5 ms·

I'm looking to buy a new car. How do you measure goodness of a model of car objectively?

bovermyer 9y ago
There are way too many factors for there to be any single objective way to measure quality of a vehicle. Personally, I look for an aggressive appearance, good utility in bad weather, and (now) plenty of cargo space. I'm less concerned about safety and reliability, though obviously I don't want to be driving a deathtrap with loads of maintenance costs. To sanity-check the latter, I look at https://www.carcomplaints.com/ https://www.carcomplaints.com/ .
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, what drives the "plenty of cargo space" requirement? We're a family with three kids and bought a 6-seat Mazda 5 this year as our only car, on the theory that it has almost no trunk space, but mostly we're just bombing around town doing grocery runs anyway. In cases of cargo moving (dump dropoff, IKEA pickup, Home Depot), it's typically adult-only trips, so it's really just vacation that's the case where we need a full load of both passengers and cargo. Since vacation is only a few times a year, we figured we'd optimize for the common case and plan to rent a larger van for those instances if necessary, or look at other alternatives, such as a roof box, trailer, whatever.
  - bovermyer 9y ago
    For my fiancée and me, we need cargo space for two primary use cases: 1. short-distance hauling of large objects and/or numerous objects, and 2. road trips. It's the frequency of both that encourages the purchase of a large vehicle rather than the rental of one.
pwaai 9y ago
I'd say for new folks I highly recommend Doug Demuro's youtube channel. Unlike other car reviews that focus on the high end market, I like how he still focuses on extreme details around ergonomics to performance and look. It's the only rating system where I trust. If you are look for value go with a Hyundai. And I'm not saying this because I'm Korean (or the fact that my birth city is known as Republic of Hyundai due to their reach into every economic sector) but it just doesn't make sense to pay for a Toyota or Honda badge when all the stuff Hyundai gives you included with base costs extra at other dealership. Especially now with the release of i30N (possibly coming to N.A.), built by the guys who brought you Audi and Lamborghini cars (basically an Audi), it's hard to shrug off Hyundai for the extra options and value they include for the base price of competitors. TLDR: You want to go from A to Z for the best bang for your buck. Having said that, stay away from KIAs if possible. No Korean I know will ever defend it.
- ilikepi 9y ago
  > I'd say for new folks I highly recommend Doug Demuro's youtube channel. Unlike other car reviews that focus on the high end market, I like how he still focuses on extreme details around ergonomics to performance and look. Are you talking about this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqjHFMB_JYTaEnf_vmTNqg/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqjHFMB_JYTaEnf_vmTNqg/vid... I'm guessing not, since it seems to be almost entirely focused on the high end market. Does he have another channel or something? What am I missing? My preferred channels are Alex on Autos[1] and sometimes saabkyle04[2]... [1]: https://www.youtube.com/user/TTACVideo/ https://www.youtube.com/user/TTACVideo/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/user/saabkyle04/ https://www.youtube.com/user/saabkyle04/
munchbunny 9y ago
You can't really measure it objectively because your reason for buying a car won't be someone else's reason. The most important question is "what are you using the car for?" Most people don't need a car that's fun to drive, they need a car that is safe, reliable, seats X number of people (depending on family size, carpooling, etc.) gets them and their stuff from point A to point B consistently (differs if you ski, or are a contractor, etc.), and does it at a minimum annual cost once maintenance, gas, insurance, etc. are factored in. If you drive for fun or race, then reliability isn't your biggest concern, and you probably don't care whether it has more than two seats or any semblance of trunk space. You're going to care mainly about performance metrics. And then there's aesthetics - which again depends on how much you care about those things.
hutzlibu 9y ago
You don't. It is subjective, to your personal use-case.
- dj-wonk 9y ago
  The choice of values (what to measure) certainly has many subjective components. That said, a good chunk of people tend to value (to some degree or another): cost of ownership, reliability, fuel economy, performance, appearance, seating/cargo capacity, and resale value. Many of these criteria can be measured, more-or-less, in objective ways. Some criteria tend to vary more across individuals (such as appearance or driver "feel"). I mention this because if a person states their preferences across the attributes they value in a vehicle, it is quite feasible to have a detailed (if not "objective" then at least a rather neutral-point-of-view) discussion about the matching set of vehicles and what they offer across the dimensions.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

There are way too many factors for there to be any single objective way to measure quality of a vehicle. Personally, I look for an aggressive appearance, good utility in bad weather, and (now) plenty of cargo space. I'm less concerned about safety and reliability, though obviously I don't want to be driving a deathtrap with loads of maintenance costs. To sanity-check the latter, I look at https://www.carcomplaints.com/ https://www.carcomplaints.com/ .

mikepurvis 9y ago
Out of curiosity, what drives the "plenty of cargo space" requirement? We're a family with three kids and bought a 6-seat Mazda 5 this year as our only car, on the theory that it has almost no trunk space, but mostly we're just bombing around town doing grocery runs anyway. In cases of cargo moving (dump dropoff, IKEA pickup, Home Depot), it's typically adult-only trips, so it's really just vacation that's the case where we need a full load of both passengers and cargo. Since vacation is only a few times a year, we figured we'd optimize for the common case and plan to rent a larger van for those instances if necessary, or look at other alternatives, such as a roof box, trailer, whatever.
- bovermyer 9y ago
  For my fiancée and me, we need cargo space for two primary use cases: 1. short-distance hauling of large objects and/or numerous objects, and 2. road trips. It's the frequency of both that encourages the purchase of a large vehicle rather than the rental of one.

pwaai 9y ago

I'd say for new folks I highly recommend Doug Demuro's youtube channel. Unlike other car reviews that focus on the high end market, I like how he still focuses on extreme details around ergonomics to performance and look. It's the only rating system where I trust. If you are look for value go with a Hyundai. And I'm not saying this because I'm Korean (or the fact that my birth city is known as Republic of Hyundai due to their reach into every economic sector) but it just doesn't make sense to pay for a Toyota or Honda badge when all the stuff Hyundai gives you included with base costs extra at other dealership. Especially now with the release of i30N (possibly coming to N.A.), built by the guys who brought you Audi and Lamborghini cars (basically an Audi), it's hard to shrug off Hyundai for the extra options and value they include for the base price of competitors. TLDR: You want to go from A to Z for the best bang for your buck. Having said that, stay away from KIAs if possible. No Korean I know will ever defend it.

ilikepi 9y ago
> I'd say for new folks I highly recommend Doug Demuro's youtube channel. Unlike other car reviews that focus on the high end market, I like how he still focuses on extreme details around ergonomics to performance and look. Are you talking about this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqjHFMB_JYTaEnf_vmTNqg/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqjHFMB_JYTaEnf_vmTNqg/vid... I'm guessing not, since it seems to be almost entirely focused on the high end market. Does he have another channel or something? What am I missing? My preferred channels are Alex on Autos[1] and sometimes saabkyle04[2]... [1]: https://www.youtube.com/user/TTACVideo/ https://www.youtube.com/user/TTACVideo/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/user/saabkyle04/ https://www.youtube.com/user/saabkyle04/

munchbunny 9y ago

You can't really measure it objectively because your reason for buying a car won't be someone else's reason. The most important question is "what are you using the car for?" Most people don't need a car that's fun to drive, they need a car that is safe, reliable, seats X number of people (depending on family size, carpooling, etc.) gets them and their stuff from point A to point B consistently (differs if you ski, or are a contractor, etc.), and does it at a minimum annual cost once maintenance, gas, insurance, etc. are factored in. If you drive for fun or race, then reliability isn't your biggest concern, and you probably don't care whether it has more than two seats or any semblance of trunk space. You're going to care mainly about performance metrics. And then there's aesthetics - which again depends on how much you care about those things.

hutzlibu 9y ago

You don't. It is subjective, to your personal use-case.

dj-wonk 9y ago
The choice of values (what to measure) certainly has many subjective components. That said, a good chunk of people tend to value (to some degree or another): cost of ownership, reliability, fuel economy, performance, appearance, seating/cargo capacity, and resale value. Many of these criteria can be measured, more-or-less, in objective ways. Some criteria tend to vary more across individuals (such as appearance or driver "feel"). I mention this because if a person states their preferences across the attributes they value in a vehicle, it is quite feasible to have a detailed (if not "objective" then at least a rather neutral-point-of-view) discussion about the matching set of vehicles and what they offer across the dimensions.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]