The 6 Things To Look Out For When Buying A Family Car
Posted by admin at 8 August 2017, at 10 : 51 AM
Buying a new family car is a tough thing to do. There are so many different cars available for you to purchase, it can be incredibly overwhelming. There are so many different factors that make up a car that can affect your decision, but what do they all mean? To someone who isn’t well versed in cars, it’s a difficult thing to even get started on, let alone knowing what you want! Thankfully, if you carry on reading, you’ll know the things to look for when buying a family car.
Interior Spacing
Interior spacing is just that, the interior space of a car. This dictates how much space is inside the car for you to move around in, and this varies wildly from car to car. Cars like the Subaru Xv have a very large interior space which is perfect for families. Whilst you may not be bothered about how much space is in your car, because you can just put the seat back, everyone else in your car will be bothered! The back seats in all cars are not adjustable which means that you have to get as much space as possible, especially if you have a big family. Long car journeys in a small spaced car can be horrendous as it gives you no space to move at all, so you’re fixed in position, but with cars that have a large interior space you don’t have this issue. Interior space also references to how much rear storage space you have. For a family car this is very important, because you need to be able to fit as much stuff in as possible! If you’re going to be using your car for holiday trips, then, you have to make sure you can fit everyone’s luggage into the car else you can’t take it! Even for other things like doing the shopping or going out somewhere on a bike ride, you have to have as much space as possible in a family car to make everything easier for you.
Horsepower And Torque
These two are not awfully important factors for a family car, but they still are a factor nonetheless! Horsepower is how much output the engine has, it is literally the power of the engine. Torque is the turning force of the wheels, a high torque means that you can climb up steep surfaces or carry heavy loads better. In big family cars like the Jeep Cherokee high torque is very common. Because of the weight of the car and their intended purpose, you don’t have to worry about looking at the torque as it’s already there for you. Horsepower is similar to this as it’s already set out in the majority of cars to be suitable, but it’s at the opposite end of the scale. Horsepower tends to be relatively low in family cars because they simply don’t require it. High horsepower models are available to you, but you’re not going to be racing it around so you don’t need to worry if the horsepower looks a bit low! It’s supposed to be that way.
Fuel Economy
This is one of the big factors in choosing a family car. Fuel economy is incredibly important, but what is it? Well, fuel economy is also known as fuel efficiency which should start making some recognition bells go off in your head! It’s how much mileage you can get out of a given amount of fuel. The better the fuel economy, the cheaper it will be to run as you’ll be able to put less petrol or diesel into your car and get the same amount of mileage. Fuel economy is measured in MPG, or miles per gallon. This measures how many miles your car can go on one gallon of fuel, effectively measuring how much your car gets out of your fuel. This can differ massively between cars, but in this day and age, it’s important to do your research to save as much money as possible on your fuel costs! You’ll want to look out for the cars with the highest MPG as these are the ones that will get the most possible out of the fuel that you are putting into it. Cars like the Prius have very high MPG rates so make sure to check them out.. Also look at what fuel it actually takes. Some are much more expensive than others so whilst it may get a higher MPG out of a more expensive fuel type, it may actually not be worth using that fuel, because in the long run, you’ll end up spending more money!
Emissions
Emissions are important for two reasons. The first one is that it measures how much carbon parts per million, PPM, it puts into the atmosphere. This is important to note because if your car has a high pollution rate, you’ll be damaging the planet. However, onto the more immediate effect, it determines your road tax. Road tax in some states is calculated on your emission level! This means you want to keep it as low as possible to reduce your tax levels, which is especially important in keeping the cost of your car low! You’re going to want to save as much money as possible on your car’s running costs so you’ve got more money to pay for everything else if needs be. This is especially important if you plan on going to mainland Europe as they charge visitors, in the car hire, based off of fuel emissions, so make sure you know what you’re doing with this before you buy it!
Safety
Another very important factor is car safety, if not the most important. Car crashes happen all the time, we always hope that it never happens to us but there is always a chance that it does, so you want to make sure your car is as safe as possible to avoid any serious injuries if the event does occur. You need to know what makes a car safe in order to find one, the main 3 things are airbags, crumple zones, and chassis strength. Air bags are the little pillows that pop out of the car on the inside when a crash is detected. These cushion the blow for you, meaning that you don’t get hurt by any sharp, fast moving objects or bump into anything. You have to look for the maximum amount of these as you can with a car, though they are not often advertised so don’t be afraid to ring up and ask! Crumple zones are the second one. These are areas of the car that are designed to crumple and absorb the force of the impact so that less of it travels into the rest of the car. A strong chassis just means that the car’s chassis, what it is built on, is strong and will not break. The latter two of the 3 are very hard to understand and find out yourself, but it’s good that companies often provide safety rankings for you to see everything in one easy place! Getting the safest car possible is something that you really need to do, considering that family cars tend to be bigger they are a more of a risk of getting into an accident so you have to choose a car that is as safe as possible.
Comfort
There is no specific way to measure this, so you just have to go and visit the car yourself! Get you and your family down to a car dealership to have a look! Comfort is one of the psychological factors in car ownership, and it means different things to different people. This is why it’s very important to get all of your family to check out the car you’re thinking of buying before you buy it so that you can get the right car for everyone, or you can compromise! There’s no point buying a family car that only one person likes, it defeats the idea of it being for a family, so go and give them a look at and even a test run if you ask nice enough! Companies like Mercedes-Benz often offer free test drives which is very good instead of having to see if you can get one you’re guaranteed one, as long as you pay a deposit first!
So there you have it, the top 6 things to look out for when buying a family car. At the top of the priority list is comfort, safety, and fuel economy as they all matter the most, because if you don’t like your car, then, you may as well have not have bought it, if it’s not safe, then, you’re putting everyone inside the car in danger, and if it’s not very fuel efficient, then, you’ll end up spending way too much money on keeping it running! Some of these things can be more difficult to do if you’re going to buy a car that has already been used, so it’s important to look out for other things that you can find here when buying one!