My 18 year old drives a brand new Prius. How wrong is that?

there is something to be said for earning things.

 

I resemble this post except mine was 1963 VW beetle that I bought from my sister at a highly discounted value of $150. It sat in our yard for a year because I was too young to get a license but I was very good at backing it up and pulling it forward.

I gave it a licking but it kept on ticking. I next bought a 1968 Beetle. man you couldn't tear them up. I tried but it was my money so I knew the value and I paid my own insurance, gas, repairs, and customizations.

Me getting a new car at that age would have been bad. PS, in OK you can get a license at the age of 14 for a motorcycle if it's 90cc and under. I rode a Honda 90 scrambler for two years before I drove the VW and was heavy into flat track and motocross which probably didn't help, but hey you can only do so much on a 90cc Honda right? You'd be surprised . . . I could make the same comment about the VW but that's another story.

 

1 Sounds like you still have ill feelings toward your ex, which you seem to carry over to your son. Geez, he used your water and supplies to wash his new car? Did you expect him to pay you for the supplies he used? You're PO'd that he ate dinner with his dad? What kind of relationship do you have with your son? I would think you would be pleased he wanted to have dinner with his father, but seemingly you aren't.

2 As long as you are not paying for the car OR the insurance OR the gas (what do YOU pay for in the way of child support), then you have no say in the matter.

3 I bought my 16 yr old daughter a new VW Beetle about 6 months after she got her drivers license back in 2004. She deserved it. She is an outstanding person, a great student who works very hard for her grades and has been on the dean's list EVERY quarter at a major university and has done volunteer work every summer. I look up to her and admire her as someone who will contribute greatly to our society when she graduates from college next spring.

Does that make me (or her) a bad person? I hope not.

When she had one small accident (hit one of those brick mailboxes backing out of a friend's driveway), she paid to repair the damage to her vehicle.

4 Back in 1971, as a graduation present from high school at age 17, my parents gave me their 5 year old 1966 Mustang (oooh, what a classic that was). Was I over indulged then? I hope not, since I turned out just fine. I bought my next car myself (paid cash for it and yes it was a new car), have always worked and have been a dentist for 30 years. I turned out okay and was never considered a spoiled brat.

5 Each child is different. Some are more responsible than others. I would suggest you repair the ill feelings you have toward your son and your ex. You might feel better in the long run.

 

Hm. I'm 18 and I have/drive a 2010 Prius, as well as a 2009 Rav4. Neither my parents bought me either vehicle, I haven't lived with them since I was 16, so.

 

People automatically equate old with unsafe, and thats just not true. Modern safety equipment has been around for 20 years, you can buy MANY 5-10 year old cars that are VERY, VERY safe.

This is precisely what I said, it depends on the kid.

However, I think giving an 18 year old man a vehicle to start his life off right is a whole lot different than giving a 16 year old a RWD V8 scream machine like that. Under no circumstances would I give my child a vehicle like you were given...I know enough about driving skill of new drivers and how difficult a car like that can be to handle in emergency situations to know that is a recipe for death. I personally knew several people who were killed in a brand new high powered RWD BMW that was given to one of them new because they overcorrected one night and did not know how to handle the unpredictability of that specific type of vehicle. Totally irresponsible to give a kid a car like that...

My best friend growing up flipped his brand new RWD BMW and totaled it because he overcorrected and wasn't prepared for the oversteer of the high powered RWD car. In either of those situations had they been in a FWD Corolla those accidents very well may have avoided because the understeering tendencies of a front heavy FWD car are so much more predictable.

You say the OP is playing games with his child's safety by thinking a 5 year old Corolla would be a good car? Your parents were almost playing russian roulette with you. Sick.

 

This thread.....wow

 

First you agree it depends on the kid, then you appeared to contradict yourself with the above statement. Giving a 5-year-old (or any age for that matter) Corolla to an irresponsible teen is more dangerous than providing a high powered RWD V8 to a highly responsible 16-year-old (although I'm in no way implying that the OP's son is irresponsible, and a 5-year-old Corolla is hardly "a really old one.")

 

Regardless of whether or not this could be considered "spoiling", what an incredibly irresponsible parenting decision. No 16 year old should be entrusted with a car like that.

 

Really? C'mon. His entire post was OBVIOUSLY in jest. If I were his son I'd laugh this off for exactly what it is. And yes, I'd buy myself a $30K new car and give my son a really old corolla. He can earn his own $30K car when the time comes.

 

It's really too bad that certain adults (especially those who were irresponsible at 16 years of age) cannot comprehend how some 16-year-old kids can be responsible enough to be trusted with such a car.

 

OK, I've read the entire thread now, and LOL at everyone who took the OP as serious animosity. People must tread very lightly around here, lol...

 

Regardless of how responsible a person is, or even how responsible a parent perceives a 16 year old to be, that's just too much car for an inexperienced driver to be driving.

 

Unless pushed, a high powered RWD V8 drives like a regular car and that's called self-control. Too much drag racing clouded your perception?

 

I've only ever drag raced on the track, and a high powered RWD car does NOT drive like any other car, self-control or not. You asked earlier if someone thought you were spoiled. Your lofty attitude crafts my opinion on the topic, which I will keep to myself.

Ignore button...

 

LOL, you act as if it's impossible to drive it like a Grandma. My RX350 has 45 more horsepower than my 225 hp Mustang did. You still sure you've not forgotten with your 500 rwhp toy?

 

He'll be disappointed if he does....

Irresponsible kids + high-powered cars = you're asking for trouble.
I will post this again:
The Short, Deadly Story of a Kid and his M5
Airstrip Crash- Florida- 5 killed - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

I have to agree with this - it's a LOT easier to get yourself into a bad situation in an 420hp E92 M3 than in a 140hp Civic LX. This goes double/triple/quadruple in the past before stability control and traction control systems matured.

All that said, I went to High School (less than 10 years ago) with more than a few kids whose parents bought them new BMWs. One girl had a new Mustang Cobra (Wth?). A $30k Prius is nothing.

 

No, it depends on the kid whether giving them something nice will spoil them or not. It does not depend on the kid when it comes to a dangerously overpowered RWD sportscar. My issue with that is a qustion of safety.

That is just utterly, UTTERLY untrue. Put that 5.0 Mustang into a freeway onramp on a rainy night right around freezing and give it some gas and do the same thing in a FWD sedan like a Corolla and tell me they drive "exactly the same". They don't. The 5.0 Mustang is prone to oversteer in that situation, the Corolla is prone to understeer. Understeer is much easier for a novice driver to control than oversteer.

If you don't understand what I am talking about then you need to take some advanced driving courses...or just use Google...but in either event if you don't recognize that you don't really know what you are talking about.

Has nothing to do with being a good kid or not, it has everything to do with being an inexperienced driver.

 

The 1990 225 hp Mustang 5.0 is hardly dangerously overpowered.

No, you don't drive them exactly the same in order to get them to drive the same. You give the Mustang far less gas and that's called self-control (and it becomes experience). Granted, I learned to stick-shift on this very Mustang and I've had friends who drove and accelerated it way too fast because they gave it too much gas (because they were used to other cars). My point is even a 16-year-old CAN learn to control it. No stupid spin-outs or accident in my case. No advanced driving course necessary either.

 

If you really knew what you were talking about you would know that it is not horsepower, but torque that drives initial acceleration and breaks tires loose from pavement. No that 5.0 Mustang may not have had HP and torque numbers like what we have today, but it also was geared for low-end power and did not have an LSD. That was a very powerful car. You compare it to your RX350 by asserting that the RX350 is more powerful. It may have more horsepower but sit at a stop and stomp the gas in both. What happens? The Mustang peels out. The RX might chirp the tires, but probably not. They are just completely incomparable vehicles.

Yes, a 16 year old can learn to control it...but it is dangerous to give a 16 year old a car like that until they have already learned to control it. Its not a good "learning car".

I have been trained to and have driven cars on tracks, I've driven FWD and RWD skid cars in different situations as part of advanced driver training, I am more than qualified to tell you that you are wrong. The two cars NEVER will drive the same by the virtue that they are very different cars. Powerful RWD cars have no business being in the hands of new drivers. Thats a fact. Driving down the street in a straight line they are the same, but in a curve or emergency maneuver they are completely different, even when being driven slowly and safely. Simple physics will tell you that.

Just because you were lucky and were never in a situation where your inexperience handling such a serious car put you in over your head doesn't change the reality of the danger. I've never been mugged, but that doesn't mean I'm going to walk through the ghetto thumbing through a stack of $100 bills. You don't hear stories about kids losing control of sedate, FWD economy sedans...why do you think that is?

 

Point taken, but keep in mind we wouldn't be having this conversation if we were discussing a lowly 86 hp Mustang LX, also a RWD that many parents did not hesitate to purchase for their kids for the value.