There are loads of things to focus on when buying a car. You’re worried about mileage, reliability, features, top speed, and so on. But, there’s one thing that deserves most of your focus: the car manufacturer.
What brand is your car? More to the point, why does it matter who made your car? Lots of people begin the car buying journey with a set of features they’re after in a car. Then, they look at all the different options from manufacturers around the world. Instead, you should begin with a list of trusted brands. From here, you can start looking at the other features you need.
This might not make sense to some of you, but here are some key reasons to focus on the manufacturer when buying a car:
Reliability
You cannot deny that some manufacturers are more reliable than others. If you look at lists of the most reliable cars, the same brands always pop up again and again. Do your research and find the top 50 most reliable cars of this year and you’re guaranteed to see a handful of Toyotas, Lexuses, Kias, Mazdas, and Hondas.
Likewise, there are certain brands you never ever see on these charts. Audis don’t tend to be very reliable, BMWs end up in the shop quite frequently, as do many other “luxury” car brands – particularly those making sports vehicles.
Prioritizing manufacturers will enable you to see the most reliable cars on the planet. You don’t have to worry about reliability as much because you know you’re buying from a trusted brand that often scores highly in this department. If you don’t care about the brand, you could end up with a car from an unreliable manufacturer that needs lots of maintenance and costs an absolute fortune over time.
Ironically this leads us perfectly to the second reason…
Maintenance
Reliability and maintenance kind of go hand in hand. As mentioned above, a reliable car won’t require as much maintenance as an unreliable one. But, you should also be aware that all cars are going to need some level of maintenance. Parts need to be replaced, things need to be tuned, and you require regular servicing.
Therefore, it makes sense to choose car manufacturers that offer good maintenance options.
What does this mean, exactly? Well, some brands don’t offer great maintenance options in the sense that it’s hard to find replacement parts or registered service centers. You see this with a lot of smaller and more niche brands – particularly those from overseas. On the other hand, you see manufacturers that make maintenance easy, like Lexus.
Anyone can buy a Lexus, look inside a Lexus owner’s manual, and understand the basic maintenance tasks. More than that, there will be countless service centers that accept this vehicle and know how to service Lexus cars. It will also be extremely easy to find replacement parts for a car under this brand, as it would be for cars from brands like Toyota, BMW, or Honda.
The point is, you need to think ahead when buying a car. Consider how easy it will be to maintain the vehicle or get your hands on any parts. This is why it’s not a good idea to purchase used cars from now-defunct brands – where will you get the parts for it if the brand no longer exists?!
Safety
Some car manufacturers are way safer than others. This is down to a combination of things. The build quality of some cars is much better than others, making them far safer. Then, you have certain brands that use better safety technology to further enhance the safety of all their cars.
Again, look at a list of the safest cars and see what jumps out at you. That’s right, some of the same names are constantly there in every car category. It is no coincidence that the same brands are always at the top of these lists year after year. They simply have reputations for building safe cars that you can trust.
Conversely, some brands are known for not being that safe. As such, if you focus on the manufacturer, you can avoid getting an unsafe car from a bad brand.
At first, the concept of prioritizing the manufacturer seems strange. The more you think about it, the more sense it makes. Focus on selecting anywhere between three or five top car brands. Immediately, you know that every option will be reliable, safe, and easy to maintain. Then, you can start whittling down your options by taking features into account.