So you’re looking to buy a new car, or even a few new cars, but you don’t know which are the best cars to buy, so you do a little perusing.  So many options!  There’s hybrids and good ol’ gasoline only, and then there’s leather or no leather or sunroof or hardtop and vans and min-vans and SUV’s and mixes of the two like that new Lexus your neighbor has—

You just want to scream!  How could anyone figure out which cars is the best cars to buy?  And then this salesman is telling you that you absolutely need the newest model because there’s a camera in the back that helps you parallel park.   You tell him you don’t live in the city, that where you come from is a land free of the nightmare of parallel parking.  He asks if you ever go to the city, on the weekends and such.  You do.  You’re caught.  You can’t lie to this man, with his silk tie and cheap hand-me-down suite.

Old Gil isn’t going to help you pick out the best cars to buy—especially the SUV’s which are loaded with alternate options and extra service packs and upgrades.  He’s going to try to sell you every last upgrade and special non-dent paint that you can afford.  Along with everything you can’t afford, as well.

Once you select the best cars to buy, he’s going to try to get you to buy an extended warranty (conveniently priced at $10,000) for 3 years or 25,000 miles, that covers any and all damages and/or break downs you could possibly imagine.   This is going to seem like a good idea to you until you remember that an average American drives between 10 and 15 thousand miles a year; and that you, with soccer practice and PTA meetings and constant trips to the Whole Foods in the neighboring town (because they don’t have one in your town) will probably put on about 20 thousand in the first year.  Remember that cars don’t start breaking down until around 25,000 miles anyway, and that you might as well just give the man $10,000, or if you’re feeling frisky, bend over for Old Gil.

Not today, though.  You’ve done your homework, and you know that the best cars to buy is going to depend on your explicit needs.  It gets cold where you live?  You want seat warmers?  Great! Throw those bad boys in there.  And when Gil offers you those headlight wipers at a –small- additional cost, look past those sad eyes, past the cheap suite, and tell him no thanks.  You don’t need them.  You know the best cars to buy for your family!

I’m going to play Dad, for a minute.  I’m going to stand on my soapbox and lecture you, drill it in your head over and over until the mere thought of leasing a car makes you want to roll down the window of that car you are test driving and puke.  The sales associate will probably look at you funny and will probably think twice about leasing you that slick Mustang, but that’s what we want.  The best cars to buy has nothing to do with leasing, unless you are leasing to own.

That’s right, the best cars to buy—if you can’t afford to buy one straight up—is one that you lease to own.  Sure it has its downside, like a higher interest rate and much larger payments, but at least you are making payments towards ownership of the car rather than just giving some guy you’ll never meet a lot of your hard earned bucks.

I’ll put it this way.  Leasing, instead of finding the best cars to buy or lease to own, is like borrowing your roommate’s electric razor.   You can use it, but you must pay him for every hair that you trim, as well as any repairs—including oilings—that it may encounter while you use it.  Oh, and don’t forget about all the wear and tear he put on it before lending it to you, you’ll pay for that in the long run.  Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?  Borrowing your roommate’s razor for cash?  Paying him more than it would have cost to buy your own razor just because you didn’t have the money at the time to find the best cars to buy?

That’s how ridiculous leasing is.  Don’t you ever lease.  It’s a waste of your hard earned money.  At least, if you lease to own, you are making some headway towards owning your own car.  You can use it as trade in value whenever you decide that the best cars to buy is in your budget and price-range.  But don’t lease.  I can’t say it enough.

In the words of my good friend: I pity the fool that leases a car!  Pity the fool that doesn’t know the best cars to buy (or lease)!

Let’s face it, technology is taking over our lives and the best cars to buy will have loads of trinkets to take care of any thing you may need to do while piloting your car.  If you want a gadget to manage your music, contacts, and maps, you can find a car to manage them all.  This type is car is the best cars to buy.  Let me give you an example.  You and your lovely wife are traveling to her cousin’s house out in the cut.  She doesn’t travel there often, so she doesn’t know the way.  The highway you are driving on is littered with State Troopers and Highway Patrolman, and the state’s law requires you to use hands-free.  You don’t have a map.

But you’re in luck.  You recently were looking for the best cars to buy and you managed to pick up the Ford Flex, which has a wide variety of trinkets to help you get through your problem.

First, your center consol will connect via Bluetooth to your phone, so you can use voice activated hands-free calling to call your cousin at home and give him updates on your location and estimated time of arrival.  The center consol also can handle your own private music library, which is also voice activated.  Simple commands such as, “call Jennifer” or, “Play the Beatles” will instantly bring up a phone call or change the music in your car.  You can also voice activate a number of other options, rather than manually reach to mess with dials and such, such as change the temperature of the AC/heat.  This is clearly one of the best cars to buy when you are in the market for one that is loaded with trinkets.

The technological advances don’t stop there.  There are others that further prove that the Ford Flex is the best cars to buy on the market in terms of nifty trinkets.  The Flex will inform you of your current fuel economy—how many miles you are getting to the gallon, how many miles you can drive on your current tank of gas.  Not to mention it gets the best miles per gallon on highway of its class.

The car also has built-in GPS and mapping, which is also voice activated, so you can say something like, “Drive to 2209 West Vanderville Street” and the GPS direct you to where you need to be without manually having to type in addresses.  The over-all hands-freeness of the Flex will keep your eyes on the road while eliminating unwanted distractions of iPods, maps, and dials.   And for an easy $29,500 this is the best cars to buy in terms of price when compared with its competitors.  If this car did anymore for you, it would drive itself (and you better watch it, I imagine cars will be doing that soon as well, if Google has anything to say about it.)

So, you’re looking for the best cars to buy in the sport utility vehicle area.  You want a car that is luxurious, a car that says: “my driver has power”, “my driver has class”.  You want a car that will turn heads as you drive down Sunset Boulevard.  And that’s ok.  We understand.  Image is everything.  We’re with you.

But you also think that the best cars to buy will the one you can take your kids hiking in, one you can go to the beach in, lug around all those surf boards and boogie boards you’ve been buying over the years.  It’s like a bad mullet, business in the front, party in the back.  And your car should be like a bad mullet.  You should be able to take it to work and have your co-workers’ heads spinning on end, rushing home to their wives and considering taking out a second mortgage so they can buy your car as well.

But, you should also be able to take your car off-road and turn all the beach bums heads as well.  They should be saying, “damn, I thought my Wrangler was the best cars to buy of all, but clearly, I was wrong.”  The most powerful cars are those that enact change in the population, those that inspire envy amongst your fellow man.  So then the question becomes, which model?

Obviously, looking at the six-figure-income population, the best cars to buy are going to be the BMW’s, the Mercedes, the Audis, the Lexus’.  But do you want the mid-sized SUV or the Big Kahoona? The answer is simple.  You just have to look at your needs.  Do you live in the Big City?  If so, you might want to steer away from the big boy and go for something a bit more compact.  All of these carmakers offer compact SUV’s without sacrificing the much needed luxury and status that they provide.  Unless your hauling a lot of stuff (and who would want to haul of a bunch of stuff in their luxury SUV?) you really don’t need the big boy.  Compact luxury SUV’s will provide you the safety you and your family needs without compromising your leather seats, wood-grain finish, or built-in GPS navigation.  They are clearly the best cars to buy on the market.

You’ll need that GPS navigation when you are rampaging through the desert with your kids on the way to Roswell.  Remember, everything looks the same out there, and you wouldn’t want to unnecessarily get your car dirty when you could be cruising in style straight there.

In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to pick out the best cars to buy amongst the thousands of models currently available.  There’s big cars and little cars and foreign cars and American cars and vans and trucks and sport utility vehicles.  All of which will boast different features and trinkets.  The bells and whistles may distract you from your ultimate goal: buying the car that is most friendly to the environment.

Yes, that’s right.  You, as the consumer, have the power—and, not to mention, the responsibility—to affect change on our current way of living.  The average American drives over twenty miles a day, back in forth in their own town!  That doesn’t count the long trips here and there to grandma’s house, or the Road Trip.

Your neighbor’s car may be cheap, but it’s an old model from the 80’s, and the tailpipe is busted, blowing black smoke from the exhaust every time you start it up.  You may be tempted to buy this car, because you think it’s the best cars to buy for the price, but it’s not.

When you go to the car dealer, feed his ego.  Tell him you heard that he has some of the best cars to buy in the region, and that you are looking for an environmentally friendly car to bring home.  Tell him you’re in the market for a hybrid, used or new, and that you would like to see emissions reports for the potential cars he is going to show you.  When you go for a test drive, make sure you make note of the smell and sound of the engine.  Ask how much gasoline the particular car uses per “tank” in comparison to the amount of electrical power.  Compare it to their competitors.  Find a car that is taking steps to improve the current emissions situation, not make it worse.

Remember, when looking for the best cars to buy, change begins with you, the individual.  There won’t be an overnight revolution in which all cars are replaced with environmentally friendly ones.  No, no.  You need to enact change by acknowledging that the best cars to buy are the ones that give off the least emissions, and make no apologies for your newfound activism.