Choose Your Teens First Car with These 3 Tips

 

Image credit

When it comes to buying your teen their first car, there are many things you need to consider to make the right choice. After all, as a new driver, it's highly likely they aren't aware of the intricacies of owning a vehicle or the type of vehicle they need to be looking at to gain experience on the road. This isn't a bad thing; this type of knowledge can only come from building up time on the road and becoming more familiar with cars, vans, or trucks as they rack up the miles, building confidence and valuable experience driving.

As a parent, your role in guiding your teen through the process of finding the right car is not just important; it's empowering. You have the power to steer them towards a safe and financially sound decision, ensuring their safety and well-being on the road.

Set Your Budget

It doesn’t matter if you or your teen are financing the purchase. A budget needs to be set for the initial purchase of the vehicle, the ongoing care and maintenance of it, and the cost of insurance coverage. Know how much you can afford to spend on repayments if you're not buying it outright and how much it will cost to fuel it and run it on a daily basis. This can help you to reduce your choices and give you a better idea of the type of vehicle you can choose. Heading to an experienced dealership such as citroen can help you find the right car for your teen in your budget.

Safety Features

It might seem like a rite of passage these days for your teen to hit the road in a beat-up used motor, and while this notion of learning to drive without the modern luxuries of newer vehicles can often be romanticized, it's isn't always safe or practical especially if they need it to get to school or work. You need a car that is going to help protect them on the road and has a good safety record. There are some makes and models that are renowned for their outstanding safety features, and these can be excellent choices for your teens' first cars. For example, audits have exceptional safety records for those with a larger budget. At the same time, the Volvo S90 and the Mazda3 are also ranked highly for safety features, such as the Hyundai, Subarus, and Toyotas.

Power

While feeling the horsepower under your feet can be exhilarating on the road when you open it up, for your teen, more power means more responsibility and a higher risk of accidents as they learn to drive alone on the roads. For many parents, choosing a car with a lower output can be preferable to help reduce the number of speeding-related accidents and ensure that your teen is safer on the roads. As they build up real-life driving experience, they can progress to a more powerful engine; however, in the first instance, for their first car, it would be a good idea to look at cards with smaller engines first.

Choosing your teens' first car is a big responsibility. You want them to have the freedom to go where they need to, yet be sensible and safe on the road. These tips can help you do just that.