What Car is Best?

Now that we’re about to have a newborn baby we’re looking to replace our 20-year old car with something a bit more fuel efficient and reliable. Not that this car hasn’t been mostly reliable. It’s an old Acura Legend that I got from my uncle a few years ago when he replaced it with a new car. I was in pretty dire financial straits at that time as my own business was foundering – in no small part because the franchisor defrauded us and ran off to Australia leaving behind a trail of lies and liabilities. Anyhow my uncle more or less gave me the car as my own car was a pretty crapped-out thing and he said I needed something more dependable.

In the last few years it’s showing its age. We had to replace the brakes and rotors, bought a new set of tires and just recently had to replace the alternator. Now the fuel injectors are leaking as is the sunroof. Repair costs handily exceed the sale price of the car, so it’s time to look for something new.

Our main criteria for a new vehicle are:

1. fuel efficient
2. reliable
3. low maintenance
4. convenient for baby stuff
5. split fold-down rear seats
6. relatively inexpensive – under $30,000 if possible

So we’ve been looking at what’s available on the various car manufacturers’ websites. Due to the top 3 criteria we’ve pretty much eliminated the North American and European auto manufacturers . Which leaves Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda as possibilities.

We’ve been debating whether to consider a Hybrid vehicle – they are very fuel efficient, they have a good track record and they seem convenient enough. However the Honda Civic hybrid does to have split fold-down rear seats which counts that one out. The Prius is the other contender but it’s at the top end of our budget. The soon-to-be-released Honda Insight seems promising, but only time will tell how much it is and whether it will meet our needs.

The other options are the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Matrix, Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra and Mazda 5. They’re pretty hard to compare as some are sedans, then we have a cross-over and a mini-van. All have their plusses and minuses so we need to spend some time doing more research and actual hands-on inspection. I’ll keep you up to date with what we figure out.

Any of you out there have advice to give?