The Green Room

If we had to buy a car based on commercials alone

This is the intro post in a four-part series on discerning which new vehicle would be best for our family. I know it sounds a bit boring, but it was actually quite interesting to research this stuff!

Our two cars have a combined 300,000 miles. Needless to say, we’re waiting for one of them to bite the dust. But we haven’t quite figured out what we’ll do when that happens. There are so many vehicles out there, how could we ever decide on one? We’ve only ever had family hand-me-downs, so picking a car of our own is going to be a whole new adventure!

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be looking at different ways of deciding which vehicle is right for us. But today I’m just going to look at one aspect: commercials. We’ve ruled out a lot of car companies based on advertising alone.

First, there’s Toyota. While I thought the swagger wagon commercials were hilarious, my husband and I both find that bratty blond boy obnoxious.

I’m afraid Honda is not making the cut either, thanks to their perpetuating the worldview that you need to do a hundred selfish things before you have kids.

And really, Kia? Half-naked supermodels? What are you trying to sell, beer to 19 year old frat boys? You’re definitely out.

You may be wondering if there are any car commercials we do like. While there are none that make us want to drop everything and buy one, we do like the Ford guy. We’d rather commercials actually be about the car itself, though I must admit that those are never memorable.

I had no idea until I went hunting for a picture for this that this guy is also the host of Dirty Jobs and other popular shows. What can I say - we don't do cable.

Okay, at this point I should assure you that we will not in fact be making a vehicle purchase based solely on the commercials. (Although it’s not as preposterous as it sounds – when I got identical car insurance quotes from three different companies, I went with Geico because I liked their commercials – and we still have it seven years later.) We’ll base our decision on much more practical things like mileage, size, price, and how pretty it is. I’m not sure what role the make will play, as I was originally gun-ho “buy American” but am wavering now that I’ve learned more about how exactly we can define an American-made car (details to come).

Obviously many (most? I don’t know) people buy used cars instead of new, but for this series it’s much easier to compare all the 2012 models to each other instead of every possible car that’s been sold in the last 15 years, so that’s what we’ll be evaluating. I did briefly consider whether we could become a one-car family, but that’s really unfeasible given that we live in the ‘burbs and my husband’s office is 25 minutes away.

Before I really get into the meat of vehicle hunting, I would love to hear what factors you all have considered when buying a car. Please tell me – what should I look for? What have you based your decisions on?