Buy the Demio

Hello Baraza,

I love your column and would like your advice on buying a starter car.

I am a married with one child and my husband and I are planning to buy our first ride. Our Budget is about Sh350,000 to Sh400,000. We have seen some affordable choices on import websites.

Kindly advice us on the Nissan Note, Toyota Passo and the Mazda Demio.

We want a car that can serve our basic travel needs, has good space, is easy to maintain and to source spare parts, and one we can resell easily later when we want to upgrade. We really are on a tight budget and want a hassle-free car that doesn’t come with any issues or surprises down the road.

Margaret.

Buy the Demio. I will not even bother going into long explanations on whys and whats, just get the Demio.

I’ve driven it and been driven in it and used it to carry luggage for four to and from the airport and gone to look at land for sale in remote areas with it and pootled around in the city in it and revved it hard and overtaken many cars in it and marvelled at its economy and punchiness of the engine and... just buy the Demio.

It is also pretty. The others look like electrical appliances used for laundry, or cold storage, or large scale printing duties. The sort of  stuff you find hidden in corners of a room where the sunlight never reaches.

Get the Demio.

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