16 Year Olds and their BMWS

[neenja]

I'm 20 with an M3...i just got this car not but a few months ago, only due to an accident i had in my last car.
I went from a 1984 Ford LTD bought for 1500$ to a 96 ford contour, to a 96 jeep grand cherokee v8 to a 97 honda prelude with 13,000$ work done (engine, suspension only) to the 98 M3 i own now.
I worked up to where i am...my dad always let me know he could have bought me a new sports car, but that he wasn't going to do that for a few reasons.
One - i was too young in his opinion
Two - inexperience
Three - Risk of accident
Four - Insurance rates
Five - His parents didn't have money when he was my age and didn't want me getting an attitude that dad pays for everything.
Six - he wanted me to work for it...

I was more or less given the M3 i have, but the last car i had i worked my a** off for and to build up. An unfortunate accident involving a 10-ton truck and a redlight he ran ended my cars life and nearly mine.
My parents have money, and i plan to when i get out of college...but i never plan to buy my son or daughter the nice cars till they are older and more aware of the dangers of driving. I've calmed down alot in my habbits over the years and have become more responsible, i hope the same applies to many others.
...

[threeserious]

Jesus car forums beat this topic to death....who cares what a kid drives? The only reason why people bring this topic up that i can think of is jealousy....Don't hate the kids, strive to give YOUR kid the opportunity to be like them when you are older and have young ones.....as long as the kid knows what he is driving and how he got it, the hard work his parents or he achieved to get it, then its all good.....too many people worry about what other people have/are doing....just my opinion. to each his own.

[Mikedav]

Originally posted by RodneyK
In my opinion, i feel that parents are in no way obliged to provide a car for a 'good kid'. I have to say i'm bewildered by some of the attitudes that float around, people saying, "I do well in school, I think my parents owe me at least this" I'm sorry, but i don't buy that for a second. Since when are you doing your parents a favor by getting good marks, or staying out of trouble?!

Im in complete agreement on this...but thee you go. One thing I asked that nobody is responding to; those who are young and riding around in decent cars, do other road users give you crap on a day to day basis? Back home I quite often have problems being let out of junctions, merging on the motorway, etc..

(My Car is blue and has rims, otherwise it looks like this)

[vjlax18]

The point that I was trying to make was that kids shouldn't have the powerful cars until they are ready; ready being a relative term. And no one here can say that they wouldn't have taken an M3 when they were 16. Through my experiences though, I wouldn't give my kid an M3 at 16. Now if they can buy an M3 at 16 by themselves, I would be the proudest of all Fathers

[Inaux]

DISCLAIMER: At no point in this post am I bragging, just stating facts. Nothing here is sugar-coated in any way. Also, if I ramble, deal with it /cough :P No way in HELL I'm going to edit this, its taking forever to type heh, I just drove a hell of a long way and I need to sit down and rest ;p


Umm... I guess I'll post here... I'm 17 and my E46 M3 is coming in 15 days, and right now I drive a '01 330Ci I got when I was 15. This will probably be ramble because I can't think straight right now, just drove 300 fricken miles and have a headache..buuut anyway. There are a couple of issues at hand here, and different viewpoints.

Viewpoint 1, coming from MY view: Would you say no?? I asked for a **honda civic** when I was 15, but my grandparents didn't think it was safe enough, and that is how I got started with BMW. I honestly didn't know crap about cars back then, and, I mean shit.. its a BIMMER, how could I say no? And then, about 3 months ago (Jan 02) we ordered an e46 m3. This really wasn't my idea. I was on the phone with my grandpa one day and we were just talking about something and hes like "oh by the way, you get your pink slip for your car in a couple months." I was like yea cool blah blah and then he said something like "yea you can trade your car in!" I said "hell no I would feel wrong trading this in after a year." But basically he and my friends totally convinced me not to feel bad, I mean who wouldn't accept an E46 M3? I will still miss my car, its so unique, I wonder who is going to get it... I plan on keeping this new M3 for a good long time, and of course taking good care of it.

Viewpoint 2, coming from parents (in my case grandparents): My grandparents are ****ing loaded... plain and simple. They own a tire company in LA. My grandpa is an extremely hard worker, he still works a good 10 hours a day and usually 6 days a week at the age of 65. He spent his whole life working at this company. He almost lost it once, because for 10 or 15 years he would basically go three days a week at about 10 am to 2 pm then go home, and slowly the company was dying because the vice president was slacking as well etc. etc. But he took total control of the company again and now he runs it how it used to be. He is either going to give the company to me when I start working there full time or sell it within the next 5 years and retire. But anyway, With the amount of money they make, an E46 M3 is simply a blink of an eye. Well I shouldn't exaggerate, and I don't want to demean ANYONE who has worked their asses off to get this car. It is truely an incredible machine. But in reality, they could probably buy 10-15 of these cars and still have money to live off of. Coming from their viewpoint, why not get it? I don't want to brag, but all my life I have been "spoiled" with just about anything I want. Ranging from 100's of video games and just about every video game system out there, to stereo systems, to computers, to $9,000 ****en go-karts when I was 10 yrs old, to $20,000 playhouses when I was 5 months old. It was kinda set in stone that they would get me a nice car. Its not something anyone really thought about. Again I'm not trying to brag. They know that I am responsible. I get good grades, I don't ditch school (ok well theres the occasional once every other month who cares ;p ), I have never failed a class (that is quite rare at my school btw, my school is kinda the party school around here its incredible how many people fail classes and just don't give a **** about school anymore). I have never been in an accident (I was backed into but it wasn't my fault), I have ONE ticket for rolling a RIGHT TURN on a red. I drive just like my grandpa did, or my dad, or any of my friends. I mean... I don't know, I just know how to drive. You may think I am just overconfident and how could I POSSIBLE be EXPERIENCED at this age??? But I just know the definite limits of my car. I don't peel out around every turn, and the only real time I go apeshit weaving is when I have to DRIVE TO AND FROM PALM SPRINGS TWICE IN A DAMN WEEK *cough* thx 600 miles. Now I'm not saying that makes it ok for me to drive like a ****ing maniac, and I know a lot of people here can drive better than me, but some people are just born with better driving skills than others, its not like every 16 year old drives the same. I like to think of myself as a pretty ****ing good driver, especially when compared to some of the idiots at my school. I always keep it chills on city streets, my only problem is that I speed occasionally... but I guess when my ass gets a damn ticket that will change... at least I hope.

Viewpoint 3, coming from other random people: Theres 3 sides to this one. The first and most obvious is jealousy. Its a basic human emotion: you want what you can't/didn't get. I don't know what to say about this one, its a real touchy subject and I could quite easily start a flame war ;p Alot of people are just plain bitter because they did not get an e46 m3 when they were 17. (AGAIN, NOT BRAGGING! :P Just stating facts). The 2nd side, if you give teenagers nice cars and spoil them etc. they won't be hard workers, etc. etc. Now this, as much as I hate to say it, may be true. I mean, I ALWAYS have money on me. Some of my friends have to work at ralph's for minimum wage to have money, but I don't. I get it handed to me. I am getting a job (in fact i have try-outs tommorrow **** i totally forgot UGH) just because I think its time for me to get one..but I mean I could never ever stand to get a job for minimum wage. $6.25 is nothing to me, and I just wouldn't be able to stand working an HOUR for that much money. My response to this, (although I would never say this outloud heh, I would sound like a spoiled dork) is that, money really won't be a problem for me when I get older. I mean as ****ed up as that sounds... I will be working for my grandparents after I get out of college. I know some people pull some stupid crap like "well you never know if the company will be there in 4 years," but I know it will be there, after 70 years with only 1 or 2 bad years, it can stand at least 4 more. Please don't give me a lecture on how it could always disappear etc., thats really not realistic..even if it did disappear money still wouldn't be that big of a problem. Anyway, on to the 3rd side, this one is easy. The 3rd view from these people is, why the **** not?? They don't give a shit, more power to people who get nice cars when they are young ;p

ASLKJSLKJDLF THat took a long time to write, brain is overheating... I hope I didn't majorly screw anything up, don't feel like editting ;p

[JsnE36M]

An E36 M3 will be my first car, and im modding the hell out of it, and im going to track, driving school, ect. Im 17 and I think it is fine for young people to have these, but I DO think that they should go to driving school. Well ill be driving something cheaper for 2-3 months but Im not counting that.

[Gibba]

Inaux you are one crazy mother ****er! Haha I was drooling while I was reading your post man

i know a few people who (when 15, on their driving permit) get E46 325s and 330s as their first car.

Loud Tiger are you refering to me?

[vjlax18]

Inaux,

I know that I'm like grown up and suporting myself, but will your grandparents adopt me? Pleeeeeeeaaasssssseeee? I'm just jealous

[Inaux]

Heh I got my 330Ci on my permit, 2 months before I got my license.

edit: vjlax18: lol you wouldn't BELIEVE how many people have asked that jokingly (some not even joking either lol)

[CruizinKO]

Ok... I just have one thing to say... whoever thinks kids or whatever don't appreciate something just because it was handed to them is just plain stupid... or has some issues to deal with. You can't just generalize like that and say just becasue you're a kid you don't appreciate what you have. There are, and always will be exceptions.

That's like saying if you won the jackpot in the lottery you would say "Oh no, I can't take the money... I don't deserve it, I didn't work for the $500 million (or something)." Come on... no way in hell that's going to happen (But if you feel that way and win the lottery I would be happy to take it)

That being said, when I have a kid I would probably get him/her a cheap car to learn on for a year or so, and then buy him/her a nice one once I believe them to be responsible and a good enough driver to be able to handle the car.

Just by $.02

[Benzo]

I've noticed I get a lot of bad looks from older people, and lots of thumbs up from younger people.
But some people get a little to jealous, there's one guy who sent me an e-mail saying "Hey you F***in Leb, you don't deserve your car..." and went on and on, and I'm not even lebanese, kid was an idiot.

I've heard that some people say stuff about me behind my back, hatin on me and my car, they appearantly get pissed when I twirl my keys to the benz, but I do the same with my old volvo keys when I drive it, no1 says nuthin about that, I do it with my phone too....

Anyways, just some people get jealous, but some kids deserve their cars, and some kids can actually afford cars like these, it's very seldom, but some kids make money off stocks and such.

I've been given $15 000 stereo system when I was 17, and $5000 T.V, and people call me rich, and I tell them how much I hate it, same with the other kids in my area, I think kids can generally handle money pretty well nowadays without being a jerk, come to think of it, at my skool I don't really know any1 who's got money and is an ass because of it, but other people at my skool may have other opinions...

[LowRydeR]

If your parents could afford to buy you a BMW or Mercedes, why would you get a Honda or Toyota, this is just what I think. I got my 01 CLK320 right after I got my drivers license.

[Inaux]

Yea shit like that always happens. Stuff is said about me all the time behind my back, but I hear the same shit about other people at my school with nice cars. Not so much bad stuff but tons of crap always gets made up. All kinds of things like "that guy with the hamann car thinks he can beat aj bertone's saleen s281!" and my friend heard it he was like "what the **** are you talking about, he knows he couldn't beat that car, he never said anything like that ever.." blah blah. shit also like this guy that has a lexus is300 was telling everyone he beat me a long time ago because we were lined up at a stop light, i didn't go but he did because there were TONS of cars ahead, but hes a dork and no one likes him anyway :P

ps: i have a funny story of the guy who owns the s281. my friend (who doesnt know much about cars but knows a bit more than the average person) asked aj (owns the s281) how much horsepower he makes to the wheels. aj was like "huh?" and my friend tried to explain it and aj's response was "well its rear wheel drive so all the horsepower should go straight to the back wheels." lol it was hillarious ;p

[Razor325ci]

K well here we go, Im a 16 year old and i got a bmw for my 16 birthday. I know everyone is like "oh god what a spoiled little rich kid" well thats what i would be thinking too, But untill you actully know the kid and who he is as a person please dont judge him. I am SOOOOOOO lucky that my parents did this for me. This car wasnt just given to me. I had to 1. Be a good kid, like no trouble and RESPONSIBLE for sure, and 2. I had to get good enough grades. That might not seem like a lot to you but for me good grades are hard to get. I have many learning disabilities and school is a big challenge for me. Some of you i know are reading this and saying "what a load of sh--" but thats what you think. Im not one of the kids who want to live off my parents my whole life. I wont do that. I am allready into the stock market and property buying/selling etc. I want to work and actully be a teacher later on. Hope you understand what i said cause i blabbed on. but this is what one out of the many 16 year olds have to think about this.

[threeserious]

Brandon (Inaux)....it's cool that you are being true...and I really respect that dude, i'm 19 and got the car on my 17th birthday (1999 323i) brand new 2 years ago....went through the same thing when i was your age....but mod-wise I have worked for every damn thing on this car....the parents helped me A LOT buying it....even though I had a lot of money in there on my own and was raised basically like you were, always having the coolest toys Just stay true man, the worst is when kids front like they worked at a gas station and bought their M3's on their own in a year....its like YEAH RIGHT....who you kidding.