When do you give up on a car?

I tended to keep cars around 200,000 miles. And often in the maybe 25,0000 miles leading up to that time, the vehicles needed some repairs. When it seemed the repairs were getting too frequent or some really big ones were on the horizon, that was when I usually let go. My commute was 67 miles each way, and often had others riding with me, so I liked to feel the car was reliable.

But without that commuting involved, I’d have been even more willing to nurse it along a bit, figuring I’d be paying car payments of X dollars a month instead.
 
I have been influenced by working for companies that run fleets of cars. They don't care about what people want or need, they are looking for the lowest cost per mile driven.
My last employers corporate policy on cars was, barring a crash that totals a car, everything gets fixed if the car has less than 250,000 miles. Cars are replaced at 250,000 miles. 1 ton vans were run up to 500,000 miles, but they have a lot of custom installed equipment. So the empty van may cost $50,000 new, but the modifications add $150,000 to the cost so replacing an engine and transmission is no big deal.
I would note that most of us probably get our mail delivered by a U.S. Postal working driving a 35 year old LLV mail truck which just now are being replaced. And those mail trucks are nothing but Chevy S-10's and Ford Rangers under the custom body.
And United Parcel Service and FedEx routinely run their trucks 1 million miles.
 
Our engine seized on our 2015 Sorento and it was going to cost us over 10k to have a new short block engine put in. That was multiple quotes. It had high mileage so we decided to buy.

I can’t stress enough how hard it is to buy right now and how much you will be overpaying on a used vehicle. Delivery times are insane. All that is on the lots are the highest trim package and that’s great if that’s what you want but I’m not paying 10k more for it. Just a quick example, I got an email from the Toyota dealer Friday.. would I like a 2020 Corolla with 20,000 km’s on it? Price before freight and 13% tax was $29,900. Nope.

I am firmly in the repair what you have and wait for this madness to settle down camp. Now is not a time I wanted more debt. We were stuck. YMMV.

One other thought.. go see the delivery times on what you would be buying if buying new. You might be waiting longer than you expect for it to come in. Some wait times were over a year around here.
I'm 13 months in on waiting for a car I ordered. And it's not like I ordered some unicorn either. I ordered a Yukon Denali, but with the diesel engine. There has been one thing or another on constraint ever since. Oddly they can get an escalade with the diesel engine, but I'm not paying cadillac prices to get a car.
 




Problem with that is most safety systems are inexpensive fixes. Brakes , seat belts and lights, etc.
You can't just magically add on collision avoidance, blind spot monitoring, lane departure and adaptive cruise control. You need to buy a newer car for that.
 
I sold my old Honda when it was 16 years old with 175k miles on it. It still worked fine but had a slight oil leak. I was ready to upgrade to a new car with new safety features. My old car only had anti lock brakes and front airbags.
My new car is now almost 6yo and it’s paid off and runs well. My next upgrade will be when ds gets a license. He can use my car.

I would sell it or trade it when it doesn’t feel reliable anymore. Can you take a road trip without feeling like you are going to get stranded?
 
You can't just magically add on collision avoidance, blind spot monitoring, lane departure and adaptive cruise control. You need to buy a newer car for that.
True. I'll be honest, the lane departure and adaptive cruise control are darn distracting. Our Toyota has that.
 
So my equation seems a bit of a contradiction.

A car stops being really reliable as soon as the warranty drops off to me so in general on paper I prefer leases, but I can't do this NOW because the world has become so unstable. We have a 2021 SUV due to a lot of highway driving between homes and colleges but that's drawing to a close so we were thinking to switch to a Tesla next BUT who needs another headache waiting and all. The world situation is such a huge deterrent to making any changes and I'm feeling very skittish with so many things, even sticking my neck out for a credit pull tripping up our credit score ratings has me on edge so I'm totally avoiding that at all costs for the foreseeable future. We know too many people whose lives were upended by credit score disaster in the 2008 trainwreck and a pull is required when you get a car so just nope as far as the eye can see nope. Anyway, we'll probably suck it up and stick with what we have until the world settles down. Really, it's all about the devil you know right now and I know what I have.

We did accumulate a few owned vehicles for the families benefit in the past few years and some are in better shape than others. I suspect we'll just keep every one, good and bad, on the bench as alternates until they drop.

So that's my system ;)
 
So my equation seems a bit of a contradiction.

A car stops being really reliable as soon as the warranty drops off to me so in general on paper I prefer leases, but I can't do this NOW because the world has become so unstable. We have a 2021 SUV due to a lot of highway driving between homes and colleges but that's drawing to a close so we were thinking to switch to a Tesla next BUT who needs another headache waiting and all. The world situation is such a huge deterrent to making any changes and I'm feeling very skittish with so many things, even sticking my neck out for a credit pull tripping up our credit score ratings has me on edge so I'm totally avoiding that at all costs for the foreseeable future. We know too many people whose lives were upended by credit score disaster in the 2008 trainwreck and a pull is required when you get a car so just nope as far as the eye can see nope. Anyway, we'll probably suck it up and stick with what we have until the world settles down. Really, it's all about the devil you know right now and I know what I have.

We did accumulate a few owned vehicles for the families benefit in the past few years and some are in better shape than others. I suspect we'll just keep every one, good and bad, on the bench as alternates until they drop.

So that's my system ;)
I pretty much expect a modern car to go 10 years with zero repairs, so a car really isn't broken in until then in my assessment. Our Toyota Camry Hybrid warranty on the Hybrid components is 10 years and 150,000 miles, so warranties are pretty long now on some items on some cars.
 
The world situation is such a huge deterrent to making any changes and I'm feeling very skittish with so many things, even sticking my neck out for a credit pull tripping up our credit score ratings has me on edge so I'm totally avoiding that at all costs for the foreseeable future. We know too many people whose lives were upended by credit score disaster in the 2008 trainwreck and a pull is required when you get a car so just nope as far as the eye can see nope.
A hard pull drops your score generally 5 points and is only factored into your score for 12 months. That should be inconsequential.
 
A hard pull drops your score generally 5 points and is only factored into your score for 12 months. That should be inconsequential.
I don't want to take any chances, back in 08 credit limits were randomly dropped for absolutely no reason - no job changes or late payments nothing to trigger and no explanation, the limits just dropped out of the blue on everyone I knew especially in PA. Since the credit scores are heavily dependant on the ceilings (limits) v what is owed without regard to income, the random drops totally wrecked a whole lot of people I knew who lost homes because they couldn't get an ok for a refi in PA. The refis would would have kept homes and families together but policy ruined all that. Don't need to tell me twice, I learned my lesson and am teaching my kids things they already know, to avoid the process as much as possible since it steals wealth. I didn't used to think so but now I am convinced credit is a dangerous tool to be used to earn good rates and should be handled with extreme caution because no-one, and I mean no-one is going to help you when they decide to change the rules. I permit checks very rarely and I count - getting a credit pull to look for a car is some serious business I don't do lightly anymore.
 
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We give up when we find ourselves back at the repair shop more often than driving it. Usually around 120-150,000 miles. We have not bought new in several years. We have found better deals with a car that is around 2-3 years old. With Covid, however, I am thinking a new one may now be a better deal since used car prices are insane.
 
I had a 1998 Toyota Camry that I bought new off of the dealership lot. I wound up putting EXACTLY 269,000 miles on it. Up until the end, the only maintenance I had to do was routine fluid changes and a set of tires. But, at the end, things just started to give out. It got to the point that it would cost more to repair the car than the car was worth. I finally had to get rid of it in 2016. It was a really great car.
 
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OMG I should’ve never rep to this thread, jinxed myself. Last night my son was driving our 2007 odyssey and it stopped. Had it towed to a shop, at first they said battery and alternator, but called and said it’s dead, transmission shot. This how our other odysseys bit the dust. I see a Kia Sportage in my husband’s near future, have a good dealership in town and there are several 2019’s on the lot.
 
You can't just magically add on collision avoidance, blind spot monitoring, lane departure and adaptive cruise control. You need to buy a newer car for that.
Existing cars don't magically turn into death traps when newer "safety" options are created.
 

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