I'm 17 and looking at a first car. I had been looking at a 2007 model Volvo S40 but there's a problem: I may be moving soon.
I live in Mississippi, but my dad lost his job back in February, and we may be moving as far away as Colorado. If we move that far away, my parents stated that we'd just get settled in there (my dad would be driving his Hyundai Sonata over there and me and my mom would fly) and so he told me to look for used cars for sale in the area and he doesn't want to purchase anything over around $5k, and so I had found a 2009 Volkswagen Jetta. The thing is, I've heard that Volkswagens are unreliable cars and my family has already had to deal with enough headaches owning Ford and GM cars that much of my family has started buying Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, and, as aforementioned with my dad's case, Hyundais. The thing is also, my mom wants me driving a very safe car (which explains why I had been looking at a Volvo for sale here) and the Jetta has good crash test scores, but its reliability doesn't look good based on the Consumer Reports ratings. I'm going to be a senior in high school and I'm not only driving this car for that, but for all four years of college, so can anyone tell me how long this kind of car would last? The one for sale in Colorado Springs had around 114k miles, and I'd probably drive to over 200k…