With an average U.S. new-vehicle selling price of just over $45,000 last month, many can’t afford to buy new — even though prices are down more than $2,000 from the peak in December of 2022, according to J.D. Power.
Every car I have ever owned since I started driving in the 1990s, I have driven until I can’t anymore. Either they got too old and broke down or something was just so expensive to fix that it wasn’t worth it or someone totaled it. All of them have been bought used as well. And I plan to do it again with my 2016 Prius. I’d love to own an EV, but no way am I going to look into getting one until the Prius isn’t driveable any longer. If that’s more than 12.6 years, so be it.
I can understand the lure of buying a new car. They’re neat and shiny and have features your car doesn’t. But it’s so wasteful and unnecessary. It’s not like upgrading a computer because it won’t work with any modern software and you won’t be able to use the internet. A model A Ford can drive on the same roads as a Tesla assuming it’s been maintained.
Right, but only the first buyer gets to decide what’s produced. So someone buying new dumb pickups every two years is flooding the market with gas guzzlers and this results is much more waste than someone doing the same with Camrys. That’s not the same definition of waste that you used though, but I wanted to chime in because the new car buyers define the future used market.
Every car I have ever owned since I started driving in the 1990s, I have driven until I can’t anymore. Either they got too old and broke down or something was just so expensive to fix that it wasn’t worth it or someone totaled it. All of them have been bought used as well. And I plan to do it again with my 2016 Prius. I’d love to own an EV, but no way am I going to look into getting one until the Prius isn’t driveable any longer. If that’s more than 12.6 years, so be it.
I’m in your camp. Take care of them and drive them into the ground.
I can understand the lure of buying a new car. They’re neat and shiny and have features your car doesn’t. But it’s so wasteful and unnecessary. It’s not like upgrading a computer because it won’t work with any modern software and you won’t be able to use the internet. A model A Ford can drive on the same roads as a Tesla assuming it’s been maintained.
Macroeconomically, it’s not wasteful because cars find new life in resale. It’s definitely wasteful to your pocketbook to get a new car every 5 years.
Right, but only the first buyer gets to decide what’s produced. So someone buying new dumb pickups every two years is flooding the market with gas guzzlers and this results is much more waste than someone doing the same with Camrys. That’s not the same definition of waste that you used though, but I wanted to chime in because the new car buyers define the future used market.
True, that!
I feel like driving a car into the ground isn’t taking care of it…
300k miles, then engine swap!
Drive it until the frame is toast is what I do, then I buy the same car used and the old becomes a donor.