SUV choices under $30k

Quantico said:
Woman I live with just bought a used 2022 highlander w low miles and pretty loaded. It was a moms second car and only she drove . Not a scratch on it except the drivers floor carpet looked worn from the woman that owned it wearing heels every day. It's fun and comfy. Was way more than 30 k. But they gave her 30k for her bmw trade in and she added 15 k cash. So the loan is 175 a month for 2 years. It was a great purchase. I have a bmw if she wants to play in a convertable , but she loves loves driving my sequoia as well.
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Yea-those are at least low $40,000.00s
 
We have a 2019 Rav4 - which is current generation. I will definitely buy another. The lowest trim - which still includes a lot, is around $32K here even after all the SE Toyota distributor added crap - so outside the SE there likely at least a grand less.

They are about the most boring vehicle you can drive, however it has lots of space for that category - more than the Mazda or Subi, and it gets excellent gas mileage. Its purpose is to get your family from Point A to B.
 
Toyota in 40 states good. Toyota in 10 states BAD. Gulf States Toyota and SouthEast Toyota are shyster crooks and add hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of screw the customer junk to every single vehicle. Since the OP doesn't tell where he's from it's unclear if Toyota is worth looking at or not.
 
LDB said:
Toyota in 40 states good. Toyota in 10 states BAD. Gulf States Toyota and SouthEast Toyota are shyster crooks and add hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of screw the customer junk to every single vehicle. Since the OP doesn't tell where he's from it's unclear if Toyota is worth looking at or not.
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I 100% agree with you. This is a current SE Toyota distributor add, before it gets to the dealer. Mine in 2019 was similar. The dealer only tried to add $399.00 for some version of their liftime warranty which I made them remove. In the end I shopped here and in Virginia - which is outside SE Toyota - and I would only have saved $500.00 driving there - the dealers here were competitive. The only thing that matters in the end is the out the door price.

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If you don’t need 3 row’s and are happy with 2.5 na engines, try a new base Outback. It’s wider inside than many 2 row SUV’s, maybe rides better? I haven’t driven the current generation of competitors through.
 
my brother is looking at buick encore gx, but only the awd model to get the slightly bigger 1.3 engine and 9sp conventional a.t. thoughts on this or its chevy trailblazer sibling?
 
Update:


Wife made a decision that she liked the Kia Sportage X Pro with the 2.5 NA she looked at. It is larger than the Mazda 5/50 she liked and the Kia interior feels and looks pretty darn good for the price.


So this morning we signed a 3 year lease deal for $400/month.

I just hope it holds up. Thanks for all the suggestions!
 
StumblingElk said:
Update:


Wife made a decision that she liked the Kia Sportage X Pro with the 2.5 NA she looked at. It is larger than the Mazda 5/50 she liked and the Kia interior feels and looks pretty darn good for the price.


So this morning we signed a 3 year lease deal for $400/month.

I just hope it holds up. Thanks for all the suggestions!
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How much due at signing? Any other fees etc. due immediately?
 
You have no idea how bad it's gotten. The cheapest base model Cadillac Escalade no longer has any real leather iwhen it did before. It also got hiked up to 80k so i had to pay over 90k all in all just to get some real leather with the mid trim and the leather is awful, it's called Mulan leather but it's just glued scraps. Paid just below MSRP too, not even over.

You're not getting anything for 30k unless it's a late model with at least 20k miles. Bump that up to 40k and get a mode base model Highlander hybrid or a Sienna, I'd get the sienna. But just about every stealership is smoking it so good luck. They're gonna try to squeeze more out of you. Don't be afraid to say no and leave the stealer and travel some distance to find a proper dealership.
 
LDB said:
How much due at signing? Any other fees etc. due immediately?
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$3k down and traded in a 22 year old car.
LDB said:
How much due at signing? Any other fees etc. due immediately?
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JavierH19 said:
You have no idea how bad it's gotten. The cheapest base model Cadillac Escalade no longer has any real leather iwhen it did before. It also got hiked up to 80k so i had to pay over 90k all in all just to get some real leather with the mid trim and the leather is awful, it's called Mulan leather but it's just glued scraps. Paid just below MSRP too, not even over.

You're not getting anything for 30k unless it's a late model with at least 20k miles. Bump that up to 40k and get a mode base model Highlander hybrid or a Sienna, I'd get the sienna. But just about every stealership is smoking it so good luck. They're gonna try to squeeze more out of you. Don't be afraid to say no and leave the stealer and travel some distance to find a proper dealership.
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We found several new models at or around the $30k mark. Hondas, Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, VW, Subaru, Mazda etc.

Used didn't even seem worth it in most cases.

We went with a new Kia Sportage. I was leaning toward thr mazda CX 5 or 50 but the Kia should work as well.
 
StumblingElk said:
$3k down and traded in a 22 year old car.


We found several new models at or around the $30k mark. Hondas, Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, VW, Subaru, Mazda etc.

Used didn't even seem worth it in most cases.

We went with a new Kia Sportage. I was leaning toward thr mazda CX 5 or 50 but the Kia should work as well.
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Those are Compact SUVs. You were talking about mid size options. The price ranges are different.
 
I have no idea what your 22 year old car was but let's say for easy math it was worth $600 on the deal. Add that to the $3000 due at signing and you have $3600 or on a 36 month lease another $100 a month. So you really leased the Kia for $500 a month just paying $100 a month up front. Dealers like to make leases look good and like the payments are much better than buying the car outright but when you factor in all the money due at signing it makes the true monthly payment not so great.
 
LDB said:
I have no idea what your 22 year old car was but let's say for easy math it was worth $600 on the deal. Add that to the $3000 due at signing and you have $3600 or on a 36 month lease another $100 a month. So you really leased the Kia for $500 a month just paying $100 a month up front. Dealers like to make leases look good and like the payments are much better than buying the car outright but when you factor in all the money due at signing it makes the true monthly payment not so great.
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I was given $2k for the trade in. Though, they clearly only did this to move numbers around. They didn't even check out the car before the paperwork was ready. They just poked their head out the dealership door and saw it was in one piece before proceeding. And this car was a bomb. I was getting ready to scrap it soon.

There was a lease deal from Kia for their more base model that ended 7/5 which was like $299/month. The dealer didn't have any in stock and instead offered the higher trim model to me at $400/month after quite a bit of back and forth over a couple of days going over some details and inventory checks.

I understand I didn't make out like a bandit or anything. There just isn't a lot of leverage for consumers right now as we all know. No idea how the Kia will hold up long term (especially the electronics) but if we do decide we want to buy it at the end of our lease we agreed to a buyout price of $23k.

I would have more warm and fuzzies if we had purchased a Toyota but the wife didn't care for the rav 4 nearly as much. Or the used highlanders we checked out.
 
JavierH19 said:
Those are Compact SUVs. You were talking about mid size options. The price ranges are different.
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Not that I would necessarily argue that point concerning size but I mentioned these models in my OP as the models we were looking at.
 
StumblingElk said:
Not that I would necessarily argue that point concerning size but I mentioned these models in my OP as the models we were looking at.
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The highlander and pilot are quite a bit larger than the sportage. But if it does fit your needs put it on the list.
 
StumblingElk said:
Update:


Wife made a decision that she liked the Kia Sportage X Pro with the 2.5 NA she looked at. It is larger than the Mazda 5/50 she liked and the Kia interior feels and looks pretty darn good for the price.


So this morning we signed a 3 year lease deal for $400/month.

I just hope it holds up. Thanks for all the suggestions!
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Happy wife/happy life. :)
 
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