fords, and even a first-generation Scout made appearances — and for the times it’s hard to argue against that.

After he passed, when I was well into adulthood, Mom bought our first and only new car, a ‘91 Corolla. (Negotiating tip: if you must name your car, don’t do so during the test drive.) Hard to pick fault with that choice either, not as an in-town runabout for an older lady who’d only started driving in her late 40s; I’d have gone for the Camry but she tried one and thought it too big. Many years later I inherited that Corolla, and though I later sold it to one of my son’s friends, it still gives yeomanlike service getting him to work and school, so it’s hard to quarrel with that choice either.

dogisbadob > LongbowMkII 05/22/2015 at 11:30

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Ford’s older digital odometers are MUCH worse than GM’s. After 199999, it would roll back to 100000

LongbowMkII > dogisbadob 05/22/2015 at 11:34

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In the Impala the odometer quit displaying at about 114k(~1998-9). a few years later it randomly came on for a day showing 117k. then cut out again for at least the past decade. built in odometer fraud!