Looking for a $9,000 - $10,000 Vehicle AWD for a nephew going to College in Cleveland, and suggestions?

[Mainia]

Hands down a Toyota Rav4, and the first thing you do is change the rear diff fluid. 1/2 Qt.( It will be black......my pet peeve) Big enough to haul 8 foot long peices of wood but smaller then a full size truck. That will be your most reliable car with AWD. Then a Honda CRV AWD. While Subarus are nice and I owned one, I shy away from them because of their head gasket issues.

 

[c502cid]

Spend less and get him something he can use. Chevy Astro Van in AWD flavor. Reliable, easy to maintain, huge cargo area for his woodworking.

 

[Snagglefoot]

We’re talking about a truck right? AWD is usually used to describe a full time 4 wheel drive in a car or SUV. What you want is a 4WD pickup.

May I suggest a 4WD Ford Ranger. Totally common. After purchasing, have all the drive train fluids changed ; front diff, transmission, transfer case and rear diff. It’s an awesome truck. Even cooler is a step side box. When my son went to college bought him a used F-150 short box 4WD. He’s been driving pickups ever since.

 

[doublebase]

I’ve driven on all 4 (FWD, RWD, AWD, 4WD). They are pretty much the same, as some skill is needed to drive all of the above. Will the last two on my list help? Sure they could. But both snow or good all seasons tires will help too. I’ve still seen too many AWD/4WD stuff on the side of the road because of too much confidence or too little skill.

My Cobalt does just fine in snow/light ice with a good set of Goodyears/Coopers/Michelin tires on it.....

But they're not “pretty much the same”. Your driving skills and my driving skills, or someone else’s driving skills are really what you’re referring to. And I get that. Ive driven in snow, winter, ice, slush, freezing rain, blizzards...all of my life. It’s all I know from November till April since the day I got my license 32 years ago. I’m very “good” at it. I can drive through almost anything - as I’m sure you can too - but an AWD vehicle or a 4WD vehicle is not the same as a RWD vehicle or even a FWD vehicle, they are better, much better. Tires or not, they are better. Throw the same tires on the 4WD vehicle as the vehicle with RWD and it’s no comparison.

And I know there are people that think they can drive an AWD vehicle like a maniac through a snow storm and end up on the side of the road. It’s not because of the vehicle it’s because of them. If they were in a RWD vehicle doing that they wouldn’t be on the side of the road...they’d be in a tree or never would have made it out of their driveway.

 

[Tahoe4Life]

I bought a RWD car and it does just fine here in Central Indiana, sure you have to go slow on the side streets but I'd have to do that regardless because 4WD doesn't really do crap on ice. I also noticed one advantage to RWD here, is that the city often doesn't clean the side streets and I see FWD cars get stuck turning off the clean main drag on to side streets and I don't have that problem because the front tires get pushed into the snow and pack it down and the rear tires can easily go over the compacted snow tracks left by the front tires.

All my RWD [Crown Vic,Town Car,Caprice and 2 wheel drive Tahoe's] did well in the snow when I had to commute from NYC to upstate N.Y Via Palisade Parkway. My friends son bought a RWD PPV 2012 Tahoe for 9K bucks and it does very well in the snow in New Jersey.

 

[Astro14]

For low insurance, drivability, ease of parking, handling, and fuel economy while still having enough room for his woodworking hobby, he needs a station wagon.

With winter tires.

Something like this:

2010 Volvo XC70 - VIN: YV4982BZ5A1090097

This 2010 Volvo XC70 is in stock and for sale in Durham, NC. View photos and learn more about this 2010 Volvo XC70 on Edmunds.

www.edmunds.com

 

[ARCOgraphite]

My nephew is going to be going away from home in Pittsburgh PA to attending college in Cleveland and he and his parents have a budget of 9K to 10K for a vehicle for him.

He only has one year of driving experience, but not accidents and no tickets. Besides school, he is a natural when it comes to carpentry, and spends much of his spare time working with a professional carpenter on various housing projects, and also building things of wood in his own home shop ....

What ever he gets we will give it a good once over to make it as reliable as we can before he leaves for school.

Reliability, safety, and low cost of ownership are some of the top priorities.

Also like his father and uncles, he is tall. So some of the smaller vehicles may be ruled out just because tall people do not fit in them well.

So what are your suggestions of vehicles to look at?
...
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I just sold a 2011 Outback loaded. Great, car bad engine. Plus it was a stick. Got burnt with that one.

Maybe an Equinox with some miles on it? No experience there but guys at work are happy.
Dont go anywhere near a Compass. It's a Garbage pile of parts.

I would NOT Rule out a 20112 -2014 Nissan Rogue Select.
They are typically priced well in comparison to inferior other brands.
The CVT is fine with and early CVT fluid dump then regular fluid changes with Valvoline CVT fluid (NOT Nissan fluid)..
VERY solid, comfortable vehicle - likely best in class in my experience .
I Owned one for many years.
And I have hundreds of hours inside Foresters and Ford Escapes and Crosstreks.

- Ken

 

[Rmay635703]

You can get a 2020 FWD Chevy Trax brand new $9995 if you do a little searching and negotiating

 

[spasm3]

What about looking for a mazda tribute/ford escape with lower mileage? There are some on auto trader in the 50-70kmiles range. I had and escape, first year model i put 175k on it. 4wd worked well.

Here is one about 200 miles from you , no pics but 59k miles.

Autotrader - page unavailable

 

[ARCOgraphite]

You can get a 2020 FWD Chevy Trax brand new $9995 if you do a little searching and negotiating

No way!
Nothing new other than maybe a Mirage is really sold for that money. A Chevy Daihatsu Spark will cost 12K out the door.
Link to dealer if you have it please.

I bought my new 2021 FORD Ecosport for about $16,500 out the door with no trade dollars but thats full time AWD and 2 litre 166HP mazda miata engine and a 6 speed autobox. Dealing with touchy steering and severe (drivetrain?) vibration over 50MPH but only 724 miles on it. Made in India by Mahindra Tractors, no REALLY !

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Spend less and get him something he can use. Chevy Astro Van in AWD flavor. Reliable, easy to maintain, huge cargo area for his woodworking.

He won't be wood working in college. An does he really need a car on campus? Can always get a ride.

 

[CKN]

He won't be wood working in college. An does he really need a car on campus? Can always get a ride.

This is BITOG. Safety/crash tests are secondary to how cheap you can acquire and change the oil on the vehicle.......because you know everyone on here is an expert driver and would never get in an accident.

 

[daves87rs]

But they're not “pretty much the same”. Your driving skills and my driving skills, or someone else’s driving skills are really what you’re referring to. And I get that. Ive driven in snow, winter, ice, slush, freezing rain, blizzards...all of my life. It’s all I know from November till April since the day I got my license 32 years ago. I’m very “good” at it. I can drive through almost anything - as I’m sure you can too - but an AWD vehicle or a 4WD vehicle is not the same as a RWD vehicle or even a FWD vehicle, they are better, much better. Tires or not, they are better. Throw the same tires on the 4WD vehicle as the vehicle with RWD and it’s no comparison.

And I know there are people that think they can drive an AWD vehicle like a maniac through a snow storm and end up on the side of the road. It’s not because of the vehicle it’s because of them. If they were in a RWD vehicle doing that they wouldn’t be on the side of the road...they’d be in a tree or never would have made it out of their driveway.

I know, when you break them down to the basics, then yes they are not the same. And I agree. FWD is not going to get out out of the mud like 4WD (maybe AWD) can. Even though it might have been poorly explained, even in Cleveland I like to think folks could drive a normal car/truck with good set of tires. To me it seems a slight bit protective (though i get why) to have someone’s first vehicle be AWD/4WD. Driving in the winter builds character...

 

[blufeb95]

But they're not “pretty much the same”. Your driving skills and my driving skills, or someone else’s driving skills are really what you’re referring to. And I get that. Ive driven in snow, winter, ice, slush, freezing rain, blizzards...all of my life. It’s all I know from November till April since the day I got my license 32 years ago. I’m very “good” at it. I can drive through almost anything - as I’m sure you can too - but an AWD vehicle or a 4WD vehicle is not the same as a RWD vehicle or even a FWD vehicle, they are better, much better. Tires or not, they are better. Throw the same tires on the 4WD vehicle as the vehicle with RWD and it’s no comparison.

And I know there are people that think they can drive an AWD vehicle like a maniac through a snow storm and end up on the side of the road. It’s not because of the vehicle it’s because of them. If they were in a RWD vehicle doing that they wouldn’t be on the side of the road...they’d be in a tree or never would have made it out of their driveway.

I doubt it, in a rear wheel drive vehicle you'd very quickly discover you have no traction and be forced to slow down, AWD/4WD give people a false impression of traction that when they hit a slicker spot or try to turn at too high of a rate of speed and throw themselves off the road.

 

[MattPersman]

I doubt it, in a rear wheel drive vehicle you'd very quickly discover you have no traction and be forced to slow down, AWD/4WD give people a false impression of traction that when they hit a slicker spot or try to turn at too high of a rate of speed and throw themselves off the road.

Right cause they can accel reasonably well with AWD or 4wd but turning and stopping are the hard parts of winter driving

 

[AutoMechanic]

I’d look for a little truck like a Ranger or old Nissan or something. Or the Astro Van or Aerostar as mentioned above too. Anything from Toyota, Ford or Mazda should be ok.

 

[Nick1994]

FWD will do just fine in cleveland its pretty flat and they have hundreds of plows.
Getting him some top notch all-weather style tires Nokian WRG4/etc would be good.

10k isnt much for awd. it goes farther with FWD.

2013 santa fe? starts to be in that range. I'm assuming 10k is all in so 9k purchase price or so.

+1 This is my vote

 

[JimPghPA]

We’re talking about a truck right? AWD is usually used to describe a full time 4 wheel drive in a car or SUV. What you want is a 4WD pickup.

May I suggest a 4WD Ford Ranger. Totally common. After purchasing, have all the drive train fluids changed ; front diff, transmission, transfer case and rear diff. It’s an awesome truck. Even cooler is a step side box. When my son went to college bought him a used F-150 short box 4WD. He’s been driving pickups ever since.

I initially suggested a Toyota Tacoma, but they said the insurance for a young driver driving a truck, even a small one, is too high.

 

[JimPghPA]

For FWD it is looking like a Toyota Corolla would be a good choice, or a Camry.

I looked into some Subaru Outback, and only see some 2011s as the most recent year in there price range, and the ones that are local have 90K to 99K miles, are all 2.5 Liter 4 cylinder engines. Those had a timing belt that should be replaced at 105K miles. I am not familiar with how much work is involved in doing that job, or how much it would cost, but suspect it would cost about $700 at a decent shop.

My brother said that the college he is going to is about 10 miles from Lake Erie. So they expect he will see a lot of snow, even it there are a lot of plow trucks in the area.

As to him walking or driving to class every day, I texted that question to my brother and am waiting for an answer.

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I know there were some years of Subaru that the head-gaskets commonly went bad. But I do not know what years that applies to.

And I know there are some years of Subaru that can have problems with the air-conditioning. It seams that some have no problems with them, and some do have problems. But if you have a problem with them, they fail over and over again and it is expensive every time.

So what are the Subaru bad head-gasket engines and years?

And what are the Subaru bad air-conditioner models and years?

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As to tires, tire rack rates the Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 as a 9.3 for winter performance, and they rate the BF Goodrich Advantage Sport with the TPMSF symbol as a 8.9 for winter performance. So it is very close to the Blizzak in winter performance, and still a good summer tire. I have a new set of those BF Goodrich on my CR-V and they pull out on a hill in snow well, go well on snow, turn well on snow, and stop well on snow. I have not driven on ice with them yet. I put 5 K miles on them in one year, and I use to use Blizzaks every winter, these all season tire are very close to the same performance of the Blizzaks.

His mother has a set of the BF Goodrich with the TPMSF symbol on her Murano and likes the winter performance of them also. So they plan to put 4 of those on what ever he ends up with.

All-season tires with the TPMSF symbol are a big improvement in winter performance compared to previous all-season tires.

 

[earlyre]

My brother said that the college he is going to is about 10 miles from Lake Erie. So they expect he will see a lot of snow, even it there are a lot of plow trucks in the area.

As to him walking or driving to class every day, I texted that question to my brother and am waiting for an answer.

if I may make an assumption, Cleveland State?

Cleveland State is located just under the middle "e" in Cleveland in that graphic.