I’m not the type to try and sell my vehicle on my own. I’d rather trade to the dealer and get it out of my hair. Some people who trade their vehicles frequently claim there’s a “window” in which you maximize the trade-in value before the vehicle is in need of costly routine maintenance. So, here’s my question:
a) For the cross-section of vehicles out there, does it make sense to trade for max trade-in value, or beat your vehicle to death?
b) What if you have a Honda that you know can go the distance?
Costwise, it usually pays off to keep driving the old car. Since a lot of Americans finance their cars, this is even more true for a paid-off car. Of course, there comes a point when the maintenance is going to increase, at which point it might be cheaper to accept new monthly payments, offset by a brand new warranty for the next X years.
A Honda? I’d say any Honda under 10 years old and under 150,000 miles is a reliable enough daily runner. I’d keep driving it until something big comes along in terms of repairs, then decide.
Of course, I’m not the right person to listen to, as I’ve rarely bought a car because it made economical sense.
Lifestyle also matters: we are a one car family, so the PITA factor of having a car in the shop is large. Also, that means that if a big costly repair comes along and we decided to buy a new car instead, we’d need to do so quickly–which isn’t the way to save money on a car. If you live in a house with three drivers and three cars, it’s easier to work around a missing car and you don’t have to worry about it as much.
The cheapest way to get transportation is to buy cars at maybe 75,000 miles & run them to 200,000 miles. If cheap matters to you, then that way makes sense.
But that looks kinda scruffy & your fat-cat neighbors & their snooty friends will NOT be impressed. In many social circles the real purpose of a car is to impress the neighbors; transportation is a given. If that’s you, it makes sense to get a new BMW or Lexus every 18 months.
If your personal discipline is such that you can’t save money and will max out any credit you get, then you can’t stand to own a car which might need expensive repairs. If that’s you, it makes sense to get rid of a cheapo car at ~50,000 and a better quality car at more like ~100,000.
My bottom line: You’re asking for personalized advice, but don’t tell us enough about what matters to you for us to be able to give personalized advice.
Tom and Ray used to talk about the cost-reliability-safety matrix. Basically, if any two of those three things isn’t a problem, keep the old car. People like to let repair bills freak them out, but say you have to have $900 in repairs done to make your car safe or reliable again. That’s, like, 3 car payments. If you’re planning on keeping the car more than 3 months after the repairs, you still come out ahead.
