I'm still driving my 2003 Jaguar X-Type. It's been worth repairing, and at 225K miles, is still running...
I'd simply say that quality vehicles are financially worth keeping until they rust away or a crash damages them severely. As always, I like the "cost per mile" metric.
And with that in mind, sometimes a new vehicle may not cost significantly more "per mile" than an older vehicle. Often only 5c to 8c per mile more. Remember, the cost of a vehicle (even in today's absurd market) is only a fraction of the lifetime operational costs. Fuel is likely to be the single largest expense, followed by insurance and maintenance. But what do I know, this is BITOG where people think the purchase price of a vehicle is most important.
A $25-30K Accord, 30mpg, 250,000 miles, $41,500 worth of fuel at $5/gal. $25,000 worth of insurance over 12-15 years. And thousands in MX. Cost per mile matters!
I'm few months shy of 5 years into my used 2012 Mazda3 and the combination of fuel, maintenance, repairs, tax and tags is just getting to the $10k purchase price of the car.
I should say about 55 months and 85k miles into the experience.
So if I'm not up to purchase price for all of those, not just fuel at 85k miles into a $10k car, it's going to take a new car owner even longer to get there.
I've had no repairs, just wear items. Fluid changes, brakes, tires, and the like.
I think I've spent about $7200 on fuel.
Let's grab the numbers, shall we:
Purchase (Including Sales Tax): $9920
Tags/Title/$658
Maintenance: $1863
Fuel: $7205
Total: 19646
Cost/Mile $0.23
This is on a cash basis, so if I have any value left when I get rid of the car, it comes off the purchase price figure.
One has to be driving a true hoopdie for fuel to be the largest pole in the tent. For a new car, it's nearly impossible for fuel to be the largest cost unless you drive a million miles or so. (Exaggerated a bit, but not too much.)
For fun, I expensed $1121.73 (Edited to change, I missed one of my reimbursements) in mileage last month with costs of about 1/2 of that for all my driving, not just work related miles.
My car pays me to drive it most months
But that isn't everyone's experience.