CNN Money has an article that says you should buy a car and drive it for 15 years. They used data from Consumer Reports and cited some owners that have really racked up the miles on their cars.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/30/autos/cr_drive_200k/index.htm?postversion=2007083113
I think I need to bookmark this article and read it once per day. I shudder to think about how much money I’ve given away over the years by doing exactly what the article says you shouldn’t do. I owned my last truck for around 7 years and thought I was doing pretty well. I guess I should have driven it for another 8 years to really reap the benefits. The sad thing is that I took such good care of that truck that I have no doubt that it will make it 200,000 miles.
I guess my only hope is that I can keep my current truck for the next 15 years. Unfortunately I’m not all that happy with this truck but I’m going to do everything I can to keep it indefinitely. One of the reasons that I bought a Toyota Tacoma was because it has a good solid reputation for being reliable and holding it’s resale value. I better hope that turns out to be true over the next 14 years.
The good news is that we are still driving our Honda. It has 75,000 miles on it and is a 2000. We hope to keep driving it for a long time to come. My wife likes the car and it is comfortable so I don’t think it’s too unrealistic to get a total of 15 years out of it.
If, for some reason, we can’t keep both of our cars for the next 10+ years, I can tell you that we’ll be buying a good solid used car. I’d rather someone else take the first big depreciation hit.
I am also a believer in keeping our cars for long periods. We previously owned a Toyota Corolla that we bought in 1989 and sold in 2004. We own another Corolla that was bought in 1995 and a Land Cruiser that was bought in 2000.
I tend to think resell and depreciation are less of an issue when we know that we plan on keeping the car for well over a decade. Good solid cars (like the Toyota) sell so very easily no matter how old they are.
Still driving a 1988 Toyota Tercel….it
doesn’t look pretty but it still runs!
I am getting tired though of people asking
me who was president when I bought it….LOL
The people asking you who was president are probably the same people that will be working while you are living your days sipping margaritas on the beach.
When I hear about people driving the same cars for many years, I often think about the book the Millionaire Next Door. The people driving flashy cars aren’t necessarily the ones with the money.
Thanks, Hazzard for the vote of confidence but
I know I do have to replace this car soon.
Have saved enough to either buy a decent
used vehicle or make a huge down payment on a
new one. Still deciding what to do.We have
another reliable vehicle (paid for)a 2002
Subaru Forester.
I like the beach and margarita future you
predicted for me! I’ll hold onto that thought!
My ‘new’ car is 7 years old now. It’s over 113K miles and I hope to drive it for another 80K at least. So far, I’ve put in one new clutch, two full sets of tires, at least 2 sets of wipers and countless oil changes. I figure I have at least one more clutch change before I should think about getting rid of it. It needs some body work and a good once over inside, but she still runs great and drives peppy.
I WIN!!! I have a 1990 Dodge Caravan, my hubby rebuilt the engine himself – we bought the car when it was 7yo; I have a 1990 HONDA – love that car, we bought it used for $2000 (from a friend) and it has almost 250,000 miles on it….and thenmy newest vehicle a 2000 Ford Windstar is in the shop needing a new transmission and we just put an engine in that hunk of junk last year – I shudder to think of owning that car for 15 years!!! Maybe it will get totaled in a car wreck!
Hmmm, I guess I’m doing fairly well. I have a 1992 Eclipse purchased in the fall of 2000 (any one need a car, I’d like to sell it) a 1983 Honda Magna V45 (my bike) that I purchased in the spring of 2003, and a 1998 Blazer that I purchased this past spring.