Not sure if you've ever heard of Carmax, but it's designed to be the opposite of what you experienced.

I used them to basically order the car I wanted over the internet. I browsed their site, found the cheapest one in their inventory, and paid to have it shipped to my local Carmax. They called me to let me know the car was there and I went and test drove it. The price was set, so no haggling, and just friendly service. It was the best experience and probably the only way i'll buy a car again.

Check it out next time... it really was surprisingly good service...

ps. I've had the car for 6 years and ended up being an overall terrific buy...

If you buy slightly nicer luxury-ish vehicles (M-series BMW, E/S class Mercedes, Audi, Porsche) the extended warranties are unbeatable. It's nice getting a Porsche Cayman rebuilt for $150 deductible because you purchased a $4500 100,000 mile warranty. Jalopnik had a write-up on a guy who bought the much maligned Range Rover and basically recouped his purchase cost in 1 or 2 warranty-covered repairs.

My problem isn't so much with the car-buying process, it's with the concept of car ownership, full stop. I don't want to own a depreciating asset, deal with maintenance, parking, insurance and other costs. Most importantly, I believe in denser, more walk-able cities and I'm going to do my (small) part to make that happen by supporting alternative transport.

If you live in any modern city (not sure about the US though since the car culture is prevalent there in most places) you usually don't need a car for daily activities or going to work. But once you want to have 1) kids 2) a bigger place 3) some land instead of just an apartment, you will end up living farther from the city and having to own a car at some point, unless you have a very large income that can accommodate such standards of livings right inside the city.

I'm not a believer in kids=cars and I don't like to see it propagated, even if it's true for many Anericans. There was a feature in the New Tork Times in the last few weeks about how rapidly cargo biking is gaining popularity with families. I ride to school with my older child and there are half a dozen other families doing the same thing. Globally it is absurd to suggest that children require cars. It is a uniquely American perspective.

This kind of American exceptionalism is just as bad as the "we're the best at everything!" nonsense you see in American politics.

No way is "children require cars" a uniquely American perspective. I have a lot of in-laws in urban China and the ones who are now having children pretty much universally buy cars if they didn't already have them. I lived in France for several years and I don't think I knew anyone with children who didn't own a car. Look at just about any city on the planet and what do you see? Cars, cars, and more cars. Cars as far as the eye can see.

Car culture is not an American thing. It's a first world thing, where "first world" includes the wealthy parts of the third world too. Now, it's certainly possible that this is not necessary, but that's how it currently is all over the place. If you want to change it, you won't get anywhere if you think that it's somehow unique to a single country.

But is having more than one car per family common anywhere else on the planet than in United States?

Is having more than one car per family relevant to the question of whether having kids implies having a car?

In any case, it looks like the answer is more or less "yes." The difference in car ownership per capita is not that different between the US and many other first-world countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_p...

But this counts a lot of vehicles we wouldn't consider "cars," like tractor trailers. If we just look at passenger vehicles, it seems that the US is nowhere near the top:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its...

The discrepancy is pretty big and this doesn't fit with what I'd have thought. Plus the source is not available. But other sources corroborate:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/30/energy-europe-automobiles-b...

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Pas...

http://www.acea.be/statistics/tag/category/passenger-car-fle...

So not only is the US not unique in being in love with cars, we're not even the most excessive at it. Maybe the next time somebody feels like getting all nationalistic about criticizing car culture, they'll point the finger at Italy, Germany, or France before they decide to aim for the US.

The Carnegie data at least was put together for the purposes of making a point about the size of the middle class and I believe a number of those pieces, in addition to The Atlantic, are making use of that data set.

From the comments to that article, there seem to be some questions around what vehicles exactly are being counted and whether the methodology is consistent from country to country (e.g. pickups are probably quite a bit more common in the US than in western Europe). You could also argue that per capita isn't really the best measure and you may consider adjusting for income measures, demographics, and urbanization.

That said, there's a stereotype of Americans as a car culture where people drive everywhere and western Europeans as living in the core of medieval cities and walking/biking/taking transit everyplace. And that stereotype doesn't hold up.

Thanks for the info. I was very convinced this is an US phenomenon. I stand corrected.

I learned something too! I knew we weren't alone but I just assumed we were the worst. Guess not.

Much of Western Europe (along with Japan) owns more cars per capita than the US does.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its...

> It is a uniquely American perspective.

Nope, in Japanese cities rents are very expensive, and if you want to have space for more than one kid you either need to start doing three jobs to afford a bigger place, or start packing and leave further away where a car is much more likely to be needed. You only have efficient public transportation inside the large metropolitan centers, once you are a little out of that, your options drop progressively.

Do the math.

> It is a uniquely American perspective.

Citation needed. Oh wait, there is none, because you are wrong.

You may get by with public transportation for commuting and taking the kids to school, but unless you want to get stuck at the house on weekends, you will need a car, unless you want to live in the city center.

> but unless you want to get stuck at the house on weekends, you will need a car, unless you want to live in the city center.

Sounds like a mostly American perspective to me. I'm Norwegian, living in the UK, with a 6 year old son. I did consider getting a drivers license (never felt the need for one before) when we had our son, and it was a bit tiresome when he was too little to walk, but I don't feel a need for it any more. Maybe I'll get a drivers license one day, but I don't bet on it (I'm 40 and have done just fine so far)

Certainly there are plenty of people in Europe and elsewhere who see a car as a nice convenience that becomes even nicer to have when you get a kid, but I don't know many people that see it as a necessity.

For one kid, I agree, it's doable. More than one and it becomes complicated.

And of course, since you never got a driver's license you don't know what you're missing (and works around it)

E.g.: you have to pay/ask for someone to get something slightly oversized (either a store delivery or get a taxi), and/or doesn't have access to cheaper stores.

Pet transportation is limited.

You're pretty much dependent on others to places not covered by public transportation (and of course, this limits where you can live, and convenient public transport nearby implies a more expensive place).

Of course, for some people this makes no difference, and things like Uber make it easier nowadays.

> Pet transportation is limited.

My local tram network has 2 types of tickets: (a) Adults or (b) Children/pets.

Good, now take your 20kg dog that is sick and can't move in it to the vet.

Do you live in a big (or bigger than average) city?

I live in the UK in a small town and can not imagine having kids but no car. Most of my friends find having a car is essential even without kids (though I prefer to not have a car unless 100% necessary).

On my own I am fine with public transport, but anything between walking around the village or going to a big city isn't really covered by public transport.

My sister has three children, zero cars and some (OK, about ten) bicycles, including a cargo bike and a couple of trailers. They live in Edinburgh, which has a fair to medium public transport network, and manages to survive. I've travelled around with them and the kids and it really isn't a big deal, including long-distance journeys involving trains. One thing that does require a car is getting to out-of-the-way locations, we had to rely on relatives with vehicles for a trip out to the Museum of Flight, about 20 miles away and not at all accessible by public transport. We could probably have used the 'City Car Club' (similar to 'ZipCar') for that, if really necessary, although with children you then need to provide appropriate car seats, which is a hassle.

Anyway, for day-to-day travel and commuting, even with children, cars are not required in a medium sized city like Edinburgh.

One interesting (albeit off-topic) point she and her husband made to me was that having kids in push-chairs/buggies suddenly makes you appreciate the issues that disabled people in wheelchairs must have all the time for access to buildings.

I have to confess I would find the idea of not having a drivers license pretty extraordinary. If I lived and worked somewhere like New York City or London, I could imagine not owning a car depending upon the exact circumstances, especially given the availability of short-term rentals like Zipcar these days.

But essentially depending upon others to get out of the city for the weekend to anyplace that isn't likely an other city? Or being able to travel to destinations outside of towns/cities without having someone along who can drive? I'd find it incredibly limiting. In fact, I'm in the midst of planning a couple of hiking weeks in the Pacific Northwest that would be utterly undoable without renting a car.

Whatever works for you of course. I just can't imagine it.

> unless you want to get stuck at the house on weekends, you will need a car, unless you want to live in the city center.

There are buses, trains and trams to the countryside.

Yes, usually on a limited or very limited schedule.

(With some notable exceptions like Germany)

If you're waiting for self-driving cars in the sense of ordering one from your phone to pick you up at an arbitrary location, I'm afraid you're going to be waiting a long time. The fact that autopilot systems seem to work pretty well on highways in good weather has IMO made a lot of people way way optimistic about robo-Uber arriving in timescales less than multiple decades.

I'd love to be wrong but there's a huge gap between works pretty well on highways and can negotiate city streets to an arbitrary location without a human present.

If you engineer your life to never need a car, you'll likewise always be in the position of power while buying one.

Yep, car free since 2010!