What new car do you think could last you the rest of your life?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I will buy you a brand new car. Any brand, any trim level, any options that you want.

Only catches are, it has to be a brand new car, and you can never own any other car for the rest of your life. You can never sell this vehicle or buy any other one. This benefit is for you and you alone. This is technically a lease: you can have anything you want, but responsibility for all maintenance and repairs are entirely on you, and the moment you die, ownership reverts to me. You can have that Porsche or Rolls Royce or Lamborghini you always wanted, but can you afford to keep it roadworthy for as long as you intend to drive it? You can let it sit and rot, but you can’t sell it, and you are not allowed to ever drive anything else.

Given this offer, what car would you choose? Or do you just decline outright?

2

Any Subaru with 6 cylinders and All Wheel Drive.

3

The problem is I don’t think there is a new car out there, initially expensive or not, that I could expect to run for a bit over 20 years (assuming I died at 70) even with extensive on-going work. So I would either (a) decline outright or (b) figure when it became utterly unusable, I’d have to get my wife to drive me everywhere.

But if I was going to otherwise try to play the game and not fight the hypothetical, the car I’ve wanted most in recent years is the Subaru Crosstrek PHEV, although I’d go for all the perks and trim since you’re covering the lease.

It’s appropriate for where I live in Colorado, I’ve wanted a PHEV for a while, and while it doesn’t have the established baseline of other Subaru models, I’d at least have the hope of good maintenance.

But I promise you, I’ll probably be looking at using all the save money in terms of buying an extended warranty!

4

Until last year or so, my brother was driving a 1990 Toyota Camry, so I’d say a Toyota or Honda car might last thirty years or more.

Of course the real question is how long is the rest of my life.

5

That’s totally fair. :smiley:

6

That’s my problem. I’m in my early 40s, so whatever car I get would have to last ~30 years at least, hopefully more.

I really would like my next car to be an EV – I really like the Polestar 2, but I have concerns about the battery lasting that long. Do I gamble that by the time it becomes an issue the cost of battery replacements will have dropped? I suppose just the fact that I didn’t have to pay for the car would offset the cost of replacing the battery somewhat, and other maintenance on an EV is less than an ICE car.

On the other hand, like @Dewey_Finn said a Toyota Camry is probably the safe choice in terms of a car that will still be running in 30 years. But then I’d be stuck driving the world’s most mundane car for the rest of my life.

You know what, I’ll take the Polestar. I’m predicting in 30 years EVs will be the norm, and it will be difficult to find a mechanic who can work on the Camry.

7

Could I simply have one of my current vehicles (either the 20 year old or 23 year old) restored to like-new condition in lieu of a truly new vehicle? Because, given that they’ve lasted this long, I think if “re-set” to new condition I could maintain them sufficiently to last the rest of my life.

8

There is no one single car that would suit me. I need a truck to haul stuff, a Jeep for the dogs and off-roading, something All-Wheel for skiing, something fun and funky.

So, no thanks. I’ll just keep the dozen or so I got now.

9

I would decline.

I have no interest in a new car. My daily driver is a 2003 Buick. It gets me from point A to point B, gets good mileage, and is comfortable to drive. My Bug and Model T are just for fun. My truck is to haul stuff or to pull a trailer. I have another truck but that one is basically just for fun too at this point, though technically it’s my snow and bad weather vehicle since it’s a 4x4 with huge tires.

Even if you ignore the fun vehicles, I’m still down to a truck and a car. If I absolutely had to choose, I would have to choose a truck, because I need to be able to haul firewood, furniture, sheets of plywood and drywall, and other things that a car just can’t carry (twice in the last 5 years I have literally hauled a ton of bricks in the back of my truck). I would prefer a small, comfortable vehicle for my daily driver. But I need a truck.

I decline. Keep your spiffy modern vehicle. As long as I have a choice, I don’t want it.

10

Some cars last that long, but it’s not easy to tell ahead of time which ones they’ll be.

It looks like, according to the terms of the OP, if I got in an accident, no matter how badly the car was smashed up, I’d have to get it fixed or go without a car for the rest of my life.

Another factor: with my current situation and the infrastructure in my area, I’d want a car that runs on gas (at least as a hybrid). But that could easily change within my lifetime.

11

Pass. Cars have improved too much in the last 20 years for me to give up on any technological improvement for the next 40 years. I don’t want to get a car now with less than 500 miles of daily range (and for those who say I’ll never use it, 90% of my driving this year was on days when I drove between 300 and 540 miles). I don’t want to be stuck with a gas guzzler as fossil fuel prices move up and are hopefully priced into obsolescence. I don’t want to be without advanced safety features that I can’t predic now but will surely show up eventually. I don’t want to miss out on self-driving cars and maybe in 20 or 40 years when I need them most, they will finally be ready. The OP’s deal is lousy.

12

Toyota or Lexus
If I’m buying, a Toyota Rav4 Hybrid (already on order)
If you’re buying, a Lexus IS-350 F-Sport

13

Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, Macadamia Brown Metallic over Sand, tyvm.

14

You’re too late, @DCnDC. I already bought what I think is the last car I’ll ever need. My 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel. It’s 6 years old and I’ve put 135,000 miles on it, and I’m 61 years old. I plan to drive it until the wheels fall off. I’d love to get 500,000 miles out of it. Maybe even 1,000,000!

So, thanks anyway!

ETA — And I do take it 4-wheeling. My wife took this picture.

15

Any of those $1million+ hypercars would probably do it. With my driving skills I doubt I’d make it to my next birthday.

16

Proving there’s more than one solution to this conundrum. Nicely done!

17

I reckon a new Land Rover Defender could tick most of those boxes, AND last forever

18

Kinda funny, because after I had had my GTI for 3 yrs and put fewer than 10k miles on it, I realized that at 60, it could well be the last car I ever owned.

Looking back at my cars, it sorta makes me sad to say that the car I liked the best all around was a Toyota Sienna minivan. Drove very nicely - like a car, and had no hood to look over. Could sit 6 very comfortably, and w/ the seats out, could fit far more than an SUV. I’ve thought it could even serve as a short-term camper. I think you can even tow with them. Easy to get in/out of. Sit up nice an high. I liked it better than my current Subaru Forester.

Kinda makes me sad to realize I’m such an old fart that if I were buying 1 car now for the rest of my life, it might well be a minivan. :roll_eyes: But like I said, at age 62, and not driving much, ANY car I buy now might be my last car.

19

I was noodling this thread when I was in the shower this morning, and thought I remembered something, to wit -

Which covers, well, quite a lot. My first post indicated my concerns with the lifetime of any vehicle compared to my own and the resulting concerns. But, if we take the above quite literally, you have quite a few options in said options!

One, you could get a bespoke, custom made car, and require the manufacturer (ideally one with a long track record) include an unlimited lifetime warranty as an option or in the baseline. I’m not sure I’d want a custom bespoke car (seen to many small lot custom performance cars with lots of performance and zero liability on Top Gear), but it would illustrate the point.

On a more practical level though, there are a number of dealers and other entities that provide lifetime warranty coverage, which would be a very good idea in this case, and would easily fall under the heading of options, along with every single preventative measure (anti corrosion and the rest even if it’s questionably effective).

And this may be breaking the spirit of the OP, where all repairs are maintenance are on us, but many manufacturers include maintenance packages as part of the sold options. As the above extended warranty, a very grey area in terms of what an ‘option’ is, because I presume the OP wants only physical options, not service ones, but an area with possible wiggle room.

But if I’m buying a one off custom SUV with an unlimited budget, I’m sure I can find a place where they’ll offer a lifetime, unlimited millage warranty once the price gets high enough… without needing it to be a separate service or option.

20

As a male age 64 I see per SSA mortality tables that I have a 48% chance of making age 84 and a 10% chance of making age 94. So the car needs to last 20 - 30 years of ever decreasing and ever more ginger use. Probably no more than 200K miles total, and perhaps as little as 150K. With the mileage of course front-loaded versus the age. Which is the more longevity-friendly way to do it.

That would correspond to me driving a 2002 or 1992 car today. There are plenty of generic cars, from Toyotas to Chevy’s still on the road from then. Durability was not the limiting factor then and certainly isn’t with today’s more robust cars. There are also plenty of fancier cars, BMWs, Mercedes, Lexuses from that era still on the road, albeit with many of their fancier then-bleeding-edge gewgaws now inoperative. The big thing that kills older cars is crashes and lack of basic maintenance, not failing power windows or raggedy upholstery.

It is weird to think about being on my final car. Which I’m certainly not really on today, but just for the purposes of this thread. Truth is, darn near any car / truck except maybe a Lambo would do the trick. Different choices might be more fun or more practical or more stupid but no mainstream production car / light truck is so far off the ranch as to be unfit for the mission.

Although I admit for a few years now to occasionally buying long-lived stuff and realizing “Gosh, this is the last [whatever] I’ll ever need.” Or even buying a bulk or commercial-sized package of something I don’t really need much of, but was forced by circumstances into buying the big box and then saying to myself “Wow, that’s more than a lifetime supply of [whatever].”

Getting old(er) definitely has its weird(er) moments.