Said another way, Your car is already failing to deliver you to wherever you want to go. It’s broken now.
So it’s past time to make it reliable enough for you to feel confident enough to drive a whopping 100 miles, or replace it if you / your mechanic can’t make it that reliable. It is failed now.
Just this evening I drove 50 miles to a baseball game & will drive 50 more back home. Except in extreme poverty I cannot imagine owning a car so decrepit that the idea of that drive is scary.
There are people here that poor. And that’s a damned shame. But I really doubt the OP is one of them.
I was using Toyota 4Runners as my model here. To come up with the figure, I looked at how much Toyota 4Runners with around 200K miles are selling for. (And that is the low end: the range is actually $8,000 to $12,000.)
I have no idea why 4Runners (or any vehicle, for that matter) with that many miles are selling for that much money.* Anybody who does buy one with that many miles on it should plan on a major repair soon.
I sure as heck wouldn’t pay $8,000 for a vehicle with 200K miles. But I may be willing to sell a vehicle for that price.
Bottom line, the price of a vehicle is set by the market. It wouldn’t be worth that price for me, but obviously is worth it to someone else.
Also note that the used-car market has been very distorted with much higher prices over the last few years due to decreased inventory (due to supply-chain issues from the pandemic), along with inflation spiking the price of new vehicles to stratospheric levels.
And with that said, I might be willing to live with my 4Runner a while longer, even if I’m taking the risk of encountering a major repair, if the alternative is buying a very expensive replacement.
*Actually, I do know. Someone who only has $8,000 to spend on a vehicle and wants an SUV. Maybe it’s not the most cost-effective way to buy one, but if that’s all the money you have, then you have no choice.
We tend to keep our cars for a long time, and I’m not sure there’s much consistency in our approach.
First car (VW bug): stolen, stripped, recovered, totaled. Owned about 8 years. Replaced by new Honda Civic
Second car (Hand-me-down Toyota Corolla Wagon): Replaced by Nissan 4x4 truck, and sold as surplus to need. Owned about 5 years
Third car (Honda Civic purchased new): Rear ended and totaled. Replaced by hand-me-down Honda Accord. Owned about five years.
Fourth car (Hand-me-down Volvo 122): Surplus to need and no place to keep it. We both regret selling it. Owned less than one year.
Fifth car (Nissan 4x4 purchased new: Replaced by Toyota 4Runner purchased new. Sold because we were starting a family and we realized the Nissan salesperson lied to us when he said Nissan sold chlld seats that fit in the jumpseats of the Nissan truck. Owned about 3 years.
Sixth car (inherited Porsche 356): Sold as surplus to wants. Replaced by used 1986 Carrera. Owned about 3 years.
Seventh car (the hand-me-down Honda Acccord): Sold as surplus to need. Replaced by Toyota Prius. Owned about 10 years.
Eighth car (Toyota 4Runner purchased new): replaced by Subaru Outback. Sold because it lacked modern safety features and my wife was no longer comfortable with me commuting snowy mountain roads in it. Owned 26 years.
We still own a 2002 Prius (over 400K miles and going strong), a 2018 Outback (long range driver and winter commuter), and the 1986 Carrera (fun car). I see no patterns in why we get rid of our cars, but we agree that we’re going to drive the Prius until it falls apart. We’ve gotten our money’s worth out of it, and we’ve been very happy with it over the 23+ years we’ve owned it.
But I have no intention of replacing it, ever. However, I see no reason to be rid of it when it serves me well for running errands. If it strands me at Lowes, at worst I wait 20 minutes for a ride home. If it craps out on I95, it would be at least an hour and a half or more to get a ride home.
I don’t fear driving it and it’s not decrepit, but I will be cautious where I have an option.
I was popping in here to say the exact same thing. AAA is great, but needing to call it should be an infrequent event, and if it becomes frequent for one of the cars, it’s time to replace it.
We’ve been Honda people for quite some time now - 1986, 2000, and 2009 Accords, a 2016 Civic, and now a 2025 CRV. The 1986 and 2000 Accords both started getting iffy not that long after passing the 15 year and 200,000 mile milestones, and the 2009, which has been passed down to the Firebug now that he’s driving, has 16 years and 193K miles, so we’re keeping an eye on it.
I drove my first three cars into the ground. They were disposed of when they had a problem whose cost to repair exceeded the cost to buy a better car that didn’t need a bunch of repairs. (Car 1 - head gasket went and sold to a friend who could repair it. Car 2 - recurring electrical problems kept shorting out the ECM. I junked it. Car 3 - transmission went and I junked it). Fourth car - sold when I started law school in a big city and didn’t need a car. Fifth car - the now-Mrs. Charming and Rested hated it and it was hard for other cars to see so after being hit twice by inattentive drivers less than a month apart, I sold it. Sixth car - a wheel bearing went bad. I knew what needed to be fixed but I listened to the internet to never tell a mechanic what to replace; just describe the problem and let them figure it out. So I went in with a clunking in my left front wheel and got a car back with new brakes it didn’t need and a continuing clunking in my wheel. I was frustrated. I had owned the car for 12 problem-free years but I didn’t have the time to or tools to fix it myself at the time, I didn’t know a mechanic I could trust. Mrs. Charming and Rested wanted to learn how to drive and didn’t want to learn on a manual transmission so I just bought a new car. Sixth car was a track toy but I didn’t choose it particularly well. I got a perfect example of a collectible that was worth preserving but an on-track incident (setting my brakes on fire in a high-speed straight during a long session) damaged the car enough that I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. Seventh car - another fun/track car that I wore out and got tired of fixing the same things over and over again. Ninth car - I bought a fairly rusty and neglected car that was very fun to drive but the niggling problems were annoying and the major problems that accumulated over time swamped my interest in maintaining it. I’m getting rid of it because the cost to repair its many faults far exceed the value of the car even in fully-repaired condition. Technically, I still own this car but I’m donating it to charity soon.
This is my rule of thumb too. The only time I skipped this is on the “middle truck” when I got rear ended, and it got totalled by my insurance company.
And just to add, in terms of inconvenience, at the extreme end, if I start thinking I might end up stuck in the middle of nowhere because the car has died/blown up then this is an important consideration.
A worthy point. There’s another point worth making – one that is doomed to eventually be exposed as a fallacy, yet containing much wisdom in the medium term. And that is the fact that that which has always been reliable, will likely continue to be reliable. At least, more dependably so than some piece of shit that is always breaking down.
This is how I feel about my current 20-year-old car. A few years ago, it developed a tendency for the power steering to whine after it was warmed up. I did not hesitate to drive it over 200 miles (there and back) to attend a friend’s funeral. The result after that long trip? It fixed itself and no longer whines. Everything still works just like new. The car that just won’t die!
My 2010 Dodge 1500 has 208,000 mostly trouble-free miles (Chrysler–go figure) and I plan to keep it indefinitely. I only drive it 6-7000 miles a year, so the 16 mpg rankles but isn’t a deal breaker. Plus, new pick-ups don’t do much better if at all. If a mid-sized compelling ev truck comes out, I may change my mind.
Seems like many (not all) folks in the thread are talking about keeping an auxiliary vehicle that gets old, gets little use, and keeps on ticking. Which is great, and certainly makes sense if one has a place to store it for free and an occasional need for whatever it specifically does.
But ISTM the OP is asking about what to do about your daily driver. Your one vehicle you use often and depend upon for the bulk of your missions, both near and far.
Which different situations warrant different decision criteria.
I’m with LSL on this one. If I don’t trust my car to make a 200 mile trip, or if it’s impacting my ability to see family or loved ones as desired, it’s time for a new vehicle.
I don’t understand keeping a vehicle that can’t be fully utilized just “because” or you’re waiting for it to hit some magic number on the odometer.
That partly depends on how many drivers and vehicles are in one’s family. With three drivers and three vehicles at present, they don’t all need to be ready for a 200 mile trip. If the Firebug’s car can be trusted to handle his commute to the local community college, that’s good enough, as long as at least one of our other cars is trustworthy for a trip of several hundred miles, and all of them are trustworthy for the demands we normally put on them.
Some time after 100k I’ll get sick of a car. Then I’ll get a new one. It will be on the early side of 100k if it starts nickel and diming me. It will be later if it’s been good to me.
I will never buy another Subaru. They have had a problem with oil consumption for decades across multiple engines and they just shrug and say it’s normal. They did that with my Impreza. I told them it wasn’t normal. They had me do multiple oil consumption studies. Still told me it was normal. I showed them the internet chatter and pending lawsuit about the problem. They pretended they never heard of it. Finally after a couple of years the evidence became overwhelming and there was a recall. They replaced my engine block. It still burned oil too fast but not quite as bad. I learned to loathe Subaru as a company. That’s the only car I got rid of before 100k. I think it was around 70k. It amazes me how many people just shrug their shoulders and accept that Subarus burn oil. I’ve never had that problem before or since. It is possible to build a car without that problem. I would rather have one of those.
Yeah, my family has mostly gotten ourselves into a cycle where new or “new” cars are acquired when the driver ends up in a minor car accident that none-the-less totals the vehicle. We did replace Mom’s minivan when it was having transmission issues– it was traded in, and we got a call from someone thinking about buying it “anything wrong with it?” “Um, the transmission . . . ” potential new owner knew it needed a new transmission, but if that was the only thing wrong thought it might be a reasonable deal.
My brother’s Suburu (previously Grandma’s Suburu) did eventually die of old age.
But we’ve collectively had a pretty good string of “minor” noninjury but bad for the car accidents.
I probably did keep my Saturn longer than I should have, but I couldn’t face car shopping in December on no notice, so I paid for the brake lines and possibly something else. (It’s been a few years). Of course, one can ask whether car shopping in August on no notice is better, but at that point, I didn’t have a choice.
Until very recently we’ve not had the money for new cars and have had to get used, often well-used, vehicles. Those have often been replaced when the cost of repairing some catastrophic problem (engine or transmission failure) cost more than simply buying another used car. Sometimes our little family outgrew the car (Toyota Tercel) or, on the other end of the spectrum, we didn’t need to ferry around two licensed drivers so got rid of the mom-mobile (Chrysler Town and Country). 3 cars I’ve given away to people who needed reliable transportation. My wife replaced her HHR when her chronic pain got to the point that it was uncomfortable to drive and she needed something significantly taller. I replaced a Honda Civic at 47k miles when my kids outgrew the back seat and we got a dog. The Kia we bought in Feb. 2023 now has 49½K miles on it. I wish – my God, how I wish – that it had a manual transmission. Otherwise, I love it and plan to drive it until it dies catastrophically and is prohibitively expensive to repair or… well, that’s probably the only reason I’d get rid of it.
I do like the idea of having a 3rd vehicle as a backup but right now our cars are new enough that I don’t predict and impending problems. My Soul, for whatever reason, was not part of the huge engine recall that’s currently plaguing most 3rd. gen Soul owners so that makes me very happy and quite confident that this car will last a good while.
Whenever I do replace this car though I really want something with a stick shift.
And if I ever do get a real Lancia I will never, ever get rid of it. That’s my dream car if it’s not immediately obvious.
Off the top of my head, ‘25 model year cars available with a true 3-pedal manual transmission and priced for the proletariat – here defined as having an MSRP of less than $50K – are the Toyota GR86, the Toyota Corolla, the Hyundai Elantra, the Ford Mustang, the Subaru WRX, and the Nissan Z. There are others, I’m sure. Both BMW and Subaru have kept manuals around longer than other manufacturers have. The Supra is available with a manual but the MSRP is around 60K.
The Tacoma is the only pickup still available with a manual transmission, but even specced out nicely it’ll run less than $50k. If my Soul were to die tomorrow, that Tacoma would be the first thing I’ want to replace it with.
I think all trim levels of the Bronco are available with a manual transmission, and the lowest 3 trims have an MSRP of <$50K.
Jeep probably still offers the Wrangler with a manual because that’s just part of their image but I’m not confident in stating that for a fact.
