My car is bare bones, 5 speed manual, manual windows, manual locks and it might have a CD stereo. The AC works good, so it’s better then any car the family had growing up.
I replaced my 2007 BMW X3 just a couple of weeks ago. It stranded me a couple of miles from home and the shop I had it towed to had no idea what went wrong after a month. It went from running fine to refusing to even crank the starter. Given the age, mileage (~200k) and being a European car, things looked like they’d get expensive, so I replaced it with a 2018 Tesla Model 3.
Typically, I prefer keeping a car as long as possible. As the saying goes, there’s pretty much no repair that would cost as much as buying a new car. The exception for me is when technology advances, and 20 years of German cars made me curious about how low-maintenance EVs actually are.
Side note: I was planning to junk the BMW when a friend of my sister’s heard about it and offered $500 to take it. It took him three weeks, but he’s got it running, and is very happy. He replaced the battery, starter, and a ground strap for about what he paid.
Just be careful with donating to charity; they’re a bit scammy - all of them in that there’s an upside for them but very little in it for you, which of course, they don’t tell you about. If they use your vehicle you get a tax deduction for market value; however, if they sell/dispose of your vehicle, which is what most of them do, then you only get a deduction for the amount they got for it. If they sell it to a scrapper & get $100 for it (which is legit income for the charity) but you only get a tax deduction for $100, so you get ±$30 next year, when you do your taxes (depending upon what your bracket is), & that’s if you itemize. Hardly worth it to remember where you filed a letter six months or a year from now.
This is me, although I’ve only owned two new cars in my life.
I have a ~70 mile daily commute to work and a bit less than half those miles are on a dark, twisty mountain road where there is no – as in absolutely zero – cell service. So for me absolutely ironclad reliability is the primary concern.
I bought a 2020 Civic in December of 2019. Yes, that was good timing. I loved that car. It even had a manual transmission. In October 2022 I hit a deer head-on and while the damage was repaired, the electronics for the digital dashboard and infotainment system didn’t work right after. Since the problem was intermittent it was impossible to diagnose and fix (so said two different shops I took it to). The dashboard would simply go dark at random times and the defrost would shut off so it became unsafe to drive.
So in February of '23 I took it to a Kia dealer and traded it for a top-of-the-line Soul. The Civic was paid off so that wasn’t a concern. The Soul is not as comfortable as the Civic, has a CVT instead of the stick (BOO! I mean for real, those things suck) but has some creature comforts like heated seats and dual climate controls that my wife prefers. For me it’s a wash but man, do I miss that manual transmission. I have ~37K miles on it already.
I do all the scheduled and recommended maintenance on my cars based on the manufacturer’s recommended schedule. I always take it to either the dealer or a place like Oil Can Henry’s that will report everything to Carfax so I have a backup record of everything I’ve done to it. I keep all fuel receipts with a note of the mileage at each fill-up and make notes when I do thinks like replace the wiper blades. Yes, I have OCD. How’d you guess?
When my cars get to the point in their lives where the cost of the repairs start to approach >50% of the blue book for the car and/or its evident that future costly repairs are on the horizon is when I start looking to replace it. Routine maintenance like tires or brakes don’t factor into this calculation.
I won’t get rid of my Soul any time soon but when I do I’m replacing it with something with a manual transmission. I’m also aware that some will feel that Kia =/= reliable, but Consumer Reports rated that '23 Soul very highly, especially with long-term reliability, so I felt confident in purchasing that particular model. For my next car I’d like to get a pickup but there is only one new pickup still sold in America – the Tacoma – that has a stick shift as an option. In a few years when the Soul needs replaced due to high miles or taking out another Bambi (or a bear, as I damn near hit a full-grown black bear last September) I’m hoping there will be something practical on the market that still has a manual option.