What I bought my daughter

[dodge man]

I've posted a couple of times on vehicles I was thinking about buying my daughter. She is 15 and it will be her first car. We at first were looking at Linclon LS's, and then a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We ended up with a Chevy Impala LT, a 2008, a 3.5 V6, 95,000 miles. Its red, has some kind of package that includes leather, sun roof, and a rear spoiler. It has decent tires, and the leather seat on the drivers side shows just very slight wear, and the inside is almost perfect. The outside has a few chips, but no dents or dings.

The bad part. The front speakers were out, which I knew before we bought it, and the rear door lock in back was out, which I didn't know. I bought it as is. I would have let the door lock slide, but the manual button is at the back of the door, so you can't reach it from the front seat. The door lock actuator cost $200 and it took me 2 hours to put it, but it seemed like 8 hours. It was a nightmare to install, but I probably saved $200 doing it myself.

The front speakers is where all the sound for turn signal clickers come from and all the door chimes, so I replaced those for $50.

All and all I'm hoping its a good car for her. We've had it about 2 weeks, and it appears it will get about 20 to 22 mpg the places she will drive.

[Dmace]

You know what's funny, both of the Impalas in our fleet (07 & 08) have non-working power door locks and both are the driver side rear door, other doors are fine. Something like that never gets used as these cars are just personal transportation for one person. Both have V6's though and get 25-28 mpg. Good cars!

[dodge man]

When we got the car, it was set up to lock and unlock all the doors automatically. I switched it to do just the drivers door. Think about how many times the doors will lock and unlock on a single trip. You unlock the doors to get in the car, the lock when you put it in park, they unlock when you get where you are going, they lock when you walk away and hit the button etc. This ends up being 8 times for a single trip somewhere and coming back home. You can easily see, depending on how the car is used, this being several thousand times a year. Most vehicles thats not a problem, but reading on the Impala forums, this is a common failure. If you lived closer I'd help you fix it, I can probably do one in an hour now.

Btw it was the drivers side rear on my car that had the bad power door lock.

[case245]

they were good car in 1996 on back in my book i had a few in high school i dont know bout the wrong wheel drive cars (FWD)

[k0ua]

Dodge Man another thing to look for is the HVAC doors. One went out on our 2006. Fortunately it was the easy one to fix behind the glove box. They are electrically actuated, and the gears strip out of the actuator. Batteries are hard to get in and out of the engine compartment by my way of thinking. Other than that it has been a pretty good car.. will get near 29 MPG on the highway.

James K0UA

[stuckmotor]

We've never had a sun roof that didn't eventually leak. I hope your luck is better.

[davehowell]

Not answering what is right for your daughter,, but I wish I had a dad like you when I was learning to drive. But being a dad who has asked himself this question every time the next child turned sixteen, I was struck by a series of articles from an editor of a major car magazine who bought his son a mustang/camaro/firebird class car on his sixteenth birthday, and the child was dead in a week.

He (tragically) asked, what is the safest car for your children to drive when they are just learning. His research told him that it was not the car, but the number of seats in a car that mattered. The accident rate was very closely linked to how many kids were in the car. His conclusion: the safest and best car to learn to drive was a small 2wd pickup that would only hold one other kid, and the light rear end would teach a lot of lessons about driving. For what it worth, that is what I always got for my kids. Maybe useful to some......Dave

[Diamondpilot]

I rent a lot of them. I get a couple a month. Also get a lot of Malibu's. Noting fancy and getting pretty dated but ride nice and give you a lot at that price point. That 3.5 is bulletproof.

Rear struts seem to be a quick wear item but a easy fix.

Chris

[schmism]

95,000 miles in 4 years? wow.... fleet car?

and why do the turn signal and door chime come through the front speakers?

[timswi]

95,000 miles in 4 years? wow.... fleet car?

and why do the turn signal and door chime come through the front speakers?

I've been out of the car audio hobby for a while but I'm told that many of the vehicle sound effects come through the audio systems now...That's why you have to be careful with aftermarket replacements....Not sure what you drive but you may notice that the chimes etc don't sound like transistor radios anymore....Honestly I never cared enough to actually put my ear to the speakers to test this.

I can easily put 95k on my pickup in 4 years...Could be fleet or could be someone like me that lives a good distance from work....I end up replacing my trucks every 4 years or so for that reason. I used to run them to 200k..I don't do that anymore.