Where Is The Sweet Spot?
Congratulations on your new job! As regional manager for Franklin Industries you will be responsible for visiting Franklin dealers far and wide. We’re talking a good 30k to 40k miles of pure American asphalt a year.
Your salary is top notch and with a wide assortment of other benefits (free membership to the Y!) comes the ultimate shangri-la for any road warrior.
A free travel card courtesy of Mr. Franklin. Your gas and maintenance are free. Food budget is a whopping $45 a day. Entertainment is… well… the open road. However the company will fork over a healthy $500 a year for whatever gadgets you want for your road trips. Sirius or XM. Radar detector or Android phone. That decision is yours alone.
There is one down side to this transaction: your car budget. The company will only provide a $5000 budget for your future ride. You can get whatever you want within reason, and the car is yours to keep of course. However Franklin ‘s accountants, penny pinching bastards they are, expect that your car will last four years on the road. No new wheels until 2016!
So what will be your next car? You can have anything that is priced at $5000 or less at Edmunds or KBB ‘private party’ value. Oh before I forget. No exotics. No grey market. Nothing too Yugoslavian or French. You don’t want your first day of work to be with nosy accountants and your immediate boss.
More by Steven Lang
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Whatever Nissan Versa or Cube falls into that price category. Especially Versa with the Renault 1.6L engine. Good enough to roar all day on road . Heck, might save you enough money from gas allowance to allow you to pay more upfront for wifey's car or a future house. Cube to have alot of space efficient room Or is that too French for you:)?
I'd suggest Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore. For that money we're talking an end of 90's, early 00's (with some luck) 6 cyl with 150K+ kms. LPG system a plus. I can see a 4 cyl Camry there too, but in this case they tend to be older. A salesman with that budget doesn't need anything complicated or fancy. That rules the Europeans out unless you're Marcelo's neighbor, in which case it's a Fiat Palio or Siena or Uno. It has to be either domestic or Japanese. A presentable car with a proven bulletproof drivetrain and plenty of spares/service support will do. Of course the person will have to shop around to find a well taken care of example.
I'm not sure about the Versa which has been in the states a little longer -couple years, however you won't find a cube in that price range unless something is very wrong with it. I think it's been here two years. Your point is well taken by me anyway. About a year and a half ago, I bought a demonstrator Cube that had about 2kmi. Now it has about 36kmi of mostly country driving. 30 miles round trip to dine out. I have had absolutely no problem. Lots of room. Never less than 30mpg even if all city driving. You are the first mildly positive statement I've heard on TTAC. I once bought a Saturn that turned out to be an Opel. Now I hear that I've bought a Nissan thats really a Renault. This one has turned out better so far. Maybe I should go to Brazil for my next car. Lots of luck getting it back to the States.
Free Maintenance and Fuel? Why not a high mileage E39 540i? 90% of the materials are first rate. It's too bad about the remaining 10% plastic parts.