5 Cars That are Perfect For Your Teen

The ever important sixteenth birthday is approaching and your freshly-permitted teen is using the family car to practice three point turns and merging onto the highway. It’s a little cringe-inducing for sure, but more than that, you’re thinking about your teen driving around on their own. 

You’re not always going to be there to keep them safe; you’re going to have to put your trust in them and their car to get them back home. A surefire way to get your blood pressure back down is by finding your teenager the perfect first car. 

But what car should you get? Which cars fall right in the center of safe, fuel efficient, and affordable, while still having a few gadgets that your teen’s been asking for?

The Best Cars for Teens Have High Safety Ratings

More than anything else, you want your teen’s car to be safe. Luckily, safety and accident-avoidance features are becoming more standard in today’s car market. 

Keep an eye out for cars that feature lane keep assist, which will vibrate the wheel or play an alert sound if the car starts to drift into another laned. Blind spot monitoring is another amazing feature for drivers still getting used to all the things they need to keep track of. 

Most newer safety features are going to be in top-trim models, which could jack up the price considerably. But we would argue that if there’s anything to invest in when buying your teen’s car, it’s the safety gadgets. 

Consider Used Cars for Teens, Too!

The newest safety features may be harder to find in used or pre-owned cars, but don’t count out reliability ratings either. 

Car sites like cars.com rate their used vehicles’ safety based on overlap front, driver-side, and roof strength, and head restraint tests. They also keep an eye out for curb weight, dry braking distance, and even how much and how often insurance coverage has been used in specific types of cars. 

You can prepare as much as you want with safety features, but there’s a lot to be said for knowing which cars have held up strong in worst case scenarios.

Are Old Faithful Family Cars Good First Cars for Teens?

Oftentimes when a new driver enters the fray, families will hand down an older family car to them and get a new car for themselves. Maybe it’s so the teen can learn on a car that’s seen its fair share of dings and dents, maybe it’s a rite of passage to own the old pick-up, or maybe you just wanted the shiny new car instead of giving it to your teen. 

Well, besides all those nifty new safety features we mentioned earlier, consider that a few decades ago, some cars didn’t have airbags. 

What about GPS? The last thing we want is to give a teenager another reason to look down at their phone while they’re driving. 

When’s the last time you got the brake pads looked at in the old car? How long has that check engine light been on? How does it handle inclement weather?

It might be hard to admit, but the old family car just might not cut it for teen drivers. As Ezra Dyer from Car and Driver so beautifully put it, “You don’t earn the new car. You earn the old one.” 

For newer cars, the Mazda3 Sedan or Hatchback once again topped the list. Honda Civics are also incredibly reliable and trustworthy first cars for teens!