Ahh yes this not only helps motivate good driving but also the good grades as well. And trust me being a male teen and paying ones own insurance can be quite the motivator for seeking any onther availble discount as well.

 

thats what my dad does... along with some payments. its amazing how you have a different view on harming something when you put some sweat into owning it

 

I would say depends on the Kid, I talked with my son about the dangers of driving reckless, all that stuff, explained about the tickets and what it would do to his record. told him take it to the track, and he's a kid when your not around he's going to do what they do. Not saying yours will, but you have to trust them sometimes. I don't want mine to get hurt either (or anyone else) but he had the money to buy what he wanted and I couldn't talk him out of it. He now has 3 cars built so fast they scare me to death. I feel a little guilty sometimes because I feel like I contributed to his love for cars and speed. I always stressed there was a time and place for this though. guess what I'm saying is slowing down the car isn't the answer in my opinion, just trust them and hope what you taught them is enough. Good luck with what ever you choose.

 

MSFITOY......I think this philosophy is absolutely ridiculous...and one that is too common these days, one that I fear the parent who started this thread ascribes to, so I think it needs to be addressed.

Kids used to ride bikes....gasp....without a helment. we used to skate board without pads, we used to play with bb guns and ride in cars that didn't even have seatbelts from the factory! IMO opinion we have become obsesed with protecting children to the point that they never learn any lessons. trying to make sure they never get a scratch when it is scratches that serve to remind kids that if they don't slow down they will break thier neck!

These two posts are the best advice here!
If your kid cannot afford insurance then they can't afford the car they are driving. An old car that will take the abuse that a kid will put to it....(i.e. curb scrapes, bumper bumps and plenty of other idiot kids around the school that will be bound to destroy your new car.......then you don't care if he runs it off the road (as much) so what if he actually gets a cut in an accident in stead of a gas filled pillow, better for him actually!.....and the bonus....If you get the right car it should be so ugly he can't get a date....the right car cuts down on him getting some girl pregnant....lol....seriously

 

that right there is not bad . as he proves himself you can allow more . now ...what about a shock collar of some kind....

 

This has got to be one of the silliest threads I've read ... seriously.

I've seen FATAL accidents with ppl driving a 38 HP VW.

It aint the car that kills ... its the driver

 

Well, Let me be another young driver to give input. I am 18 and have had my car for 9 months now. My parents gave me the MINI as a graduation present for being Valadictorian. I had to earn my car. I started off driving a Jeep, which I still have. Even though I'm a good drver, i still managed to put the Jeep into a snow bank. Things happen. It is only with proper instruction and time that responsible driving is learned.

Take your kid to a driving school. I'm not talking about one where they teach you to drive inside the lines. Take him to a high speed driving school where they teach you how to manuver around obstacles in a safe manner and how to brake effectivley. Many of these skills are inherent, but it always helps to have osmebody tell you what to do to make you a better driver. Don;t take your kid to the track. That only will encourage reckless driving, plus it is unsaf to have a new driver in that situation.

Puting a speed limiter or power limiter on the car only shows that you don;t trust hiim which will make him wan't to rebel. A friend of mine had a governor on his car. you know what he did? He drove the car to the limiter everywhere he went. It wa bad for the car and it was more unsafe than if he was just driving the car normaly.

Kids will be kids. If you put an inexperienced driver in an MCS, youre aking fro trouble. Give him a couple years in a beater to learn the ropes. He will only appreciate the MINI more.

 

Or he could be hit by a drunk driver going through an intersection. Anything can happen.

 

haha I drove a jeep before the MC too. Except I started driving very young. The only incident I have had is with a deer.

 

I had my jeep from 15 to 18. What kind did you have? I have a 95 Grand Cherokee Larado.

 

97 jeep wrangler. I drove it from 9 to 15 =] my old town wasnt busy and the roads were straight and very very low traffic. So I got to drive it within certain boundries. For my 16 bday I got the mini. I had to earn mine as well, not valadictorian though. This is my senior year. Congrats on that btw!

 

Thanks! Enjoy Senior year. It was my best yar of HS. College is alot tougher...

 

Simple fix? A block under the gas pedal that limits it's last third of movement. This is pretty easy given the positive stop already under the pedal. Size up something and stick it under there with double sided foam tape. Cost? next to nothing, and reversible. Tailpipe restriction will wreck your catalysts, O2 sensors and your engine. A throttle restrictor would work, but has the potential to set a code. Tying open the bypass valve on the blower will kill boost and lower power. Cost? A zip tie. Downfall? Possible code set due to unexpected throttle angle vs. MAP mismatch.

Best bet? Driving school. Autocross will teach the kid what to expect at a car's limits and give him a leg up in emergency cases, not to mention give him a chance to get any potential ya-yas out in a safe manner. Trust me, time on the track will scare him straight, so to speak.

There is a lot to be said for giving a young 'un trust and responsibility in handling a car with 'potential'. Downtuning it to Yugo power levels sends a message that says "we dont trust you". Remember, the extra power can get you OUT of trouble too.

 

BY now it should be apparent to all - The solution is NOT the car - IF your kid has proven to you that he cannot be trusted with a car then its simple - DON"T give him the KEYS of ANY car!

 

Our son learned to drive in my old 1987 325iS.

It was a very, very good car for him to learn in because it is incredibly user-friendly and surprisingly easy to work on.

He also learned (the hard way) a number of lessons.

1) If the brakes are making odd noises its probably a good idea to learn how to change the pads.

2) If the fuel light is on and the DTE is flashing, its not a bad idea to get gas.

3) Burn-outs eat rear tires, and spinning in the rain is just one result.

4) When the temp gauge goes over 1/2 way its probably a good idea to check for leaks

5) driving with your foot on the clutch will lead to a lesson in how to take vast amounts of the car apart and force you to revert to a mountain bike for a week or two.

Personally I hated watching 'my' 325iS deteriorate in his hands and I encouraged him to wash and wax it on a regular basis. Also as things broke I helped him to fix it - but never, ever did I pay for the parts or loan him my daily driver so that he could go places before it was fixed.

I took him on performance driver lessons, and we worked our way through the 'haynes' manual fixing things over the course of about two years.

I never once stopped him driving the car, but I would tell him (and on a couple of occasions showed him) the risks of driving without repairing it (bald rear tires where fun).

Even now (he is 20), I will not toss him the keys to the Mini (or my MR2 Spyder) and my wife will not let him drive her 325i (she hardly lets me drive it) because he has a 'too fast is not fast enough' menatality combined with a 'no stereo is loud enough' one and we know that the second he leaves the house he will be in full 'show off' mode.

Personally I know very few teenagers that have the correct combination of skill, restraint and responsibility to handle a MCS, unless they are actually picking up the bills (purchase, insurance, gas etc).

My son now drives a 2001 Nissan, on which he makes the payments and pays for the insurance, to him the four years spent in the BMW where priceless, and he regrets selling it and/or not looking after it better because now he is at university he has learned that the he was driving a well respected 'classic' with a lot of street cred, obviously it took his cool buddies to tell him that and any amount of Dad lectures telling him just that where ignored.....

If I had to go through that again, I am sure that a Scion Xb would be high on my list as a cool teenager car for a graduation 'gift', but really I would start him in a cheaper rear-wheel-drive car (BMW 320/325 ?) with decent safety and a decent image.

 

While I think that was a bit tough on the kid max, i think you did him a srvice. He learned the hard way what took me years of the easy way to figure out. And the mechanical learning he recieved was priceless. I took me working on my mini to make it faster to gain that experience.

As far as not letting him drive the MINI, that is personal preference, however i fell it is cruel and unusual punishment to not allow moebody to drive a MINI

 

The same thing for the jeep, except my sister burned it out. I had to fix it and changing a clutch is not fun, EXPECIALLY on a frontwheel drive car! the crx was a pain but a great mechanical learning experience. Bottom line, the more you pay for something the less you want to hurt it. insurance is big. Mabye even let him know if he DOES get a ticket he will have to pay for it. and make sure to show how much it goes up at 16. its nasty.

 

Is it acceleration or top speed you are concerned about? If it is the latter I was wondering if there is an easy way to change the top speed governor which I believe is currently set around 130 mph. Cut that back to 70mph and that should keep your son out of a lot trouble.

 

His mother and I did have a couple of heated 'discussions' when certain issues arose - one Saturday afternoon it overheated and blew the bottom hose - a combination of a slipping belt (that went ignored) a super hot day and a freeway traffic jam. We went out to rescue him and ended up arranging a tow-truck to get him back home. As he was supposed to be going to a dance he literally begged us to loan him a car for the night. We refused, but I got into trouble to offering to pay for a taxi as the tow truck had used up all of his spare cash.....

On the Sunday he learnt all about changing belts and hoses along with 'burping' cooling systems rather than meet up with his friends to surf/eat breakfast etc.

As for the Mini, I have let him drive it, but I was in the co-pilot seat, and the stereo stayed firmly OFF

He has driven the Spyder too, again with me in the passenger seat, but I am not about to let him take either out 'solo'. Yeah I may be old fashioned, but here in OC there are so many 'young kids' (thats under 25 to me) driving, racing and crashing hi-dollar hi performance cars that I simply do not trust him or want him to get involved in that kind of thing, especially in one of my cars. This week an 18yo 'kid' died when he lost control of his M3 racing a 20yo in a Mercedes. Two teenage girls that where in the M3 are still in critical condition in a local hospital. The 20yo was arrested and charged with all sorts of bad things.

Now if my son wants to go and buy a 911 twin-turbo, thats his decision, he pays the payments, he pays for the gas, insurance and maintenance and I have no issue with it. I would advise him that it was maybe a little crazy, given that he has no garage, he is still at univeristy and he is struggling to pay his gas / insurance on his cheap Nissan, but I would not stop him. He is free to make any mistakes he wants to, but he understands that he must foot the bill for those errors.


The only mistake that I made was in giving him the old 325iS. I should really have gone out and bought an old 320 that was a little less 'highly strung', but he certainly respected the power after a few very scary moments in the rain.......

 

BTW.....getting good grades is NOT earning a car people....You earn scholorships and addmitance to college with good grades. New cars as graduation gifts are a luxury, and IMO spoiling a child by setting a false expectation of level of lifestyle....by the time this person can actually afford another brand new car themselves....will be at least a full decade later.....and im not talking just getting approved for credit....im talking actually being able to afford burning thousands of dollars per year in depreciation and maintence. Most these kids will go to college, graduate, and then be in debt for most of thier lifes trying to afford a lifestyle they cant afford due in large part to the false impression that a $25,000 car is obtained so easilly. I firmly believe that kids should solely support thier own lifestyle.......because by 25 nobody will care what your grades in high school were only that you have something to offer in the job market and a clue about finances so that your family is not one job layoff from selling half your possesions or bankruptcy.

 

OK, if I read between the lines here and being the father of a 16 year old driving son:
The bottomline here is safety and how to ensure that it is observed.
Reducing power to a safe level say 125 HP is one approach.
Driving school- both defensive driving which can be done with a private driving instructor or performance driving which can be done with one of the BMWCCA driving school for teens events would be complimentary and worth the effort.
Some physical changes to the MCS to detune it- like NASCAR, maybe a restrictor plate on the intake hose or between the hose and throttlebody, maybe holey rims and 175/65-15 all season tires, stock paper air filter, 87 octane fuel, or possibly S-lyte rims and runflat tires (heavy wheels!).

Personally I really like the driving school. Even going to autocross is good.

 

There are so many good points made here... First I would like to say that parenting does not always come easy, and you have to rely on your instincts, usually either the way you were brought up, or trying NOT to be like your parents. Every kid is different, so no 1 technique works better than the next for all of us. I have a customer witha MINI who owns one of the teen driving schools mentioned. I believe its not everything, but a good place to start. Here is a link to it, also read the article about "cars for Kids". http://www.carcontrol.com/autoad.htm
I was in the same situation as Max's kid, only I had to go out and find the car myself, and make it run first. I was almost 18 before I got to drive it (1970 Duster, slant 6). It was not much on power, but I drove it just as fast as all my buddies with their V-8's, and had just as much of a chance of killing myself. I think that kids should know that driving a car is a privilege that needs to be earned and not a right. This is not a new topic and there is no right or wrong answers here.
--Dan

 

I beg to differ. Atleast in my own defense. Granted I got an amazing car and am very fortunate. But I fully understand what I have recieved and by no means mind driving a lesser vehicle if I have to sell of the mini someday after college to support myself. Im not gonna go blow half a years or more pay on a brand new porshe if it takes me into a place of debt. I probably wont get myself a credit card till im financially stable. I however will always crave a sporty car. but to have a sporty car doesnt mean new, flashy, and expensive haha.

 

if you dont trust him driving then dont let him drive. its that simple.

 

Found a good book-
I'll be using it for my two teenaged drivers.

Crash Proof your Kids
(Make your teen a safer, smarter driver)
By Timothy C. Smith
$14 retail
http://www.crashproofyourkids.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Crashproof-You.../dp/0743277112