Date:         Tue, 5 Jun 2001 10:54:32 EDT
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      Comparison Shopping for Cars (Volkswagen content)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

My friend is a long distance daily driver (commutes three hours or more every
day each way to work and back!).  I have grown weary of fixing his 15 year
old Hondas every weekend so I am trying to talk him into buying a new car
with a warranty plan, etc.
So last night I spent a few hours at www.autobytel.com.  I went there
thinking that there was no way that my friend could afford a VW since they
were higher priced than the other cars in their class and for no good reason.
 So I checked out Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and just for the heck of
it, Jetta and Golf as well.  What I found was very surprising to me.  The
Hyundai, which is the cheapest cars to buy, actually worked out to be almost
identical to the Jetta and Golf (the Elantra was more expensive) to buy and
own for five years!  The Toyota Corrola (the most boring car ever concieved
by mankind) was similarly expensive and on par with the Jetta or Golf when
you added little things like Air Conditioning, and Power Steering (Hello
automakers, these are no longer options!).

The only two cars I found that seemed cheaper and a good value to buy over
the Jetta or Golf were the Nissan Sentra and the Honda Civic.  Both were
rated very high, they got good fuel mileage and came with a lot of standard
equipment.  However the make or break it might be in the warranty.  I know
VWs 100k mile drive train warranty is good, but I don't know what kind of
warranty Honda or Nissan offer.  The Jetta and Golf I looked at were the TDI
model and got 49 mpg highway burning the now cheaper diesel fuel, so
factoring this in the Jetta and Golf may still come out cheaper in the long
haul than the other two.

Conclusion, even though I went into this research with the bias opinion
against the VWs, I was so impressed by the price and option comparison that
now I am leaning heavily in that direction for my friend.  Any input from TDI
Jetta or Golf owners is welcome.

Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com
Phone: (856)-765-1583
Fax: (856)-327-2242

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