How long do you keep your cars? 10 years for me

[arminnie]

Just curious as to how long you keep a car. I try to keep a car for 10 years or 120,000 miles. I had a couple of lemons that I had to pull the plug on earlier.

My current vehicle is a '97 Honda Odyssey van with about 60,000 miles on it. I had an '87 Honda Accord for ten years before that and it had about 120,000 miles on it when I sold it. When I bought the Accord, I sold a 17 year old Cutlass convertible that had about 140,000 on it.

I have friends who buy really good cars like Volvo and then trade in for a new one after about 4 years or 50,000 miles. I'm still thinking that my car is new at the 4 year mark.

 

[inkkognito]

I keep them for as long as I can get the dealer to throw in an extended warranty to seal the deal (usually 5 years but sometimes longer). I don't put on many mile because I only live a mile from work, so I am more conserned with time. For my latest car, an Aztek, I got the dealer to throw in a 7-year warranty so I know that I won't have to pay for than a $50 deductible for any repairs for that length of time. If it's still i good shape, I might keep it a while longer, but usually I go on to the next one at warranty's end. My husband bought an identical Aztek used (mine was new) and got them to give a 5-year warranty with it. The trick is to get your final price first (do a LOT of research to make sure it's a good one) and then let the warranty be the deal sealer. The mark-up on those things is unreal. Make them add it to the deal, not mess around with you in the finance office later (one dealer told me they could not put a warranty in the deal and I would HAVE to talk to the finance guy afterwards...as I walked out the door, their policy suddenly underwent a miraculous change).
Barb

 

[Tiffany]

Originally posted by arminnie
Just curious as to how long you keep a car. I try to keep a car for 10 years or 120,000 miles. I had a couple of lemons that I had to pull the plug on earlier.

My current vehicle is a '97 Honda Odyssey van with about 60,000 miles on it. I had an '87 Honda Accord for ten years before that and it had about 120,000 miles on it when I sold it. When I bought the Accord, I sold a 17 year old Cutlass convertible that had about 140,000 on it.

I have friends who buy really good cars like Volvo and then trade in for a new one after about 4 years or 50,000 miles. I'm still thinking that my car is new at the 4 year mark.

2.5 to 3yrs. I am going to lease my next one as I do not drive that much and it just makes better sense then buying a brand new car every two and a half to three years.

 

[pjlla]

Originally posted by Tiffany
2.5 to 3yrs. I am going to lease my next one as I do not drive that much and it just makes better sense then buying a brand new car every two and a half to three years.

I'm confused... if you don't drive that much why would you need to buy a new car every two to three years?? Wouldn't a car last longer, since you are not driving it much? ..................P

BTW, DH and I tend to buy them used (good quality cars like Saabs) and drive them until they are unreliable (ready to drop), which is usually about 10 year, and then we donate them to a charity that takes used cars (and yes, they will take cars that aren't currently running). We have donated to the Lung Association, the Kidney Foundation, and one other I cannot think of!....................P

 

[Tiffany]

Originally posted by pjlla
I'm confused... if you don't drive that much why would you need to buy a new car every two to three years?? Wouldn't a car last longer, since you are not driving it much? ..................P

BTW, DH and I tend to buy them used (good quality cars like Saabs) and drive them until they are unreliable (ready to drop), which is usually about 10 year, and then we donate them to a charity that takes used cars (and yes, they will take cars that aren't currently running). We have donated to the Lung Association, the Kidney Foundation, and one other I cannot think of!....................P

Hi,

Really nothing to understand. I like driving new cars and can afford to so I do. It is the one thing in my life that is not fiscally responsiable. It is stricly a "want" purchase.

 

[ceecee]

I drove my Olds Calais for over 10 years! The thing would not die. I kept saying if I had to start in with a lot of repairs I would get another. Just maintance mostly and one time it did cost $350.00 for repairs. I sold it to the first person who came to look at it!!! I had to get a new one because DD was outgrowing her baby seat (that we had tethered) and graduating to a booster - the Calais was an 89 and didn't have shoulder straps in the back seat.

My Windstar is 1999 (I do like it) but I have already put $1000.00 into repairs this year alone. We bought it for the safety rating at the time and it didn't have the best repair rating although the 99 was supposedly better than the earlier models.

DH thinks you have to drive one forever!!!! We love not having car payments though. I work PT (2 miles from home) he works 25 miles and I think he needs a newer car (He has an Oldsmobile Eighty Eight-1997) He says it still have years left on it!!!

 

[ladydancer]

For many years we leased for 3-4 years. Both our trucks and our family automobile. Dh finally bought a truck instead of leasing. At my insistance. Dh truck we just paid off last year. It is a 1998 Ford F150. I just got out of my lease late last year and bought a 2004 Ford Freestar.

We have never paid a automobile off before. So this truck is a first. Hubby can't stand to pay for repairs. Since paying off his truck a couple of minor things have had to be fixed and new tires bought. Every time something has to be fixed he says "guess I need a new truck". I keep telling him we need to just keep these automobiles as long as we can now that we have bought his truck and bought my van. I have to remind him a few minor repairs and tires are alot cheaper than a new truck!

I have been trying to convince him the last 2 vans we bought to buy instead of leasing but never could get him to do it. Finally he did it this last time. It is like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I am not trading in the Van until it falls apart.

 

[disneysteve]

I've had a 1973 Chevy Impala - was one of our family cars when I got my license. We kept that for 13 years before it was damaged in an accident and not worth fixing. Next I had a 1982 Datsun Maxima. Kept that for over 80,000 miles. Gave it to my cousin and got a 1991 Toyota Camry. Kept that for 127,000 miles and traded it in for a 1998 Camry which now has 76,000. I plan to keep that for about 125,000 also.

On my wife's list - a 1989 Hyundai that we sold to her sister in 1996 and bought a Chrysler Grand Caravan. That was destroyed by fire in 2000. We then got a 2000 Toyota Sienna that was wrecked in an accident in 2002. We replaced it with another 2000 Sienna that we thankfully still have and it has 56,000. If nothing catastrophic happens to that one, we'll probably keep it for about 100,000 miles.

 

[kaf7878]

I'm a drive 'em till they drop kinda girl. We have a 99 Malibu with 100,000 miles on it already (yikes!) and next month is the last payment. I am so excited to free up that money. Knock on wood, we have been VERY lucky and have only had to do normal maintenace like replacing tires and brakes and maybe one other thing. I'm hoping it will last us another four years!

 

[bigbabyblues]

This is a sore subject in our house, but I'm getting better!

In the first 7 years I was out of high school, I worked full time, and for 2 years I was in college full time as well; this time extends into the first few years of my marriage. Anyway, in this 7-year period, I bought 5 new cars, plus we co-bought a truck for DH, since he didn't have any credit (not bad, just none), and I had plenty of it--all good! The longest I had any of those vehicles, aside from DH truck, was 17 months. The shortest time I kept one was 8 months.

On to the present, DH drives the last car I got (we bought it together), a 2001 Hyundai Elantra. We bought it new in November of 2000, it's almost 4 years old. This is a record for me to own a car! He drives it because it's so much easier on gas the our other vehicle, and so far we've had no problem with it; he drives 63 miles each way to work, so 126 miles per day. This car has around 80,000 miles on it now. Our other vehicle is a 2000 Jeep Cherokee that I drive; we bought it used in 2002, we've had it almost 2 years and are looking to trade it fairly soon. They Hyundai is almost paid for, the Jeep is not.

Steph

 

[wuv tigger]

We pay cash for a new vehicle and drive it till it drops. DW does not like other people's used cars. Currently have:

96 Chevy Lumina with 106,000 on it. Only putting about 5,000 miles a year on it, so will probably commute with it for at least another 5 years.

2002 Chevy Venture with 25,000 on it. Long way to go on this one unless we keep driving to Orlando

Nice not to have car payments.

David

 

[floridagirrl2]

We buy new (finance for 4 years) and keep our cars until they become unreliable. My last two trucks were sold at around the 140,000 mile mark (the first one I had for 6 years--long commute at the time--the second one for 11 years).


Currently I drive a 1998 Nissan Quest van with 103,000 miles on it (DH drives a lot for work and this was originally his car--I only drive less than 5 miles round trip for work so I'm racking up the miles much slower). DH drives a 2003 Honda Element with 20,000 miles on it and 3 years of payments left. We expect the van to last at least 3-5 more years so hopefully we will have a year or two with NO car payments like we did before we bought the Element .

 

[disneymom3]

Well, we drive a Chrysler Town & Country with about 60,000 miles on it which is two years old (Yeah, 30,000 miles a year--we live in the sticks and like to drive to WDW!) It is financed for 5 years--so three to go--at zero percent financing. However, we stilll owe more on it than it is currently worth.

Our other car is an Isuzu Oasis 1997, which is a Honda Odyssey with the Isuzu label on it. That one we bought one year old and it has about 140,000 miles on it. DH drives about 100 miles RT each day. My intention was to keep that one until about 200,000 miles on it which on our old driving habits would have been until the other one was paid off. With this 2000 mile a month thing, I don't know if that is going to work. The amazingly wonderful thing about this car is that we have never (!) had it repaired. Routine maintenance, new tires and Honda brakes (which according to our car guy should last us 100,000 miles.) That is a very cool thing. I just keep praying it keeps up!

 

[crzy4mickey]

We usually keep our cars 10 years or more, my husband finally had to buy a truck last year because his 17 year old truck was dead! He bought a new one since he really works hard and always puts himself last. My car was only 4 1/2 years old in great shape, low miles and suddenly we decided to go and look since the manufacturers rebates were good. And since my car was in fairly good shape why not trade it in when we can get something for it instead of trading it in and getting next to nothing for it! So we looked and talked to a sales man, the next night we drove home our new car with no money out of our pocket, and we are paying only a few dollers more a month than the other car! With the trade in, mfg rebates and money taken off the price of the car we saved about10, 300 off the price of the car! Everyone can't belive we did it. Some thought it was just a rental since we were talking about getting new tires before winter! WHen they saw my Mickey hanging from the rear view mirror, they realized it was my new car!

P.S. it didn't even cut into my Disney Fund!

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

When my husband chose the cars we bought a new car every two years and were always in debt. After getting a really bad lemon (hint-it was Fixed Or Repaired Daily) I did some serious research and bought our first Toyota Camry. We have now had three, kept each for about 7 years, and only had one $50 repair (hubby broke door handle) that was not routine maintance.

I picked out, and sweated over, my dh's Mazda truck. It has almost 100,000 miles on it now and is about 14 years old, runs like a dream still. All praise to Consumer Reports (NOT Digest)

Another thing I did was keep putting the amount of the car payment in the bank even after the vehicle was paid off and now we can pay cash for our cars. Is very thrilling, for us, not the dealer. LOL

Now that we are retired I will not be getting rid of any good running cars/trucks until they have passed their prime. By staggering when we buy our vehicles we always have at least one that is new enough to drive to WDW. LOL

Taking our 2004 Toyota back in October. See you all there!!

Slightly Goofy/Linda

 

[shirleyb]

I have a 1997 Chrysler T&C mini-van with 150K on it. It runs great, although I have replaced the tranny on it once. Other than that, I haven't spent anything on it. I hope it runs another year or two, because it's comfortable, and gets fairly good mileage (27 on a trip).

DH has a 1997 GM truck - with 120K on it. It also runs great.

As you can see, we run 'em till they die. Also buy gently used, so that someone else eats the big depreciation. We'll probably drive to WDW next year, though, so the van is a concern. Not sure that I will want to take a vehicle with at least 165K by that point on a 2000 mile trip.

 

[pilgrimage]

We keep cars at least 16 years.In Sweden, the average age of vehicles is 15 years! As Americans, we're trying to meet their standard!

We sold our 82 Volvo 245 this week with 187,000 miles on it ( and still rolling),and also gave our 88 BMW 528e to a family member with 206,000 miles on it. Our 90 Volvo 245 has 214,000 miles and we just bought an 04 on sale. - We usually buy 3 or 4 year old cars with 50,000 miles. I travel a lot for business, and our families live out of state,so we put on a lot of highway miles. We change oil every 3500 miles, not 7500 as the guide books recommend. My brother is a mechanic and he believes that is one of the keys to longevity. I am grateful that they have run this long with very few repairs, except AC. Those Swedes need to learn how to cool cars as well as they heat them.

 

[tar heel]

We buy those cars that you folks who trade every couple of years get rid of and keep them until they are unreliable. We gave our last retired one to charity and anticipate doing that henceforth.
We used to buy new cars, but decided a few years ago that we would rather do something else with the $. It is amazing how much less a two-three year old car costs. Plus, we don't want to have a car on which we owe more than it's worth. We currently have

a 2000 Grand Caravan with 74,000 miles bought in 2002 with 31,000 miles. Price just over half the sticker price on a similarly equipped new one.

1995 Camry with 90,000 miles on it. Bought in 1998 with 23,000 miles on it.

1993 Olds Cutlass with 56,000 miles (YES -- that mileage is correct). This car's original owner was 90 years old and didn't do a lot of driving.

 

[Local_Girl]

Our current car is a '95 Honda Accord wagon with well over 220,000 miles on it. We have done a lot of cross country driving, and it's been our only vehicle for almost 9 years. DH says Hondas are just getting broken in at the 100,000 mile mark . He's pretty good about having the routine maintenance done on the car. We have driven it from Michigan to WDW twice in the past 2 years.

 

[djkeenan]

I keep mine till it rusts away from under me. Last one had 326,000 miles. DW's 98 Grand Marquis still looks new with 130,000 and my F-150 has just a few good dings and only 166,000.

We love having no car payment and hope to keep it that way for another few years.