Bull Shit

My taxes and insurance creep down every year since the car decreases in value.

Fuel is the long term unknown.

Bull. You aren't spending only $150/year for all your repairs & maintenance. That's impossibly low. You spend that alone going to Jiffy Lube 4-6x per year, unless you don't change your oil. Tires cannot go more than 50K miles and be all that effective, so that's $600 right there every 3-4 years. You never repair a headlight, change air filters, get a new timing belt, or any other work on the car?


I've had Hondas and Acuras so I know foreign rice burners are good cars, but they aren't maintenance free. Not by a mile.

I've never had my insurance change due to the age of the car (which I think is bullshit). We don't have the property tax on cars here (yet) so I was wondering if that was what he meant.

The inital cost of the car(10.2k) is included in that total. The longer he drives it, that cost is divided by more years , making it smaller.

I missed that he added that in.

We'd be spreading the cost of the car over more years. Taxes go down a bit every year as well.

Drives me nuts that whenever we are in the market all the 2 year old cars have friggin 50k miles on them. always makes me consider just buyinng brand new so I can put my own miles on it and not be in a massive hole with somebody elses mileage. n We always drive our cars until they drop anyway.

If you have full coverage, your comprehensive and collision should be impacted by the increasing age of the car, unless its really old in which case you shouldn't have those coverages anyway.

Its possible that other things are happening in your particular situation which counters the impact of your car's age.

Ok, I forgot oil changes twice a year and air filter once a year. That's another $60/year on both vehicles. And yes, a light bulb here or there, but those are negligible in cost.

So far on the Camry we had the timing belt replaced ($300) and tires replaced (another $300), and that's it. She only puts 6-7,000 miles on it a year.

As far as the Caravan, I replaced the fuel pump ($200), water pump ($50?), and put in a used starter that was $30. There's been spark plugs and some other little bullshit here and there along the way as well, and I drove the shit out of the thing.

I also have a 99 Dakota that I've had for 4 years, so far on it it's been battery ($60), 2 tires ($300), fan clutch (???), water pump ($60?) a couple sensors that were maybe $30 each. I'm not remembering the exact prices but it's still in that same $150/yr range. I've averaged about 5,000/yr on that one so it should be low.

So no bullshit.

That's the way I go. Buy a new car about every 10-12 years.

Just curious, at what point would you drop those coverages? Would you carry them on a car worth $5000? $3000?

Yeah I don't think those cars are worth it either. All the new is used up, and they still command a high price. 5-10 years old is where the most value is IMO.

There are some advantages to buying new. You can get the exact car you want with the options you want instead of just settling for what you can find, you get a full warranty, you can drive it a long time before needing repairs or risking breakdowns, and you get the piece of mind that your car hasn't been thoroughly abused or neglected before you got it. If you keep it for a long time, the extra cost isn't prohibitive.

I really lucked out with my current car, though. It was two years old with only 14,500 miles. The main thing I was looking for was that it had a manual and this one did (very rare). It was $16K (down from the new price of $23K). If I had picked up a new one, I would have chosen a different color and probably the next trim level up but I am pretty happy with what I got.

I think the incremental yearly rate increases negated any drop in rates from age.