shape
carat
color
clarity

Cars in the high school parking lot

AprilBaby

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
13,234
Ok, so I live in a fairly affluent Chicago suburb but what the heck? School started today and I went past the high school. As in the past, the lot is full of expensive cars! Several Mercedes, a hummer, volvos, a beetle, a few BMW, lots of fully loaded jeep types, luxury SUV's. and these are the SPARE family cars????? A hummer????? Dang, I had to take the bus every day, we didn't have a spare car!
 

Dancing Fire

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
33,852
Our two HS cars. No Mercedes or BMW... ;( ..back then you mostly see American cars on the road. April, I'm sure you remember those days... :lol:

_9117.jpg
 

JewelFreak

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Sep 3, 2009
Messages
7,768
Awww, look how cute you were, DF! :love: Love the haircut! Hummers, Mercedeses? I took the school bus & when we moved closer to the HS, walked every day. Didn't get a car till my senior yr in college -- and that was a (very) used Beetle. Turquoise, yet. I did love that car! Cost $5 to fill it up & the tank was rarely full because I never had that much.

--- Laurie
 

Laila619

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
11,676
Sounds exactly like how it was in my HS. The students always had more expensive, flashier cars than the teachers! :$$): Crazy...
 

TooPatient

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Sep 1, 2009
Messages
10,295
I was in high school with (and am hearing the same thing in college now) people who didn't drive the "spare" family car. They were given those $$$$ cars as gifts!

Still sort of surprises me. Even if we had the money, we wouldn't buy "A" a $$$$ car and let her take it to school! IF we did such a thing she'd get it after completing school and get a few years in something functional but $ before being handed such a pricy item -- especially since the attitude of those with the $$$$$ cars in school are just :-o :rolleyes: (self-centered, entitled, etc)


I do think used of those brands are a different thing. I've seen some of those that last forever but sell for $ when they get higher in miles (but still with lots more to go). Those don't seem super crazy.
When you ask this, I'm picturing the brand new BMW convertible, shiny new Lexus, etc. (clearly $$$$$)
 

AprilBaby

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
13,234
Oh trust me, they are new cars, no beaters or used cars in this lot! And DF, yes! Those pics look familiar! Senior year my dad let me drive his army green Chevy vega about a dozen times to school. What a beater!
 

Dancing Fire

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
33,852
AprilBaby|1377100436|3507296 said:
Oh trust me, they are new cars, no beaters or used cars in this lot! And DF, yes! Those pics look familiar! Senior year my dad let me drive his army green Chevy vega about a dozen times to school. What a beater!
Vega??..Haven't seen one around in years.

Nap time!!... :snore:
 

monarch64

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
19,221
when I was 17, and a senior in h.s., my dad brought home this gigantic white 1979 Cadillac he'd bought from a banker in town. This was 1994, and I was not amused. That car was pristine, though, and only had 50k miles on it! My dad said, "this is what you're driving, or nothing.". My parents didn't allow us to have our driver's licenses until we were 17, because pretty much every kid in town who started driving at 16 wrecked within a few months. We learned how to drive when we were 12-13, but had no road experience. My father's reasoning with that Cadillac was that it would be pretty hard to wrap around a telephone pole or tree (it was 18 feet long and quite solid--not plastic or fiberglass!). I drove it til I was 21. That year my dad rewarded me with a brand new Toyota Corolla, which was the only car in its class at the time with standard side air bags. My parents didn't give a whit about image, but they tried their damnedest to keep us safe.
 

momhappy

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Mar 3, 2013
Messages
4,660
We have the means to buy expensive cars and evn though my kids are still young, they will certainly NOT be receiving pricey, luxury vehicles when they are old enough to drive. My focus will be safety, safety, safety!!! Did I mention safety? :lol: My kids will be getting a super-safe car. Probably a slightly older model (nothing brand-spankin' new). I've never understood the concept of the flashy, pricey car for the first-time driver :confused: In my opinion, those are things to be "earned" when they are successful and living on their own.
 

smitcompton

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 11, 2006
Messages
3,254
Hi,

The City University of New York had no tuition for the 4 yr undergraduate program. Brooklyn College was situtated in an a
an affluent neighborhood where the doctors, lawyers, and those upper middle class(thats what they were called then)people lived.The school dd not have an open admissions policy and certain grades and test scores were the only way to get in. The school enjoyed a top notch reputation. Well. as befits smart people, the residents sent their children to Brooklyn college, with expensive cars as a gift for getting into the school.

Apparently, someone began to notice the luxury cars surrounding the school and looked in to it. They discovered the rich were sending their childlen to that school. That is how the first tuition for a city university school began. Luxury cars did it.

It is no longer like that, an open admissions policy was instituted and grades and test scores became less important.

So Aprilbaby, put the word out. The school system has added so many fees, they may soon add tuition if they look at the cars.


Annette
 

madelise

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Sep 23, 2011
Messages
5,362
Well. You did say it was an affluent area?
 

yennyfire

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jun 6, 2010
Messages
6,872
It's the same here April. I grew up pretty well off and did get a new car (a Honda Accord, not a BMW!) when I turned 16. We had a 45 minute drive each way to school and my Mom was thrilled to turn over car pooling duties to me! However, when I go past the high school, these days I see exactly what you're describing. It's crazy!

Our kids will have some kind of vehicle, but definitely not brand new...something safe is my only priority. And they will pay for the gas themselves. DH was never given a car and thinks it's ridiculous to give kids a car. He thinks that they should have to work for it, so our compromise was that they will pay for the gas. At $60-$70 per tank, that will eat up babysitting money pretty fast!
 

AprilBaby

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
13,234
My former neighbor gave each of his kids a car for the 16th bd. Child #2 , oldest son choose a jaguar. Two weeks later it looked like a crumpled tin can. They replaced it with a "safer" Lincoln navigator. Those people " moved up" to a better neighborhood. We live in the older $500,000 poor neighborhood.
 

Dancing Fire

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
33,852
AprilBaby|1377124915|3507569 said:
My former neighbor gave each of his kids a car for the 16th bd. Child #2 , oldest son choose a jaguar. Two weeks later it looked like a crumpled tin can. They replaced it with a "safer" Lincoln navigator. Those people " moved up" to a better neighborhood. We live in the older $500,000 poor neighborhood.
I wanna live in a poor $500K neighborhood here.. :bigsmile:
 

KaeKae

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
May 27, 2009
Messages
2,390
We are in the middle of this now. DD1 is 18 and got her license last year (we waited until she was 17.) She was going to learn to drive DH's old Jeep Wrangler, but sadly, DH's aunt passed away and his parents passed her three year old Subaru to us. We figured a small station wagon was just the ticket for DD1 and that is what she has been driving. She leaves for college tonight (!) but the Subaru is staying here. Her sister (nearly 15) will be able to get her permit early next year, so the Subaru will have a short vacation before it starts getting regular use again.

The parking lot at our HS has a wide variety of vehicles, from beat up junkers to very $$$ new sports cars. Not a lot of true junkers, but they are there. DD1 tells the story about one classmate, whose parents surprised her with a pricey new car, but that wasn't what she "wanted" so they took it back for something else. I wish I could remember the exact models, but really, talk about spoiled brat! I was grateful to get the occasional opportunity to drive my father's Nissan Sentra, the only car in the house.
 

packrat

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Dec 12, 2008
Messages
10,614
Ha, my kids are screwed. Even if we had a bazillion dollars I'd not buy them a vehicle while still in high school worth more than a couple thousand dollars, per-I-od. That would be their first car and after that they'd be on their own if they wanted something new. There are very few "fancy" vehicles around here. There are some, like Escalades and such, more of the fancy utility vehicles than fancy cars, and they aren't the kids' vehicles, they belong to the parents. This is a "windows made of plastic and duct taped to the car" kinda town, truly.

I bought my 3rd grade teachers '76 Valiant in jeez..'92? Yep, had to be about '92, and then worked my tail off (40 hours a week back in the day before regulations on how many hours you could work) and saved until I could afford a sorta new Grand Am after I graduated.
 

jazzoboe

Shiny_Rock
Joined
Feb 21, 2010
Messages
188
I find that a little crazy, actually. I grew up in one of the most affluent neighborhoods outside of Cincinnati (so, okay, I guess it's a bit different from Chicago, but still, most families of kids I went to school with were plenty well-off), and I would say the average car in the parking lot was a basic Honda or Toyota, maybe a few years old. Yes, lots of kids got new cars as gifts, but mostly they were sensible cars. There were always a few $$$ cars or ridiculous sports cars, but they were a minority, and there were plenty of beaters out there, too. Me? Oh yeah, my parents paid for my first car. They gave our neighbors a whopping $100 for it just to be nice (they said if we could move it out of there driveway we could have it!) It was a 1984 camry, I believe. More rust than actual car. I drove it my senior year of high school (2004)--up to then I took the bus.

Now, I can certainly understand how parents who can afford an extra new car would want a nice, safe car for their newly-licensed teenager, but spending big bucks on something fancy just seems absurd to me. Right around the time DH and I got married we bought a Kia Forte, which I'm still driving, and after years of driving old junkers, this cheap car seems like heaven! It has power locks AND widows... big upgrades for me :D
 

luv2sparkle

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
7,950
It is pretty much the same at my son's school. There is a little bit of that at our local high school but not as much as at the private school. I guess, if you can afford to pay tuition costs you might be able to afford the expensive cars for your kids. I think it is absolutely insane and detrimental to kids to give them these expensive rides. First, they haven't earned them, and second, what reason do they have to work hard if mommy and daddy with just provide everything they want and if they wreck it, cover up their mistakes. Crazy just crazy.

My youngest (17) hasn't got his drivers license yet for lack of time, but we didn't buy our oldest a car, she bought it. We did end up buying a car for #3-a used civic-because we needed help driving with an injured son-#4 borrowed our civic and pilot and will now buy his own since he has graduated from college. #5 will drive either the civic or the pilot we still own. We may end up giving him the newest civic (an 07) when he graduates high school if he commutes to college.
 

DiamondsOnly

Shiny_Rock
Joined
Jan 25, 2011
Messages
397
AprilBaby|1377095722|3507234 said:
Ok, so I live in a fairly affluent Chicago suburb but what the heck? School started today and I went past the high school. As in the past, the lot is full of expensive cars! Several Mercedes, a hummer, volvos, a beetle, a few BMW, lots of fully loaded jeep types, luxury SUV's. and these are the SPARE family cars????? A hummer????? Dang, I had to take the bus every day, we didn't have a spare car!


Same here, I live right next to an affluent town in the Chi burbs, but haven't driven past any high schools yet. I don't doubt that there are expensive cars there. I've been out of high school for more then 10 yrs and the generations are definitely different. And like you said we didn't have a spare car, it was the bus until Senior year.

Times have changed a lot with having smartphones, do the even have paperback books anymore or is it all electronic? lol
 

canuk-gal

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 19, 2004
Messages
25,649
HI:

Saw a Bentley recently.... :o , and no I don't live in Russia.

cheers--Sharon
 

ruby59

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Messages
3,553
Went through it with 3 kids. A new, expensive car in high school? No way. I have seen how the kids in that high school drive. At 2 pm it is like bumper cars there. And no regard to opening your door into the next car. Mine drove plain, reliable cars for their last year of high school only.

In my day there were 2 ways to get to school. If you lived over a certain mileage away, you took the school bus. Under it, and you walked. If the weather was really bad, hopefully one of the moms would carpool us.
 

ckrickett

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
5,346
My HS was a mess with cars. We were situated in a very poor, almost poverty stricken area, but it had a few amazing magnet, and honors programs so a lot of very well to do kids attended. I know there were 2 rolls royces in the parking lot, as well as a ton of mercedes and BMWs. There were more nice cars then junkers. I think it was because the only people who could afford to get their kids cars were the EXTREMELY wealthy.
 

jaysonsmom

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Mar 13, 2004
Messages
4,879
I also love in an area where teens are driving brand new BMWs (3 series) or Lexus IS....My kids will be getting whatever my husband and I can afford to get for them, which will be second hand company vehicles from my husband's company fleet.....so a nice Ford Flex or Jeep liberty, around 3 years old.
 

Niel

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jul 23, 2012
Messages
20,044
when i was in high school (mid 00's) i drove a 94 lincoln continental. It was one of the fancy ones for its day. But not when i drove it. It had like, automatic air shocks. They were suppose to keep the car level or something, i dont know i dont know much about cars... but anyways, the shocks broke, so the car was always tilted at an angle... think of those cars that like, have shocks that bounce the cars up and down, but mine just put the front of my car high up in the air, but back rode really low... or the left side would be super low and the left size would be high in the air...

The car had some sort of anti theft lock on the gas cap, but it broke, so the only way to open it was to use the emergency every time i stopped at the gas station.

The car had electronic seats. But if you put them down they wouldnt go back up.... so by the sale of the car the front two seats were perpetually at a 45 degree angle.

The dash was all automated, numbers, no gauges... but it was wrong. Youd drive and thought the drive the gas gauge would go from full to empty, so you jsut had to remember how much gas you had.

the widows didnt roll down, and the air didnt work. Oh and it had fancy leather seats.

And one of the doors didnt work.

And i was THRILLED to have that boat.
 
Be a part of the community Get 3 HCA Results
Top