Quote:
Originally Posted by Drifter
Most people would rather have those newer half-worn cars, but I'd rather have the refreshed older car. They're paying $12,000 hoping to get another ~150,000 miles with normal maintenance vs me paying $12,000 hoping to get another 350,000-400,000 miles with normal maintenance.
Truthfully I wouldn't put $12,000 into an old car all at once unless it was a restoration or something. For a beater/driver, I just treat it like the Ship of Theseus and replace things along the way even if some rare repairs cost more than the market value of the car (e.g. rebuilt engine).
|
Exactly!
I remember once my brother way paying $300 per month for a used pickup along with another $300 per month for insurance. I was paying some $50 per month for liability on the Mazda 323 that had cost me $250. I figured if I invested the other $550 per month into the car I was saving compared to his situation, after a couple years I'd basically have a new car. But with my brother, when his truck broke he didn't have money to fix it. There were several months it just sat there with him paying for it.
With a semi-used car you have to make room in your budget for potential repairs. With an older car that may go up, depending on the treatment it got. A lot of what happens afterwards depends on the driver. The reason I'm looking at buying another engine for the Prius is that the previous owners thought they could do yearly oil changes instead of every 5,000 miles like they should. At every 5,000 miles the engine should last 400k or 500k miles, not 150k-200k.