CX-5 and RDX get my vote

 

Ford Fusion?

 

I'm glad my parents didn't shield me from breakdowns. I started off in a $1,200 beater that lasted me 3 years until I sold it and left the US for an extended period.

My vote is with the Fusion

 

The OP already looked at AWD Fusions......he talked about that in the opening post (price/options was an issue). But I agree with you guys that, in my view, an AWD Fusion would be a good choice if he finds one, if possible, where the price is right. It's one of the few Ford products that, today, IMO, can go head-to-head with its GM competition.

 

I've never used Sync, but are most complaints about ease of use or glitches in the software?

If it's an ease of use issue...a little time using it will overcome that problem.

 

why not a low mileage lightly used Volvo S60 T5 AWD. it's a Volvo so you know it's safe. and the T5 turbo is not boring to drive at all.

 

Personally, I think restricting yourself to AWD really limits your options. There's really not too many options meeting the 3 criteria (mid-size sedan/AWD/$30K). Not as many as you'd think.

You can scratch the idea of a luxury badge. AWD and $30K won't happen.

Several mentioned the Fusion. This is indeed your best bet. The AWD Titanium can be had for $32K. Just don't add options beyond what is standard, which is plenty already.

With that said, I would just go front wheel drive with a winter wheel/tire set. If you've ever driven a FWD car with winter rubber, you know you don't need AWD even with significant snow. It might be hard to convince your wife of that but she'd be amazed. Why buy an AWD car for 15 or so snow days a year?

Plus, you can get more car for $30K if you just go FWD. Better gas mileage too.

 

Did anyone say G37x yet?

 

Sorry we can close this discussion, we now have a new plan, my wife wants the new MDX which we drove and it's very nice. I will wait a bit to see if the prices come down, at this point it's only been on sale for 3 months and the TRUEcar site has best sales at just $500 under MSRP.

There are still a lot of 2013 MDXs around Truecar has them selling at up to $7K discount, I want to see if in a while the 14s come down a bit, my wife likes the top of the line which is $58K. We can do that and she does drive a ton, and we could use this car in place of our Odyssey for long trips which is getting too many miles. At a later date we'll revisit the idea of a car for our daughter.

Thanks.

 

You started with a $30K or so cap. Now you can do $58K? Wow.

 

Lol I guess that 30k budget was a soft cap.

I was going to suggest Mazda 6 if fwd was acceptable, but if you can spend $58k then that's another ball game.

 

Women.

 

Another typical example of how Acura stays in business building lower denominator vehicles.

 

Yes, but the OP and his wife (as of now) seem to be going with the MDX. You yourself have, more than once, called the MDX arguably the best American-market Acura product for the money.

 

As I said, we can close the discussion. I was not even looking for a new car, but my wife seems to be fearing that her car is high mileage and as we drove our minivan on average of 3K miles a month for the last 2.5 years, she is not too keen on that getting high into the triple digits. So her thinking was to get a new car to replace her MDX and use that more for long trips to put less miles on the minivan.

Being that we like the MDX, we were very impressed with the new edition. It looks much nicer and every area I can think of is as good or better than the outgoing model.

We could get a base/standard MDX for under $50k, but my wife is taken with some features in the top trim level.

Thanks for all the advice but as I said the mission has changed.