I’m 61 and am driving a 2017 Subaru Crosstrek with under 40,000 miles on it. This might be my last car and I’d be good with it. If not, I’d get another Subaru or a Jeep.
When I bought my last car in 2013, I was 61. My mechanic said, “take good care of it, it will probably be the second-last car you ever own.”
Since I trust my mechanic’s judgement, it’s obvious that whatever car I buy next will last me the rest of my life.
I know your mechanic meant well. But sheesh!
It’s bad enough when I have thoughts like that about me. But when other people start telling me the same thing, that stings.
Just wait until your doctor tells you not to bother putting any more gasoline in your car, because you’re not going to need it.
I don’t think any car could last me the rest of my life, but if I had to pick one I’d go with toyota or lexus. Probably a Lexus LX. I can probably get 20 years out of a good lexus.
I would pass on this offer entirely as I like having multiple vehicles from multiple eras. With that being said, if I were outright FORCED to accept one and ONLY one vehicle and it HAD to be a new vehicle - probably a Toyota 70-Series Land Cruiser, the absolute base model with the bare minimum of extra options, a manual transmission and a diesel engine. For no other reason that it’s the most tried and true do-it-all vehicle ever built, and I would want it in its most basic no-frills configuration to mimimize points of failure as much as possible.
For maximum functionality I’d have to go with the double-cab pickup:
I happen to think this looks cool, but that’s not part of the equation in why I would choose it.
After thinking about this some more, I would probably go with something reliable and relatively inexpensive (even if kind of boring), like say a Toyota RAV4 hybrid.
No thanks. Though I’m 71, and the rest of my life is maybe 40 years (I’m an optimist) in the not too distant future I’ll want a self-driving car so as not to have to give up driving. Plus, newer cars will be a lot safer.
In fact, when my 10 year old car needed significant work, I decided to get a new car with collision avoidance, automatic braking, a back-up camera, and all the other nice bells and whistles not that available back then.
I’ll pass.
Oh, yeah - at the time I bought it I had no idea I’d still be driving mine a quarter century later.
They do need maintenance - I just had to get a new wheel rim for mine this week due to corrosion (damn road salt!) but it’s still cheaper to repair it than replace it. I don’t have a car payment, I have a maintenance plan.
(The new-to-me wheel rim cost $21 - friend of mine help me get it from a “auto parts yard”. Lots of Rangers on the road, in part because a lot of them were sold, not all of them have endured, and there’s a supply of spare parts in what we used to call junkyards.)
I own a teenaged low-production run car. Have heard of insurance totaling out some relatively minor accidents because of lack of replacement parts, while others are issues with parts (specifically windshield gaskets failing) due to their age. Because of the low production numbers there’s not much in the way of aftermarket parts for them as the market just isn’t there so they’re resorting to getting parts from salvaged cars. A 15 yo car that’s been sitting in the junkyard for a while probably isn’t the greatest place to get replacement parts
No, for any car for the rest of your life, you’re much better off with a vehicle that there were lots of.