What recommendations would you make on a new car

My wife and I will probably purchase a new car this fall. We have grown to love our Prius, and actually had a great experience with a Chevy Equinox. I had a bias against Hundayi and Kia ten years ago because of the horror stories I heard in regard to quality and maintenance. However, I have a civil engineer friend who bought that KIA rat car, and he believes it is the best car he ever purchased. He said the consumer reports cannot say enough good about the car.

I go by the montgomery plant and have heard Hundayi folks say they are very happy with their cars. We probably would get another Prius, but we may need to get a SUV which can tow a small trailer. We like to buy new and keep a car for a decade. We used to give the vehicles to our children rather than trade in, but both kids are off on their own and are buying new vehicles themselves. I would appreciate any positive experience somebody has had with a purchase of a new car.

I love my Honda CRV. My Honda is 12 years old. I have had a new set tires once, a 2 batteries. The only other thing is oil changes every 5,000 miles. Just hit 65,000 miles.

New car amenities... navigation system, phone system, heads up display, lane assist.

Our first car was a 1976 Honda Civic. Loved the car, and had no problems until a station wagon full of people came over an icy bridge and rear ended me. Destroyed the car and I could literally touch the hood of the station wagon from the driver's seat. No air bags back then, but I lived with some neck issues, but loved the car. We still use the car jack which we kept after the car was totaled. We will look at it. We usually put about 250k miles on a car, and that is why we buy them new. We are sticklers on oil changes, but most of our miles are on the interstate with little wear and tear on the exhaust system, brakes , shocks, and alignments.

Honda recommends 5,000 mile oil changes....my changes are between 3,500 4,000 miles.

For a big vehicle...I really like the Denali XL. Great truck to drive and has all the bells and whistles. Road trips in the Denali are awesome.

Go drive a Kia Sportage and a Ford Escape.

Not buying new? Try Frontier Motors.

I've been really happy with Toyotas. They've been super-reliable. Not the power-monster my old '71 Nova was, but how often do you get to drive over 80 anyway? The Toyota has enough power for a law-abiding citizen, handles well, gets great mileage, it's roomy enough, and the only trouble I've had with it has been punctured tires, and that would have happened no matter what I was driving. And according to my mechanic, they're a car you want to be in if there's a crash... they have a built-in roll cage so he said I could flip that thing on the roof doing 60 and probably walk away from it. O' course, I plan to never find out if that's true or not...

A friend of mine used a Toyota Echo to do two jobs -- mail delivery and pizza delivery, so he put an insane amount of miles on that car, and hard miles, too -- mail delivery is especially rough because you're having to stop at every mailbox, which is a lot of wear and tear on a car. After several hundred thousand miles pretty much the only maintenance it's needed are oil changes, and it's still running fine. So if reliability is a factor, Toyota's a good bet.

We totally love our Toyota Prius. We are nearing 200k miles which are mostly interstate miles and one set of brakes, two sets of tires, and regular oil changes. I bought it because in Canada, the Taxi companies were buying them and putting 400k miles without maintenance issues. However, you pay a premium on a toyota, and I am hearing good things on KIA and Hundayi.

I haven't heard anything good about Kia.

I guess you are right, but I balk at paying over 30k for a vehicle. I have only done it once in nearly fifty years of purchasing vehicles, and I do understand the value I have received in buying a Toyota.