The ideal first car for millennials

Atty. Jerome G. Neri

I HAVE a nephew who is about to graduate from college in a couple of weeks. At the top of his graduation wish list is to get a car. I realized that there is a difference between my nephew and me when it came to having a first car.

When the time came that I was going to have my first car, all I wanted was my mother’s old car, which was a 1978 Toyota Corolla SR. I had fallen in love with this two-door hardtop when it first came to the family. When I reached driving age, I volunteered to take care of it. It was in this car that I learned to work on cars. When one works on a car there is that special bond between man and machine. So sometime in the early ‘90s the car became mine.

Having my own car, I would save every centavo I had to improve my car. I took time to know my car inside and out, that when there is a problem, I would know exactly where the problem is, and if I can repair it myself, I would. It also turned out that I was not the only one who was like that to his own car, there were many of us. Go to a car shop, or car accessory store and I will find my friends. We were proud of our cars, not because of the kind of car we had, but because of the results of the work we put in our cars. In fact during that time, everybody my age had the same dream car, which would be a 1972 Toyota Corolla Sprinter.

Kids today have a lot less passion for cars. My nephew and many other kids out there are not looking for cars that they can work on as their first cars. They want a car the works and is reliable. They have no clue on how an internal combustion engine works. Upgrading the performance of the car does not matter: how the car looks is the most important thing.

The newer the model, the better for them. As much as possible, the new generation car guys do not want to get their hands dirty and greasy. They are more busy working on their phones than on their cars.

What then would be an ideal first car for the new millennials?

It is always wise to have a used car as a first car. Used, because used cars now are a lot cheaper than brand new. A first car is the car where you learn everything and it is always wise for a beginner to learn in the cheapest possible option available.

Not more than five years old. Millennials are conscious on how they look, and a big part of this is what car they drive. A car more or less gets outdated after 10 years, so a five-year-old or younger car is still in style.

Reliable. The new generation motorists are not as Do-It-Yourself as the older generation, thus, an ideal car for them is one that keeps on going. Reliability is always attached to the make and model of the car. Information on which cars break down the least can easily be found on the internet, thus, cars with long-term good reviews should be on top of the priority list.