Does your family need a new car? We have a few tips on how to make sure you get the best deal.
Looking for the perfect car for your family can be a daunting experience. You’re about to make a huge and long-term investment, meaning that you want to make sure you make the right decision.
When you are buying a family car, there’s so much to consider besides its design: is there enough room for children to fit comfortably? Enough space for bulky baggage? What about safety features?
If you need some help to make sure you choose a car that is perfectly suited to your family needs, read our seven tips for purchasing a family vehicle.
Understand your budget
As it is with making any other investment, the starting point is your budget because it will help determine your options.
Now, it may sound obvious that you need to know how much you can afford to pay for your new car. Yet, what most car buyers forget about when purchasing a new vehicle is that the car’s price doesn’t just represent its sticker price. You also need to take costs like licensing, registration fees, taxes, fuel, and regular maintenance into consideration when calculating your budget.
So, double-check your budget to see how much you can afford to pay for the car so that you can have enough money to pay for all these additional costs as well.
Consider your future journeys
When purchasing a new family car, you also need to consider what you will be using it for so that you better understand your family’s needs.
Will you be using your new car for long commutes, rides around town, or city center driving? Depending on how much you’ll be using the car, you need to choose something more economical.
Also, if you and your family are planning to use the car for long trips around the country, you need to consider aspects like comfort, space, and easiness to drive the vehicle.
What’s more, when looking for a new car for your family, make sure you understand that your family can have different needs than other families. Sure, maybe your friends who are also parents find a certain car suitable for their family. Yet, their families’ needs are likely different than yours.
For example, maybe your friend drives a Volkswagen Golf, a car that is often marketed as an excellent family car. Yet, maybe this car isn’t quite suitable if you have a large family because this car is not that spacious. On the flip side, your friend may think that Ford Focus isn’t a good family car because it may not be suitable for their family’s needs. In that case, we recommend you knowing exactly what your family’s needs are and visiting both a Ford dealership and a Volkswagen dealership to decide on your own which car is best for you.
Choose a four-door car
If you are buying a car for your family, we highly recommend you to choose a four-door body vehicle.
Think about it: a three-door car may be a suitable option at the beginning when it just you and your spouse. Yet, a baby comes on board, and after a few months of leaning in the back to install an infant seat from the driver’s door, will soon start to feel on your back. If your family is going to expand, it is time to consider a more family-friendly four-door car.
Safety features
Keeping your family safe on the road is by far the most important thing to consider.
If there’s one thing you want for your family is to know that it is always safe, no matter where they are. So, when looking for a family car, make sure you consider whether or not it has high-tech safety features that will keep you and your loved ones safe on the road.
What kind of safety features should you be looking for in a car? You should look for advanced safety systems such as seat belts and child safety, autonomous emergency braking, stability control, and anti-lock brakes, reversing cameras, adaptive cruise control, auto parking, and blind-spot assist.
Look for child-friendly features
Child-friendly features are not necessarily a must-have, but if you have some extra money in your budget for your family car, we recommend investing in them. What exactly are these child-friendly features? Integrated sunblinds, dark interiors which can hide stains your kids will probably make, or extra storage spaces, plus entertainment features such as built-in DVD players, Bluetooth connectivity, and speakers that provide actual surround sound.
Consider space and storage
Having kids can reshape what storage means to you. When you leave on the road alone, you likely have a bag or two that perfectly fit in the trunk. But then, when kids come on board, there are a million other things you need to take with you wherever you go, from strollers to lots of essentials like baby wipes, clothes, and baby bottles.
When you leave for a trip, or even for a ride to the supermarket, with your kids in the car, there are going to be a lot more things you need to store in your car. So, when looking for a family car, make sure you consider the space and storage it offers.
Can your kids fit comfortably in the rear seats? Will the car provide enough room for all the things you need to carry around all the time? If the answer is “no,” you should look for a more spacious vehicle.
Consider running costs
As mentioned above, a car costs a lot more than just its sticker price. So, when purchasing a new car, you also need to make sure that you can afford to maintain it.
Besides regular maintenance, you must also consider surprise maintenance. If the car would suddenly break and you couldn’t afford to fix it, this means that you probably can’t actually afford the car you are thinking about buying.