MX6.0

I'd have to agree with this statement. How often do we get a significant amount of snow around here? once every 2-3 years or so? There are plenty of affordable cars out there that get 35-40 miles to the gallon, and with the right snow tires, they can handle just about everything a Maryland winter can throw at them.

With all that said, if I had to have an AWD vehicle it'd be a Subaru

metalmilitia606

iTrader: (8)

my impreza got about 30 mpg highway. It didn't have the ***** like a wrx, but it was still my favorite car I have ever had. I honestly liked it more than my t/a. It was a 98 btw.

TransAmWS.6

Don't really get too much bad weather in this area, I daily my Camaro and it does well. However, If I was forced to get something decent on gas and cheap, I'd probably look at some sport compacts, like a newer Civic Si, Focus ST, Mazdaspeed 3, or something like that.

LS-ONE_DAY

That TDI sounds nice, my friends uncle had one and he loved it but he also has a much shorter commute than I do. Currently I am driving about 450 miles / week. That may not be such a bad trade off, extra mpg's for increase cost of fuel...as long as it doesn't go up much more than it is right now. If it goes over $4.30 / gallon it may not be worth it.

99Hawk6spd

iTrader: (2)

I went through the same debate and purchasing you are doing now. I was looking for good fuel mileage on regular gas, and debating awd and fwd options. Last February I purchased a 2010 Fusion Sport(FWD), and loved the car. Averaged around 25 MPG doing mostly highway. Got tired of not driving stick and just bought a Mazda 3 2.0 6spd in November. I'm averaging 37mpg with it on winter gas, and it does great in the snow(coming from a person who owned explorers as previous vehicles). The Fusions are good cars, but they aren't as fun to drive as some of the smaller fwd cars. I test drove the 1.6T and 2.0T Fusions as well as the 1.4T Dart before settling on the Mazda. To be completely honest I don't trust the smaller turbo motors yet. My friend is having trouble with his Ecoboost F150. The other nice thing about my Mazda is I got almost all of the options in the Fusion for about 5 grand less. Heated seats, leveling HID projector headlights, nav, voice control, blind spot monitoring, etc. Out the door it was $25k new. The Fusion would have been over 30.

If you have any questions about the cars, let me know.

LS-ONE_DAY

Mazda3 was actually on my FWD list of possibilities, right near the top.

I'm actually really interested in the new Mazda6. The A6 transmission comes with more standard features so I'd probably get the Touring model that is auto only, maybe a year or 2 used, I think it would be a great DD. 38mpg highway with a 16.4 gallon tank on regular gas, spacious, and it looks great imo

INMY01TA

iTrader: (1)

Fwd gets you around fine in the snow. I delivered pizza back in the blizzard of 94 here in Md in a 81 Dodge Colt 4spd (fwd). Never got stuck.