Shawn Stanford

Sounds like that Volvo ruined him on cars!

deilenberger

More likely the Nissan Sentra that followed it.. although he did get almost 300,000 miles out of it.

Cuba

Base Grand Cherokee Laredo. Heavy, slow, cheap, reliable, safe, assuming you put it in park.

Needsdecaf

Buy either a Honda Pilot or an Acura MDX (mechanical twin). Bulletproof...I owned a 2007 MDX for almost 7 years and well over 100k miles.

For a high school and college kid...that's what you need.

bweSteve

We felt the same way,... so our two kids owned/drove ZERO cars for their first 2 years of college. We told them, IF they could do well in college for the first 2 years, THEN starting their Junior year we would help them with a vehicle to drive (we then put both kids in 14+ yr old 4Runners, 150k mileage & above). The wife & I felt car money was better spent on having them live on-campus, & NOT dealing with car crap. It worked. They got good grades, one was NCAA D1 swimming & the other ACHA D2 Ice Hockey. BOTH 4Runners were flawless during those years, AND they both still drive both of them now (years after college). 200k+ miles & going strong. Both of them were purchased for less than $8k each.

+ they both cut their teeth rebuilding a 1969 Camaro in their early High School years,.. so they already had an appreciation for repairing & keeping mechanical cars in shape. So when it came time (Jr years of college) for diagnostics of that "weird" noise in one of the 4Runners, guess what!, they did NOT need Dad to take care of anything for them. Independence at age 20.

I apologize to the OP, if his daughter MUST have a car on campus the first year. That does not help things.

BUT, if there is a choice, my suggestion to the OP, is to have her focus on the school work & extra curricular's. She will get more out of the college experience the first 2 years IMHO. The car stuff will ALWAYS come later.

Good luck!!
=Steve

OH MY GOODNESS..... I just went back & read this...
Wow, a freshman & she had to deal with that kinda accident!! I feel for ya brotha. That is NOT good that she has that kind of commute to school. I hope she & her friend made it through Ok with minimal injuries.
Take care of her!!
=S

dhc905

+1 if they're not commuting having a car in school is a great way to become everyone's fake best friend for trips to Ikea or moves. Also probabilty of getting a DUI increases from 0% to pretty likely.

in other words, whatever you get will be a liability unless it is an absolute necessity.

Also no offense to "learn a real skill" crowd, but it really isn't a good skill to have unless you enjoy doing it. Fixing a car is pretty cheap vis-a-vis a real job. I like wrenching because it's theraputic and nobody is forcing me to do it. If my cheap parents forced me to do that instead of studying, patrying or figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, I'd be pretty upset.

bweSteve

Thanks for the agreement on "School First"..

and even though you replied to my post,... I won't take your comments out of context such that you might have been suggesting I forced my kids to rebuild a '69 Camaro when they were in 9th & 10th high school grades. Lol. They spent their own money to buy the car. They begged me to find it for them in the first place (since I already own a '69 RS/SS-396/375-M21). I have some of the BEST home video's of them rebuilding the front suspension, my daughter completely rebuilding the interior, etc etc,... and they STILL come home just to drive it. They say they will never sell it. But they better SOON buy a garage or a home to put it in. Dad is not storing their car forever,... I have other cars I'd like to consider! Lol.

... {< Post #10 shows pics of these... https://rennlist.com/forums/porsche-...d-members.html >}

=S

dhc905

^^ Great picture! I sort of hope my daughter will share my positive view on wrenching (my wife hates it) and I can get someone with tiny hands to get into those tight spaces

That said, if she wants to play with barbies or read how a turbocharger works, I'm not going to drag her out to my garage and make her work on the car. Or when she's in college buy her a busted car so she has to fix it. Seems like a lose-lose.

bweSteve

awwwe yea,... I got tons of em....

We can only ever hope for smiles on their faces through the years & years.... working on cars has brought our family closer.... now with them in their 20's, I really miss those days...

Unfortunately the older Porsche's we owned (911 SC's) at the time, I had finished all the wrenching by then,... so no German cars to cut their teeth on. But American muscle parts were easier on their wallet.

Learning ignition firing order, valve adjustments,... all before they bought their first car...



First day of their ownership roller w/ no motor, no trans. pullin' leftover stuff outta the shed & rebuilding so they could realize their goal of each driving their Sr yr of HS...





Rebuilding the front end,... learning about suspensions....



& he finally gets his first motor mocked up & close to finished...



My kids absolutely loved it.

Travis

That's some great stuff there bweSteve. You taught them well.

My older son and I didn't rebuild from the ground up, but enough for him to earn it and put some skin in the game. He's more in tune with the noises so if the car's not quite right, he'll ask me to help him check it out.

I will say though, he's not a car guy, wasn't interested in driving at all, didn't really start driving til he was nearly 18. Time will tell if that changes, but this seems to be quite common nowadays.

v10rick

Steve I would enjoy working on a car that would not dirty my hands, at their age.

bweSteve

haha Right-O Rick! I've got lots of pics of them with latex gloves on!! Daughter really preferred putting it back together once all the parts-pieces had been media blasted & painted!! Lol.

Yea, that car was pretty dirty, grimy & rusty underneath when we started.

But they LOVED the 30 yr old paint job! They call it "Retro Mohican". I was surprised to see it had survived all these years. Nobody paints like that anymore. It has 12 different colors on it. It was in the back of a race shop for 20yrs under a cover when a buddy of mine up on Long Island told me about it. They had long ago removed the 427 & Lenco Tranny & left it sit (& we found it 10 yrs ago).

Ya know, RL should have thread called "Family Time", and get all the stories of Porsche rebuilds with their kids (no matter what the model). I bet there are some really great pics & stories out there.

Sorry for the diversion on this thread,.. just couldn't help myself when OP talked about his daughter getting in a crash in her 1st year of college. That just goes to my core.

Take care of your families first out there!!
=Steve