Subcompact commute car you’d recommend.

If I have to commute again. It will be in either a CIivic SI 4 door probably gen9 (2012 era) or a 2000-2005 BMW E46. Any trim .

The e46s are a blast to drive and I have one in the garage which has 200k on it and pulls like a freight train. That car with a good stereo and tires is just way more fun to drive at average road speeds than anything other than a motorcycle.

Edit: I don't think I ever want to drive a front wheel drive 1-legger again. The LSD in the Civic si made it a joy.
 
Last edited:
What difference does it make... commuting is horrendous, you basically are burning up a premium car and gas to sit in traffic. I don’t even like commuting with my GS350, so I now have also have a more boring, older, ES to do that with. The fact that it has almost 100hp less matters little when you’re unlikely to exceed the speed limit more than a few short times.... There’s a pretty good chance I will end up replacing it with another ES or maybe even downsize to a Corolla or an Elantra...

Save the nice car for weekends and low impact commuting days. Fact that he posted this tells me that he does not have a short commute... That means a shit box or similar or at least a sedan that will get like 25+ mpg.....
That’s all reason and logic blah blah blah.
 
What difference does it make... commuting is horrendous, you basically are burning up a premium car and gas to sit in traffic. I don’t even like commuting with my GS350, so I now have also have a more boring, older, ES to do that with. The fact that it has almost 100hp less matters little when you’re unlikely to exceed the speed limit more than a few short times.... There’s a pretty good chance I will end up replacing it with another ES or maybe even downsize to a Corolla or an Elantra...

Save the nice car for weekends and low impact commuting days. Fact that he posted this tells me that he does not have a short commute... That means a shit box or similar or at least a sedan that will get like 25+ mpg.....

This.

My 15 mile commute takes about an hour each way on a good day. It took 2 hours to get home last night. I used to drive fun cars. But there is nothing fun about stop-and-go on the Mass Pike in rush hour. What is important to me is that my vehicle be quiet, comfortable, and reliable.

If I had space in the driveway, I’d have a commuter car like a Camry Hybrid in addition to my Land Cruiser.
 
I'm thinking of getting a commuter vehicle in a year or two so I'm not putting a ton of mileage on my Jeep (going to be driving 200 miles round trip a couple days a week). On the super cheap, good on gas, reliable front I'd be looking at an Impreza or a Miata. Miata could at least be f***ed-around-with on weekends, Impreza hatch is way more practical.
 
Corolla or Civic

This, all day long.

My girls have matching (well, sort of) 03 Corollas. Sure at 16 years old things are going. There's a leak in or two in the interior and such. But drive-train??? No problems at all.

Hell, going into Boston, I'd get a USED Corolla or Civic. No sense beating the pants off of a new car.
 
I had a Fit. I'm 6' tall. tons of space with the seat back. Back seat useless at that point. Fold the back seats down, and you have a roomy 2 seater. I got 32mpg, it was a stick and I drove it like I stole it. I should have found a way to keep it, I paid cash for it. Easy to get in and out of too. Not too low, and had a ton of headroom too. I liked it much better than the civic.
Don't know if it was easy to work on other than changing the oil. didn't touch anything for the 50K I had it.
 
Bmw. Life’s to short to drive a boring car.

Most cars are boring - that's why we have motorcycles.
Yeah, I know - not everyone likes bikes.
And most commutes suck. It's the rare commute that's a pleasant drive in the country.
Most of them are grinds on the highway, stuck in traffic.

If you can afford it, have the fun car, or bike. BMW for you, bike for me.
Then get a commuter car to rack the daily miles up on.
Something that isn't unpleasant to drive, but that you won't cry about when you have 30,000 miles on after a year, or two.
A disposable car, or a car that you'll drive until it rusts out in the NorthEast winter.
 
Miata.

My commute is as much as 50 minutes and less than half of it is ever interstate, so I always drive the fun car to work. When I worked in Chinatown, I drove an MR2 Spyder. Stick shift was no fun in traffic, but there other cars like the Miata that have automatic transmissions.
 
Most cars are boring - that's why we have motorcycles.
Yeah, I know - not everyone likes bikes.
And most commutes suck. It's the rare commute that's a pleasant drive in the country.
Most of them are grinds on the highway, stuck in traffic.

If you can afford it, have the fun car, or bike. BMW for you, bike for me.
Then get a commuter car to rack the daily miles up on.
Something that isn't unpleasant to drive, but that you won't cry about when you have 30,000 miles on after a year, or two.
A disposable car, or a car that you'll drive until it rusts out in the NorthEast winter.

Best of both worlds: BMW bike.
 
Most cars are boring - that's why we have motorcycles.
Yeah, I know - not everyone likes bikes.
And most commutes suck. It's the rare commute that's a pleasant drive in the country.
Most of them are grinds on the highway, stuck in traffic.

If you can afford it, have the fun car, or bike. BMW for you, bike for me.
Then get a commuter car to rack the daily miles up on.
Something that isn't unpleasant to drive, but that you won't cry about when you have 30,000 miles on after a year, or two.
A disposable car, or a car that you'll drive until it rusts out in the NorthEast winter.
I commute 30 miles each way from Leominster to Hanscom AFB. RT.2 to the rotary and then back roads around Concord Ctr. I own a 2016 BMW RT and stopped riding it to work last year/summer because it's just to dangerous. I was leaving Leominster at 0630 and lucky to get to work by 0730. To many idiot ma**h*** drivers texting, tail gating, passing on the right so they can cut in front of you because you're not tailgating the car in front of you. I recently changed my hours and now I'm leaving at 0600 which makes a HUUUGE difference, I will try riding to work again when I get my Beemer back in April. As stated in a earlier post I traded in my 2012 Elantra for a 2015 RAV4 in November 2017 and 10 days later got rear ended on RT.2 right in front of the dealer. $4800 damage to the RAV4 but if I was still driving the Elantra it probably would have been totaled and I would have gotten injured.
 
Honda Fit, or if you want AWD which I recommend up here, Honda HR-V. It has some neat features such as a rear seat that folds up which make it really versatile as a people and cargo hauler.

I have a really nice '16 with leather, upgraded stereo and built in Garmin GPS on the showroom floor now.
 
I have a Chevy Cruze eco manual transmission. I average 39mpg combined and get 45-48mpg highway if I'm driving conservatively. The manual transmission makes it fun to drive. I think they got rid of the eco trim in 2016 and the manual transmission in 2018. It's a regular turbocharged gas car, not a hybrid.
 
Thanks everyone for the good advice .
Yaris to Corolla size and model wise is what I’ve been thinking.
It’s an hour and a half commute if coming in for 8am but the good thing is that I can adjust my hours between 5am and 10pm, so maybe 6-2 will make the commute more tolerable.
The idea about taking the “T” is something to consider but there’s no “T” in my town so I’d have to look into the “T” parking availability in the next town over.
 
And definitely no stick shift.
I don’t know who enjoys driving a stick in the rush hour traffic but it’s definitely not me)
 
Would not recommend SMART. From what I've read real world MPG is not very good so one gets all the "fun" of a sub-compact with none of the savings. I'd go with Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Ford or a carefully selected year and model VW in that order.

The SMART car is complete crap. It’s only advantage is that you can park it in a small place. The transmission has always been described as horrid.
 
Thanks everyone for the good advice .
Yaris to Corolla size and model wise is what I’ve been thinking.
It’s an hour and a half commute if coming in for 8am but the good thing is that I can adjust my hours between 5am and 10pm, so maybe 6-2 will make the commute more tolerable.
The idea about taking the “T” is something to consider but there’s no “T” in my town so I’d have to look into the “T” parking availability in the next town over.
I did the commuter rail for 20 years, gave it up last year. I did the math on the total cost (purchase price, insurance, gas, routine maintanance) of a commuter vehicle vs. the rail pass (Zone 8) a few rate hikes ago, train was about 20% higher. I communicated the data to the MBTA, they agreed, suggesting convenience was the main driver for using public transportation.

I switched to driving last year (Pepperell to Cambridge), and bought an Accord Coupe V6. I schedule my hours to avoid sitting in traffic, and am not going to subject myself to an un-comfortable anemic vehicle for 3-4 hours/day. I get 28 MPG. By the time I retire, I'll have close to 140K on it. I get that you need a smaller car, but don't punish yourself ...
 
I did the commuter rail for 20 years, gave it up last year. I did the math on the total cost (purchase price, insurance, gas, routine maintanance) of a commuter vehicle vs. the rail pass (Zone 8) a few rate hikes ago, train was about 20% higher. I communicated the data to the MBTA, they agreed, suggesting convenience was the main driver for using public transportation.

I switched to driving last year (Pepperell to Cambridge), and bought an Accord Coupe V6. I schedule my hours to avoid sitting in traffic, and am not going to subject myself to an un-comfortable anemic vehicle for 3-4 hours/day. I get 28 MPG. By the time I retire, I'll have close to 140K on it. I get that you need a smaller car, but don't punish yourself ...
It’s the RAV4 v6 for now is what I drive but I could barely open the door in the the tiny parking spot and really exhale to squeeze in and out from the car and that’s without the snow bank factor.
 
Yummy..
But more realistic, I'd go Honda Fit. Never driven one but they seem "roomy" for throwing crap in there (ie. my hockey bag or crap at Home Depot) and likely get good MPG.
Good choice, my wife had one as a commuter until it got totaled by two deer)
 
Back
Top Bottom