I’ve bought 5 new cars in my life, and around 20 or so used cars, including ones bought for the kids.
The used cars were all older cheaper examples. Except for a couple of them, they did ok for us and provided good service with routine maintenance and basic repairs. But those cars were mechanically simple compared to today’s small displacement turbocharged, overly plastic componented, direct injected, cyl deactivated, start/stop, and with cvt or 10 speed transmission engineering marvels.
I think my ok experience with older used cars over the past 40 years will be difficult for someone else to replicate over the next 40 years.