[hcoles]

You want to have him driving a car that nobody wants to be seen in. This way whenever they go places they take someone else's car and the DUI falls on some other family to deal with. Old Volvo or most boring Japanese 4 door. I like the Tahoe idea, for long trips with friends they will select another vehicle. On the other hand my son has been driving a 1999 BMW 328i for over 120k miles - we bought it at around 100k miles. He started (12 years ago) with a stickshift Volvo 240. Between he and his brother they managed to drive it into the ground at about 220k miles. We are considering getting rid of the 328i now - he got married and his wife's car is a ? new Rav4. New drivers are on average not too wise - a performance car is IMO not a good idea. If you like tinkering with e.g. a BMW or Merc to keep it running then fine - maybe you can interest your son in working on the car together which probably makes up for all other negatives related to whatever car you select.