Holy crap. When I was younger, the rates were a little better

 

Personally I think the 8 is a great value..

 

well lets see here, rates stay the same for about 3 years. at 300 a month. Your looking at paying as much in insurance, as you do for the car in 3 years time lol. What a scam.

my friend carl paid as much in insurance as he did for his kids car in 11 months.

 

$108k for 3 years insurance??? Dayyy-ummm!!! Why's your insurance so high??? LMAO!

 

thats what i was quoted i live in canada

 

I cant believe the insurance costs for kids even though they are higher risk. I pay around $480 now but when i was a kid, the majority of my money was going towards insurance.

 

I meant 300 a month arg lol. I just saw the forbes 10 best and worst places for car ownership and in the proper order:

top ten best: south carolina, nebraska, missouri, north dakota, mississippi, texas, kansas, new hampshire, wyoming, (tennesse and arizona tied for 10th)

top ten worst: california, illinois, new york, michigan, alaska, maryland, conneticut, rhode island, louisianna, washington.

 

Wow. Haha, that is rediculous!

 

Heh. All my life I have lived in states in the ten worst. About to move to the 10th best. Should be a refreshing change.

 

Jesus, you guys get owned on insurance.

To the OP's question:

S2000 is the closest, but you want more than 2 seats..
Acura RSX.. front wheel drive but a FUN front wheel drive
240SX, as recent as possible.. they're all quite old though
An older 3-series beemer? How old does it have to be to cost 10k though..
IS300 as already stated, very good cars
Scooby WRX as stated.

I'd go with an RSX, IS300 or WRX.. test drive those and decide (and check your insurance :S)

 

Look for a 1997 BMW 318Ti. My wife has one that we paid $7000 for. It has pretty much the same suspension set up as a Z3 but has 4 seats. We average about 30mpg and it handles great with decent tires on it. It is rear wheel drive too. Insurance lists it as a subcompact.

 

#4 thats right....

too bad my car has been keyed, chalked, and egged.... wonder what happens in the states that are the worst lol.

 

Check out a used Mazda3. Mine was great, until the engine died at about 191,000 miles and 6 years. I had it heavily modified, but even without all the stuff I did, it was a great car to drive. Certainly more so than an awful Corolla. In Winning Blue, I got constant compliments on how it looked, too.

http://www.mattharrell.net/personal/mazda3.html

 

My alternative was to buy a 3 series BMW. Good choice and reliable with good gas mileage.

 

I see a lot of mention about vehicles that are still sports-cars (s2000), sport-sedans (Imprezza, GTI), luxury sedans (Lexus, BMW), imports (many imports are higher insurance), or vehicles with high-priced parts/repairs (Again, Lexus, BMW, GTI). IMHO, These don't seem practical for a new driver...

 

I say he gets a mazda 626, maybe a 98 model or so. heres a list for you.

http://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchr...Id=2102&rd=100

 

Get something cheap and crappy, you will trash it anyway. Everyone really wants a cool car when they get their license, but it's not practical considering the lack of spare cash at that age, the abuse it will take, taking it to college, etc... Save your money for beer and pizza. Get a 4 door you can stuff people into.

I would find something with really low resale value but good reputation for reliability. The domestics are good for that. Get a manual if you can, it's good training for later.

 

Sorry I have not been active on the forum, but thank you all again. I am taking all your reccomendations into consideration and it will help greatly. I am still searching for a car that will suit me well, but I feel I still need driving experience and to drive a vast array of cars before I can make any hasty decisions.

And thank you to those also who reccomend I get a beater car as my family members reccomend that as well. My taste may change for something not as fancy or sporty and I might even probably get one at the end and it will result in me having a lot of cash for college and other activites and items to splurge on, and or save.

Thanks to all, once again,

Jared

 

Jared
To give you a semi recent personal experience. I am 22 now. At 17 my first true car was a 92 acura integra gsr. A year of insurance was 4300 after 1 ticket. Many cars later and at 22 with 1 accident my fault and 1 not my fault full coverage insurance on my rx8 is still close to 4000 a year. So getting this car as your first your gonna be so damn tempted to speed. All I can say is find an autocross event or some road courses to go get the speed out there or your insurance will be crazy. They are affordable and an experience that you don't want to miss.

 

You seem to be an above average teenager. Good luck with what you end up with, and I think I speak for most of us when I say that when you end up finding your way back to the RX-8 community, you will be a welcome member

 

wow, what insurance companies are you people going through?! at 16 my insurance was $42 a month on a 2000 hyundai elantra m/t. then at 19 i bought a 2010 mitsubishi lancer, full coverage i was paying $98 a month. then i traded that in because i was craving MORE!so thats why i got the rx8. about 2 months ago, full coverage im paying $87 a month, im 20 years old and i am insured through state farm.

anyways, i would suggest looking into one of the newer 2008+ mitsubishi lancers, i loved mine, great on gas, with minor upgrades it can have great handling and was pretty quick for a NA 2.0l. going through highschool and college so far, having a 4 door is the only way to go, i was always toting my friends around. having the rx8 then would have been awesome but it would have been very impractical. reall in the end, ask yourself "what is the most practical choice?" subconsiously you will make the right choice. hope i helped!

matt

 

9k your state doesn't require as high a coverage as ours do. Look at what the state min coverage is. some places like when I was in cali on base they required at least 30k coverage minimum to register on base.

 

^ gotcha, i was mainly adding the statement about illinois because of the list of "worst states" to be insured in.

here was my mitsubishi lancer, bought mine brand new for $15,500 and with a little bit of extra money thrown at it, it can look like an awesome car.




sorry to hijac the thread, just giving you my .02, i havent got any pictures of only the car, i was originally taking those pictures of my motorcycle but hope this helps you some.

otherwise if you're still interested in the small coupe scene, you could always look into a 2004-2006 mustang, the v6 are super cheap and reletively low miles, insurance isnt to bad either (when i looked) for a GT they were like $80 a month,

 

Thank you! I really appreciate it, and I hope I will find my way back here. It's a great community, and a great car! I got some more driving lessons monday with my crazy, 60 something year old driving instructor. He talks about 100mph, and is extreamly rude when you don't remember what he said. I hope it goes well and adds on to my experience with driving.

PS: The cars the Driving School provides are Toyota Corollas, and I don't know if it's because my instructor wouldn't let me go pass 55, but those cars are slow!

Haha, and as for the person that said something about mustangs 04-06, I love 05- and on. I feel like the 04's and below just look like normal boring cars but the 05 they really updated the look and made it more full, plus their pretty cheap for teens too. Still, I will wait and follow my previous plan, thanks!

Jared

 

corollas are one of the most stolen cars on the road just an fyi