u/Professional-Pin5407

I'm in the preliminary stages of helping my young adult son (new college grad) shop for a new car. We are waiting to see if he got the position he applied for which would necessitate a commute. Right now, he doesn't drive much. When he does, he uses my Toyota Rav4Prime. Because of this, he's gotten comfortable with the whole suite of safety features (including a birdseye camera, front and back cross traffic alerts, and front and back parking sensors). Ofc, I know it's important to know how to drive without all the bells and whistles (and he has tried that before), but I do like the idea of his first car having modern safety features.

In addition to safety features, we are looking for a car with a small footprint (for city, crowded suburb, and small parking lot maneuvering) with a useable 2nd row. The Kona Limited is one of the very few subcompact SUVs that checks all of these boxes.

I started looking for a 2024 Limited AWD that is CPO, and it seems are hard to come by in the northeast. Any tips for searching? Would you recommend talking to a local dealership and having them keep a lookout for leased 2024s being turned in? I have alerts set on Cars.com and have checked Hyundai's CPO site. There are just a handful within a reasonable drive. One looks like a lemon (from its Carfax report). Others are overpriced and/or seem to be on the lots of unscrupulous dealers who are padding the fees.

Any suggestions (or feedback on this car) are welcome. If we buy, it would probably be during the 2nd week of August. TIA.

Hi. I am helping my young adult son purchase his first car. We are looking for something that has a small footprint and max safety features. As a fairly inexperienced driver, he really likes and uses the birdseye camera (as well as the parking sensors) on my Toyota Rav4 prime. It is tough to find that feature on a subcompact SUV without going up to the top trim--which makes it expensive. I located a 2025 top trim (Turbo Premium Plus) CPO with about 7500 miles on it for 30K. The dealership is about an hour and a half drive from us. Before we go look at it, can anyone share their experience with this trim (2024-current)? Are the cameras, sensors, and other safety features worth the price difference? Also, wondering if the "turbo" classification will jack up the insurance for a 22-year-old. Also, how tight is the back seat? With a shorter driver, is it comfortable (enough) for occasional adult passengers?

We are going to be comparing this car to the Hyundai Kona Limited (2024 model). Mazda has the better reliability history and is more fun to drive. The Kona is actually a tiny bit shorter with more 2nd row legroom and a bigger cargo space. Both cars are hard to find "lightly used" in the higher trims. What we'd really like is a hybrid in this class, but there isn't much (Toyota Cross, which has even less legroom than the Mazda and is harder to find).

Thanks for any feedback you may have.