Buy what you love

The decision to buy or lease a car is an intensely personal one. We all have our own reasons, and they can range from the emotional ("I like the “swooshy” lines of that car," or "I grew up with a Buick in the garage,") to the purely quantitative (highest MPG, biggest engine displacement). I’m okay with any of these reasons. Except for one. I have seen or heard many examples where people buy a car because they think they have to. These people are ceding their choice for some made-up mandate.

I’ll show you what I mean.

“Buy American”

This is probably my biggest pet peeve.

In the days following 9/11, a national mandate went around to support America by consuming American-made goods. This was a good idea. But more than a decade later, this mentality still has a foothold in some circles when looking at cars.

I’m going to start off and say that I don’t criticize anyone for buying a Chevy or a Ford. It’s the people who say, “I bought my Chevy to support America,” that drive me crazy. What they are effectively saying is that they look at a Ford Fusion and a Honda Accord, two cars that are comparable in almost every discernible category, and decide that the Ford is superior because it is “made in the USA.”

The problem is that it’s not. In fact, I look at these two cars and say that my money does more for America by buying the Accord, a car made in America, by American workers in the American Heartland (Marysville, Ohio) with parts that are sourced in America. Look at the sticker on that Fusion. It might as well say “hecho en Mexico.”  If you buy the car, you make sure that a factory employing Mexican workers stays open and Mexican parts suppliers can continue to operate. The only Americans that benefit from this sale are the shareholders who own Ford stock and the dealership that sold you the car.

Plenty of American cars are truly 100% American. And, likewise many cars sold under foreign nameplates are produced outside of the US. But, it really shouldn’t matter. I don’t buy my cars to make others happy, and I hope no one else does, either.

 “4 wheels are better than 2”

I’ve lived in the northeast for a long time. We know what a nor’easter means, and we coined the phrase “black ice”. When I got my license back in the 90’s, I learned how to drive in nasty weather, and have kept the lessons learned from back in the day with me. But with the increasing prevalence of all-wheel drive (AWD) cars, some people believe that they have found the cure for bad weather.

When a friend was preparing to buy a new car this summer, the requirements he listed were: Under $30K, heated seats, good cruising range, sedan, and AWD. Check, check, check, check….wait a second.

There are many more AWD cars on the market than there used to be, that’s true. But when you try to find sedans under $30K with AWD, you’ll find in a hurry that it’s slim pickins. What my friend was left with was a Subaru Legacy, a Fusion AWD that wasn’t available anyway, and a Mini Countryman. After driving the two that were available, he wasn’t happy. His options were to buy a car that didn’t make him happy or stretch and spend too much money to get something from Audi or BMW.

I made a radical suggestion: Skip the all-wheel drive.

I offered that by getting a front-wheel drive (FWD) sedan, he could have all the features he wanted for the price he wanted, and had the option of getting winter tires to handle the nasty weather. While he was skeptical at first, it didn’t take long before he was visiting an Acura dealership, testing a FWD TSX.

A basic Google search on winter tires will tell any interested person that these tires are designed not just for snow, but for colder temperatures and bad road conditions. They make the claim of offering more stability than AWD on traditional all-weather tires, and the ability to grip nearly as well in deep snow.

This week, my friend had his snow tires, mounted to a second set of wheels, put on his car. The total cost was about $1600 – less than the typical cost of upgrading from FWD to AWD (think BMW 3-series).  I’ll be curious to see how it goes. But the moral of the story is that he is driving a car that he enjoys and still finding that all of his basic needs were met.