How old a car can I buy without worrying about scarce parts?

Factual Questions
21

One of my dad’s jobs at GM was working in service parts distribution, which means the warehouses that ship repair parts to dealers. The old GM guideline was to guarantee parts availability for ten years after the model went out of production but he retired 20 years ago. Cars stay on the roads much longer than they used to. I suspect the guideline number for most automakers now is probably closer to 20 years of parts availability. In reality, it varies greatly as people are saying above based on how popular the model was, whether the automaker sold its tooling to aftermarket manufacturers, whether OEM suppliers continued to produce them independently, whether aftermarket manufacturers put the parts back into production on their own. For desirable models, automakers will occasionally put small volumes of parts back into production at very high prices, but that’s not really relevant to your situation.

I’m not sure if anyone mentioned this problem but one issue is that some cars have an unanticipated fatal flaw. Automakers plan based on past experience to have to replace, let’s say 1% of tail lights on a model each year. But then they discover, like with the Cadillac XLR, that the LED clusters they used had much higher failure rates than anticipated so the service parts operation is very quickly cleared out of any stock. The automaker generally won’t put the parts back into production and they quickly become “NLA” for no longer available. Then, you rely on junkyards and third-party rebuilders to fulfill demand at very high prices. I just faced this issue with the rear subframe on my nephew’s Nissan Altima. The failure rate was high due to shitty bushings that couldn’t be serviced and lots of corrosion that led to recalls. Now, 13 years after that car was built, good rear subframes are almost impossible to find.

22

Be careful to distinguish “running” as in “Will start and can be driven once a month during the warm months for 10 miles to a local rally”, versus “running” as in “This is my only car for my 20 miles each way daily commute and I’ll get fired if I no-show more than a couple times.”

Biiiig difference.

Here’s another vote that if the OP is wanting reliable cheap transportation, an early 2000s Japanese car is what they want.

23

I sold my 1997 Civic, which was still running well, because the plastic was giving out. One day i arrived at the train station to find a puddle of transmission fluid. (My mechanic fixed it for free, it took him 5 minutes to replace a rubber hose that decayed.) Another day, i pulled on the little lever to open the hood, and the plastic handle to the lever fell off in my hand. That kind of thing. The 200k miles were not a problem, because I’d maintained the drive train. The ~20 years of aging were.

Also, cars can have problems if they aren’t driven enough. At least, when my inherited Oldsmobile’s transmission died, the mechanic said it was probably because my grandparents hadn’t driven the car regularly. I forget the details. But it was a fairly young car, and very low mileage, and the repair was going to be a ton of money.

24

Age takes as much a toll as mileage. I have a 2004 Ford F-150 with less than 70K miles on it and it already costs me as much in repairs each year as it is worth. Buy an old car if you are in love with it, but for basic transportation, buy as new a car as you can afford.

But, as to the OP, you can always find parts for almost any production car in the last 100 years. But they won’t always be affordable.

25

I am currently driving a 2013 Chevy Impala with 80,000 miles. Everything is rusting out/breaking and it is costing me way too much to maintain.

I have always maintained my cars but things start breaking that I didn’t even know existed.

Planning on buying a new car as soon as my town stops digging up the streets.

26

Yes, although to a lesser extent than vehicles that are both old and high mileage.

My 23 and 26 year old car and pickup are both very low mileage for their age, but some parts will crack over time, it’s hard to avoid ALL corrosion, and so on. Yes, at some point stuff will start to break because it’s just old, not because it’s been overtly damaged.

There are some things you can do to ameliorate this. Replace things like hoses on schedule (check your owner’s manual). This spring I had my mechanic test the pickup’s cooling system for leaks - turns out there were none this time but the prior time we found a couple and replaced those bits BEFORE it became a Bad Thing. Check the belts for wear. Look under the vehicle for leaky bits.

I try to do a walk-around once a month on mine. Like I said - look under the vehicle for leaks. Pop the hood and check things like belts for wear. Check the fluids. Make sure nothing is constructing a nest in there (I’ve found both rodents and a wasp nest inside engine compartments. You don’t have to have a vehicle sit a long time, either, for this sort of thing to get started). Look for rust, corrosion, anything out of the ordinary. If you aren’t sure what’s ordinary then get in a habit of taking a picture (or three) of the innards every month and play “how are these different” with the prior one(s).

If my 20+ vehicles “look to be in great shape” it’s because I keep a watchful eye on them and have about $1500 in reserve to sink into a major repair should one arise. And yes, that can and does happen. I spent about that much to put a new suspension in my car (that’s the one I had to wait for parts to arrive by slow boat). As I anticipated driving the car another 3-5 years, the mechanic said it was reasonable to anticipate keeping it that long, and it was hella cheaper than buying even a used one I did it.

Elderly vehicles that are still running and looking OK are in that state because the owner is wiling and able to pay the cost of maintaining them. I expect $800-1200 in repairs annually for each of them. I don’t always spend that much, but some years I do. Given inflation and the fact both of them are getting steadily older I may have to revise that estimate upward.

Yes, not driving them enough can also be a problem. I try to switch off by driving one vehicle one week and one the next. If I have to park it for a couple weeks until it can be repaired that’s OK. If there will be several months before I can get a repair done (doesn’t happen often but it has happened a couple times in the past 3 decades) throw some fuel stabilizer in the gas tank. It will prevent a lot of problems, follow the directions on whatever you purchase.

27

I’m one of those people. I have a 1926 Model T. There were a bizillion Model Ts made and there are still a LOT of them out there. It is very easy to find parts for them, though you are going to have to order them and have them shipped to you. You can’t go down to ye ol local auto parts store and expect to find parts for it in stock. Your local mechanic also probably isn’t going to have any experience at all in fixing a Model T.

On the other hand, I used to have a mid-1980s Cadillac and it was extremely difficult to find parts for it. The popularity of the vehicle makes a HUGE difference. The Model T, despite being much older, has been much easier to find parts for.

I’m a car guy. I have a bunch of very old vehicles and I usually do my own repairs. I’m also pretty good at evaluating a used car to know if it has any major problems with it. Used cars tend to be priced by how good they look, not how good they are mechanically. I’ve seen a lot of cars that were mechanically horrible that were way overpriced just because they had a good paint job and the interiors were nice. If you’re not good at mechanically evaluating a used car, there’s a very good chance that you are going to end up in a world of hurt if you buy an older vehicle.

My daily driver is a Buick from the early 2000s. It’s been very reliable so I haven’t had to find parts for it, but poking around online it seems that most parts are easy enough to get. I also have a Jeep from the same era that is my bad weather vehicle. There are a lot of Jeeps out there so it’s very easy to find parts for it.

I personally probably wouldn’t go older than early 2000s for a daily driver type of car. I know that it’s very easy to find parts for old Hondas. I’m not so sure about Toyotas. I just don’t have much experience with those.

Mechanics usually won’t put junkyard parts into a car. If they can’t get the part new, they usually won’t do the work.

Old cars tend to have rust issues. Also, cars that were driven once a week to the grocery store by a little old lady tend to have all kinds of problems. If the car doesn’t get up to operating temperature, moisture tends to collect inside the engine and all through the exhaust system (burning gasoline produces water vapor, among other things). If the car heats up to operating temperature, all that water vapor gets blown out through the exhaust pipe. If you only go a mile down the road to the grocery store, you’ll end up with water in the engine oil (not good) and the exhaust system will tend to rust from the inside out. If the car isn’t driven regularly, rubber seals will also dry out and fail. If you want your car to last, it needs to be driven for at least 20 minutes or so (long enough for everything to get up to temp) at least once a week.

City driving also adds a lot more wear and tear on vehicles than highway driving. All of that stop and go traffic takes its toll. Rural cars tend to be in much better shape mechanically than city cars of the same age and mileage.

I HATE taking door panels off. Just plan on buying a whole new set of plastic clips.

Mostly.

My 1968 Beetle gets about 30 to 35 mpg, which puts it on par with a 2025 Honda Civic.

Old Beetles do so well because they have a small engine and those engines aren’t choked with modern emissions requirements.

A small car like a Beetle or an MG Midget is going to do quite well with gas mileage. A mid 1970s Oldsmobile or Cadillac, well, not so much.

For what it’s worth, my Model T gets about 20 mpg. But then it also struggles to get up some hills around here, and even on the flat bits it just barely keeps up with local traffic. :slight_smile:

28

Another thing to be aware of is that certain options a car was delivered with can make finding parts a royal PITA. Unfortunately this can be near impossible to plan for. My son drives a 2011 Mustang. It’s the base model but has a 6 speed manual transmission. When the transmission went out it took us 6 months to track down a replacement. I was flabbergasted: finding a transmission for a very popular, barely 10 year old car should be easy-peasy, right? But no. Apparently very few were sold with that particular engine/transmission combo as most buyers optioned for the automatic. That was something we didn’t know when we bought it and, frankly, would have no way of finding out even if we wanted to.

OTOH he also has a 1983 Toyota Tercel wagon (the same car as in Tokushizu’s link) that he bought as a project. He’s had to get a myriad of bits and parts for it and so far the local AutoZone has either had what he’s needed on the shelf or could order it with next day delivery. Go figure.

29

Heck, that’s what Mrs. Martian’s 1982 Mustang (bought new) started costing the day it came out of warranty. That car spent more time in the shop than every other car we have owned combined.

We buy new and keep each car about ten years (although a couple of years ago an ice storm on I40 in Oklahoma and a semi truck put an end to that). But we are much more concerned with reliability (not breaking down on the road) than total cost of ownership. If you are OK with risking the occasional tow, then a 20-30 year old car of a reliable make should be fine. As I said earlier, a mid to late 90s Camry or Accord would be my suggestion. Reliable and plenty were made so parts should not be an issue.

My sole experience with a car of that age is the 2000 CR-V that my son took over when we replaced it. That kept running fine, but he junked it in 2023 when wear in the front end caused it to fail (Pennsylvania’s fairly rigorous) annual inspection. If he had to he could have paid the $2-3k to fix it (he’s not the fix it yourself type), but he lived in the city and the car was infrequently used really a luxury.

30

Maybe. Manual transmissions are very very rare on US cars after about 2000 except on exotics. Where they’re merely unusual.

For sure if the OP is looking for a reliable cheap to buy cheap to maintain car they want to buy something as vanilla as possible. Think like a rental car. The base trim, not the luxo trim. Minimal options. And minimal aftermarket parts installed, whether custom wheels or CD players or go-fast stripes or …

And to reiterate something the expert @engineer_comp_geek said:

You will not find a real car repair business who’ll source or install junkyard parts. They have a license and liability insurance to maintain.

Depending on where you live, somebody might know somebody who’ll wrench on your car alongside his house on Saturday. That kinda guy will install junkyard parts. Or maybe you are that kinda guy, but I bet the OP is not.

The older the car the fewer junkyard parts you’ll be able to find. Both fewer of your model & year of hulks left, and whichever parts you need, good bet many of them have already been harvested off the junkers years ago after the supply of those new parts dried up early.

31

Well… yeah. I use my vehicles to get to and from work, mostly, and that’s under 10 miles. Yes, I do have to pay for an occasional tow. Unfortunately, 3 years of medical “adventures” have eaten the money I would have otherwise used for a younger, more reliable car. I’d like to have one I can take on long road trips. My situation is not entirely by choice.

32

You can greatly mitigate repair costs by deciding what to fix and what to live with. If you have a small oil leak, you can just top up the oil rather than getting the leak fixed. If the power windows don’t work, the AC is weak, and it runs a little rough at first, don’t worry about it. The car will still get you where you need to go. However, if you are in an area that has emission testing, you might be forced to get stuff fixed in order to pass.

Having a 2nd car makes owning an older car much easier. If one breaks down, you can just drive the other car and take your time getting the broken car fixed. Consider getting an AAA membership for the towing benefit.

If this is just going to be a car you use to drive around town doing occasional errands, then the problems of an older car may not be such a big deal. You won’t be putting a ton of miles on it and you won’t be depending on it to get you to and from work every day. If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, you’ll be able to fix many things yourself. Chances are there will be tons of YouTube videos covering how to fix every part of your car. But it’s probably best to stay with cars from 2000 and newer for the reliability factor and safety features.

33

If you had been able to ask Click and Clack, I think they would have said some of the same things @echoreply said upthread.

Even if you could find a '60s car in perfect mechanical condition with a warehouse full of spare parts, it won’t have airbags, ABS, stability control, and all the other safety advances you would get in a car built in this millennium. To say nothing of OBDII, and conveniences like cruise control, power windows and locks, etc., that are likely to be available on a more recent car.

All good reasons to look at a 10-20 year old car instead of a 40+ year old one.

Unless, as others have said, you want a new hobby.

34

Personally, I have never understood the love affair with power locks and windows. One of my vehicles has those and the other has crank windows and manual locks. I still prefer the latter. I’m probably showing my age.

35

Low effort is good. More effort is bad. It’s no deeper than that.

Cars are designed only for the initial buyer. And most of those folks get rid of their worn-out ragged hulks between 12 and 36 months after it was new.

What happens for the rest of the vehicle’s life is immaterial to everyone but the hapless used car buyers.

It’s stupid and inefficient and kinda evil, but that is the situation.

36

Not quite. For the overwhelming majority of new car buyers, their first car was not a new car: either because they were making very little income or because their parent didn’t want to spend a lot of money on their teenage child’s car. And if this car was a piece of junk then they would have almost no interest in buying that brand when they had the money to buy a new car.

OP, if there is a car you have in mind check the following site for availability of parts:

While if you look up Ford I see they have parts back to 1908–but unfortunately the only thing they have is spark plugs for the Model T.

37

Exactly the same thing happened with my 2005 Pontiac Sunfire. It was a bare bones car, but built to last. I drove it for 13 years and handed it over to my son, a poor graduate student. He drove it for several years, but eventually the clutch and related parts wore out. GM had stopped making that particular manual transmission years earlier and no aftermarket supplier had stepped up to fill the gap. The only alternative was a junkyard salvage, and his mechanic warned that most of those transmissions were probably in even worse shape.

If it had been the same Sunfire with an automatic transmission, there would have been 200 shops in Chicago that could have repaired/rebuilt it.

38

I don’t think a Honda would be a good choice. They were a quality build, but not built for repair. It’s like trying to repair an Apple iPhone.

39

Well, not in my case – my partner needs the first car to get around. I’ve been taking the bus to work until now, but the city recently overhauled all its transit lines, and with the new routes and schedules it’s going to take me 90 minutes each way instead of 70. Three hours of commuting each day is too much, which is why I’m looking for a second car. (With a car, I can get to work in 30 minutes if there’s no traffic, or 70 if there’s lots of traffic and/or construction, which is no worse than the bus used to be.)

If the second car breaks down, I suppose I could always go back to using the bus while it gets fixed. Or if I’m lucky, maybe the repair shop will loan me their car for free. (They did this already once when I had to get the first car’s brake pads replaced.)

I don’t think I’m in their service area, but I’ll keep it in mind in case they ever extend it to where I live.

40

This is really surprising. Clutches are simple parts and it’s a very rare car built since World War II where you can’t get a clutch, slave cylinder and throw out bearing kit. Rock Auto lists seven from different manufacturers today. 2005 PONTIAC SUNFIRE 2.2L L4 Clutch Kit | Shop Now at RockAuto