Looking to get a new-ish new car

Aloha,

My wife amber (aHoku) just took a new job that will require her to commute, so we are looking for a new car, and wanted to know what you guys thought.

Am wants a car that accelerates well, and gets good gas mileage. We would also like to be able to put our yak on top and pack it up for a weekend trip, and ideally get over 30 MPG freeway.

Safety is also a concern, as is comfort of ride, and not having too much outside noise come int the car.

Any thoughts are welcome, this will be our first car that is newer than my 90' toy truck

Thanks,

Isao

http://m.caranddriver.com/honda/cr-v

I have to say, I have been super stoked with my 2000 CR-V.
Ours is a daily driver and has doubled as a great little camping and kayaking car. I get about 20-21mpg around town or with the kayak on top. With no rack and on the highway I think we got 24+mpg on our last trip.

My only caveats would be:
#1 CRV (at least the 2001 and older) are front light, and can spin the tires easily on a hill if too much throttle is applied. Too much spinning of tires will eventually bind up the front diff and it will grenade inside the transmission. Ours cost us about $700 to rebuild. So, a light foot helps.
#2: regular maintenance is key. These little SUVs have very tight tolerances and ours had the tranny freeze up when we were about 1000 miles late on the service. Fortunately all it took was a flush & service and the car has been running great since with 195,000 on the odo.

We tried a Civic and it was just too tiny for our tastes. An accord would be the next choice, as they probably get better mileage than the SUV, but you could still rack it to carry a tandem.

We recently picked up an older Mazda3 wagon for my mother-in-law.  I was surprised at how tight the steering and overall handling was.  The acceleration was surprisingly good as well.  Road noise wasn't excessive either.  Good little car.

Congrats to Amber on the new gig!

Thanks guys, will look into CR-v and mazda3

I'm looking into getting a Mazda 3 wagon. Remember, mpg isn't everything, especially if you're buying used. Doing the math for my long commute, each mpg gained is only around $50 saved per year.