Five Great Cars for the College-Bound Grad
by Tom Appel
Inside This Article
The Honda Fit was redesigned for the 2009 model year.
Well, unless the kid’s going to school someplace public-transportation close, he or she is likely going to need a car. Going with a used ride makes a lot of sense, especially if reliability isn’t a huge issue, and cost is.
But, for those who prefer to go with a new ride for the new grad, we at Consumer Guide have a few suggestions. Our picks combine reasonable base prices, dorm-moving cargo space, sensible levels of power, and a number of important safety features.
As a convenience, we are also including Liability Rating Index (LRI) and Damage and Theft Index (DTI) figures provided by State Farm Insurance.
These ratings reflect the cost of insuring a given vehicle relative to the standard State Farm premium. State Farm representative Kip Diggs is careful to point out that these costs do not reflect the actual safety of a vehicle, but the number of claims filed for that specific car or truck.
A number of factors can affect the volume of claims filed for a given vehicle, including youth appeal, as young drivers tend to be involved in more collisions than older drivers.
For both the LRI and DTI, letter values are assigned to the ratings as follows:
- A--Charged significantly lower-than-standard premium
- B--Charged somewhat lower-than-standard premium
- C--Charged standard premium
- D--Charged somewhat higher-than-standard premium
- E--Charged significantly higher-than-standard premium
Inside This Article
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Five Great Cars for the College-Bound Grad
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