I would never do that for my kid, but that’s just me.
I remember perusing the local classifieds when I was around 14 and my dad walked in and asked what I was doing. I told him I was looking at trucks, and made a comment about how I was researching what I wanted him to buy for me. He scoffed and followed it with “if you wanna drive, you better buy something yourself, because I’m not buying you anything.” 2 years later, I paid $1500 for an 18 year old ford ranger with 170k on it and a manual transmission that would pop out of 1st gear if I didn’t hold it in gear between shifts, and the clutch had a bad throw out bearing that would whine at drive speeds.
It was the most money I had ever spent at 16, and I didn’t take the decision lightly. Dad taught me what to look for and helped, but left the decision up to me. To this day, I feel it shaped my decision making and made me a better person.
Call me old school, but there is zero reason a teenager should be driving a 4 year old pickup with low miles. He’s gonna hit stuff, it’s gonna get dinged up in the high school parking lot, it’s gonna get hot rodded and abused, and it’ll most likely be worth almost zero when he’s done with it. A teen should drive a throwaway vehicle as their daily (preferably paid for by himself), and then earn the privilege to borrow mom or dad’s nice car for special occasions like prom.
But what do I know, I’m just a bitter dude whose small farm town is getting ruined by people who send their kids to school in dad’s 2023 Tremor edition F350.
In the words of Dave Ramsey, “buy a hooptee.” Or more preferable, make him buy his own hooptee.
