How many miles do you have on your

[kribit]

car before you trade in or think about trading in?

 

[BethR]

We don't usually trade ours in. We run them to the ground, and then get new ones.

My 99 Grand Caravan has 158K miles on it. I am hoping to get another year or so out of it.

We just passed on our 93 Grand Caravan with over 160K on it to DH's brother who is hoping to get a few more miles out of it...

 

[ducklite]

It depends.

I've sold/traded cars with under 30,000 miles on them for various reasons, and I"ve also kept them to over 100,000 miles.

I'm at the very beginnings of thinking about replacing one of our cars that has about 83,000 miles on it. I'm starting to not have as much faith in it--call it a gut feeling, and having a reliable car that I never have to take in for anything but PM is more important to me than just about anything.

Anne

 

[ckay87]

We don't usually trade ours in. We run them to the ground, and then get new ones.

My 99 Grand Caravan has 158K miles on it. I am hoping to get another year or so out of it.

We just passed on our 93 Grand Caravan with over 160K on it to DH's brother who is hoping to get a few more miles out of it...

Same here. When we can sell the thing for the tires and nothing more, we are done with it.

Had 2 VWs that were at around 220K miles til we were done with them. The doors were falling off and there was no heat....but they still ran

 

[DaisyD]

We don't go by mileage. We get something new when we are tired of the ones we have or see one we want more. It could be 1 year old or 3 years old. My MDX is 2 years old with 17,000 miles on it. DH asked me if I wanted the newer model but I said no. I love my car and want to hang on it for now. When we do give up a car we usually buy the new one and sell the old one ourselves. We never trade in the car.

 

[mom2boys]

Another who never trades a car in. We run them as long as we can, then we run them some more. Even a $500 repair bill is only one new car payment. My 99 Honda Odyessy is just shy of the 200,000 mile mark. It runs fine - or it will when I take care of the flat tire I discovered this morning.

DH drives a 92 Honda Civic. He doesn't communte far so he only has about 175,000 miles. The trade in value on the van is about $3,000 - if everything is perfect on it. We decided we will just keep it as our 3rd vehicle. DS who won't be 16 for 3 more years, has his heart set on his father's Civic.

 

[Tybug]

In the past, I'd start thinking about trading in the daily driver at about 50K miles. Just did this in August with the Expedition and it had 63K miles(3 yrs old) the day we traded her in for my new baby(Volvo XC90) that I see myself keeping well past the 100K mile mark!

 

[mickeyfan2]

Usually close to 200K.

 

[jacksonsmom]

Well, DH has a 97 Saturn SL2 with 220,000 miles on it and he is still driving it every day to work. He only uses it as his back and forth to work car.
It is falling apart, the bumper is held in place with duct tape and he 'patched' a small hole in the car with duct tape (both things happened when he hit a raccoon) but it runs still.
The a/c doesn't work so we are thinking about getting a replacement come summer but we will see.

We won't trade it in though. We actually know someone who works on cars that is willing to give us about $500 for it for parts.

 

[freckles and boo]

We also don't rotate cars. We buy new and keep them until they don't run or are no longer safe. My husband has a 1991 Chevy S-10 rusting on the back drive. It still runs so we use it for Home Depot runs, gardening, etc. We have an eight year old sedan and a brand new minivan, both of which we bought for the long haul. Then again, my husband's commute is to the airport and back twice a month and I don't seem to go much of anywhere these days.

 

[denisenh]

I went through the "I want to get a new car" stage in my 20's and 30's, trading in every 2-3 years.

Now, I realize that buying a car is not an investment of any kind (in most cases) and they depreciate so quickly it is stunning.

I drive a sturdy classicly styled SUV which I bought new (I should have bought a slightly used one) 9 years ago. It looks new and runs beautifully (knock on wood) and hopefully it will last at least another 30-35 years.

 

[KelNottAt]

We don't trade in, either. We keep a car for 10 years then donate it to charity or give it away to a family member.

Our '98 Accord will be given to DS when he gets his license in '08. My '02 Odyssey will probably go to college with one of the kids. Both those cars will probably have about 170,000 miles when we pass them along.

 

[MzDiz]

Until they no longer run.

I have one more payment left on our Toyota. After that, I never want another car payment again for as long as I live. Blech! I refuse to ever give away my money like that again.

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

I think my last one had around 120,000 miles on it, but I only traded it in because I needed something with better gas mileage (it was an SUV).

 

[Pigeon]

The last one we got rid of was a Toyota Camry with 215K on it. My 93 Corolla has 150K on it and I'm hoping to get a couple more years out of it.

 

[Sugardimples]

I have a 1987, 20 year old Volvo with 190,000 miles on it and have no plans to replace it.

 

[CapeCodTenor]

Well, DH has a 97 Saturn SL2 with 220,000 miles on it and he is still driving it every day to work. He only uses it as his back and forth to work car.
It is falling apart, the bumper is held in place with duct tape and he 'patched' a small hole in the car with duct tape (both things happened when he hit a raccoon) but it runs still.
The a/c doesn't work so we are thinking about getting a replacement come summer but we will see.

We won't trade it in though. We actually know someone who works on cars that is willing to give us about $500 for it for parts.

A '97 Saturn SL1 here with only 103,677 miles on it. I kind of got lucky. When I bought it in '97 in New Mexico and then drove out here to Boston to goto school. I would drive it maybe 4 miles a day, 2 miles to the train station and the other 2 miles back home. On weekends I would drive a bit more, especially in the summer, but for the most part my car didn't get driven much from '98-'03. Now I drive a lot, I have a 60 mile commute, round trip, so in about 3 years I'll probably be ready for another one.


ETA: My next car will have to last me a very long time, because I can't see myself buying a new car ever 4 or 5 years.

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

We never trade in cars. We run them into the ground, and then some. Our last car had about 160K miles. We would have kept it but it started having some serious problems. After about 2K worth of repairs and it still not running, we gave up. We donated it to the firehouse so they could train newcomers on the jaws of life. I know someone who has an early 90's Sentra with close to 200K miles on it. It still runs fine but is having a few issues. He says he can't bare to part with it yet. He bought it new so he must see it reach the 200K mark.

DH drives a 92 Honda Civic. He doesn't communte far so he only has about 175,000 miles. The trade in value on the van is about $3,000 - if everything is perfect on it. We decided we will just keep it as our 3rd vehicle. DS who won't be 16 for 3 more years, has his heart set on his father's Civic.

He has good taste. DBF's parents gave him their early 90's Civic when he first got his license. It then was passed onto each of his siters when they started driving. It had a lot of miles on it and had been abused by each of them. (The youngest sister was backed into by a Mack truck in it. She was hit hard but it (and her) sustained little damage and it never skipped a beat.) The car ran perfectly fine and was reliable. Then they passed it onto their cousin when he started to drive. The car would have been passed onto his sister but he killed it. He decided that going from reverse to drive without stopping would be a great idea. Kinda sad, it would have been nice to see how many new drivers that car could have handled.

 

[kribit]

Wow, sounds like a lot of folks run their cars into the ground. I always get nervous when the car starts getting past the 60k mark. We have 2 cars (Lexus and Honda both 04's - no car payments). Dh asked me this am if I wanted to trade the Honda in (with 65k) for a new car so we have one with less mileage. I was always under the assumption that foreign cars can last well into the 100's, so I'm a little hesitant about creating a car payment for myself. We had a Ford Explorer prior to the Honda and it was the biggest piece of junk - I think we may have gotten a lemon though. We traded that at 43k. My Honda is just starting to require work (brakes, tires, front end alingment, , etc...). I can't stand putting money into a car for repairs, but I guess it's better to drop the 1k on repairs vs. buying a whole new car.

I'm not sure why I am asking this question now. I guess I was just trying to get a general idea of what the general population does.

 

[kribit]

I have a 1987, 20 year old Volvo with 190,000 miles on it and have no plans to replace it.

Wow, now if they only made them like they used to. My neighbor has a brand new S80 and it's in the shop more than it's on the road. It's a beautiful car, but she wants to trade it back in for another Toyota.