Daily Driver: Sell at 200K/Run Into The Ground?

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you should consider the car more than just an appliance that gets you from a to be since you are spending so much time in it.

it should be most cost effective to keep your car.
however in considering the upgrade you should also value how the time spent there is better to have a different vehicle upgrade, not just the beans of $ and cents per mile of ownership .
 
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Originally Posted By: IndyIan
How does your Wife deal with the odd break down? Alternator, water pump, fuel pump etc, may decide to go at some point even in Camry.
I think many new cars are bought just to reduce the chance of getting a tow home and to avoid a big repair bill even if its far cheaper than depreciation.


^ Beat me to the same thought. At some point it's going to strand her on her commute. Of course people will say anything can break but the odds go up as the miles/years do.
 
Originally Posted By: 69GTX
Originally Posted By: KGMtech
Single biggest cost of car ownership is depreciation, as this one is at the bottom of the curve....keep on driving until it is no longer safe.


Depreciation is the biggest cost....until repairs due to age and wear take over, and they will. Depreciation should slow down in the 6-10 yr time frame, but it never stops except for collector cars. I drove my last car past the 150K mile point...or another 80K miles and 5 years. That was just dumb as the car depreciated from $1500+ down to $500 and the repairs over those 4 years exceeded the original $1,500 value (brakes, tires, radiator, suspension, emissions system/exhaust, AC, window motors, etc.). Many times, the right decision is to bail out. If you buy these same cars used with 30K-60K miles at the 3-7 year point, you don't have to suffer the original huge depreciation hit the original owner does.


For my limited, but documented experience:

2004 VW Passat, owned from new, now with 161,600 km. I've spent $4,750 CAD on repairs, $7,359 CAD on maintenance, and $32,588 CAD on depreciation (I paid $36,588 for it in 2004 and it might get $4k now).

To your point, if I say 75% of the total depreciation - for simplicity - happened in the first 5 years, and the remaining depreciation over the last 7 years...I get $1,163 CAD per year depreciation in the last 7 years with present value $4,000 CAD.

So my numbers for a car that BITOG fans says is a maintenance and repair hog with low resale...show that depreciation is a larger cost versus repairs and maintenance which have been @ $1,009 CAD per year.

Disclaimer: I do my own repairs and maintenance :eek:) But I think this would be typical for most BITOG'ers
 
I drive a 98 avalon, which is essentially the same car. It has 206k miles and is just getting started.
 
When I hear about whether or not to trade off a well maintained and good running car against a newer one I think of 2 things, the Toyota truck that went a million miles with regular maintenance or about the time I ended up with someone's lemon that was sending me to the poorhouse
 
Originally Posted By: bioburner
When I hear about whether or not to trade off a well maintained and good running car against a newer one I think of 2 things, the Toyota truck that went a million miles with regular maintenance or about the time I ended up with someone's lemon that was sending me to the poorhouse


Or the lemon that was bought new so as to... not deal with someone else's problems.

Roll of the die, every time. IMHO.
 
Quote:
When I hear about whether or not to trade off a well maintained and good running car against a newer one I think of ...
I can think of only one thing. The person asking is looking for affirmation of his desire to purchase a newer car. But unfortunately he is asking the wrong people.

If OP were near me, I would give him couple of thousands for it and help him out by purchasing his jalopy before his wife gets stranded in the middle of nowhere.
 
Looks like the last year the ES 300 was produced was 2003. So at the newest it would be 13 years old maybe older. I'd probably stop putting premium in it and run Top Tier regular. If there were any negative observations then go back to premium. I'd also probably drop full coverage insurance from the car. If the wife is happy with it and not mentioning a new car then it's a no-brainer.

One of the guys on here, Thirdye(sp) just bought an 07 Accord in good shape from the Honda dealer with 570,000 miles. Since this car is older I'd go for the 300k mark. Since 300k is the new 200k mark. Have nice day gentlemen!
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: KGMtech
Originally Posted By: 69GTX
Originally Posted By: KGMtech
Single biggest cost of car ownership is depreciation, as this one is at the bottom of the curve....keep on driving until it is no longer safe.


Depreciation is the biggest cost....until repairs due to age and wear take over, and they will. Depreciation should slow down in the 6-10 yr time frame, but it never stops except for collector cars. I drove my last car past the 150K mile point...or another 80K miles and 5 years. That was just dumb as the car depreciated from $1500+ down to $500 and the repairs over those 4 years exceeded the original $1,500 value (brakes, tires, radiator, suspension, emissions system/exhaust, AC, window motors, etc.). Many times, the right decision is to bail out. If you buy these same cars used with 30K-60K miles at the 3-7 year point, you don't have to suffer the original huge depreciation hit the original owner does.


For my limited, but documented experience:

2004 VW Passat, owned from new, now with 161,600 km. I've spent $4,750 CAD on repairs, $7,359 CAD on maintenance, and $32,588 CAD on depreciation (I paid $36,588 for it in 2004 and it might get $4k now).

To your point, if I say 75% of the total depreciation - for simplicity - happened in the first 5 years, and the remaining depreciation over the last 7 years...I get $1,163 CAD per year depreciation in the last 7 years with present value $4,000 CAD.

So my numbers for a car that BITOG fans says is a maintenance and repair hog with low resale...show that depreciation is a larger cost versus repairs and maintenance which have been @ $1,009 CAD per year.

Disclaimer: I do my own repairs and maintenance :eek:) But I think this would be typical for most BITOG'ers


I'm talking about 150K miles and you're in km. At 161km or 100K miles your Passat is not yet into the break down zone where maintenance will overwhelm depreciation. At only 12 yrs old and 100K miles it's still young. If your car were up to 250km I'd bet it would be different. My 2002 Lincoln (bought in 2009 with 22K miles for $9K) was 75% depreciated the day I bought it. It's probably down to 90% depreciated today. And maintenance costs haven't begun to overwhelm it because it's only got 72K miles on it (45 km). Had I driven it 2X as much (145K miles) the maintenance costs would likely be higher than depreciation. These older cars not yet close to 150K miles will probably depreciate more than the maint costs for a few more years.
 
Originally Posted By: supton
Or the lemon that was bought new so as to... not deal with someone else's problems.

Roll of the die, every time. IMHO.


+1 to this. I won't bore you all with the story again, but we bought a brand new 2007 model minivan that turned out to be a real piece of work and we sold it off to Carmax with fewer than 45k miles on it. It was going to be our "forever" car, the first and only car we bought new. So much for that plan...

Right now, OP, you have a car that you know top-to-bottom, front-to-back, inside-to-out. Keep it, maintain it, and drive it. We sold that minivan of just a few years old because we couldn't trust it. Our MDX is a youngster, with only 140k miles, but we'd drive it anywhere in the country, today. There's intrinsic value, to me, in a vehicle you know and trust. It's certainly true that the risk of an unplanned failure increases with age. I still like your odds with something you've invested in over time.
 
Only reason to sell the car:

Your wife wants a new one.

Your wife doesn't trust it.

Repair costs are getting out of hand.

I don't hear any of these happening so keep it.

You could easily get another 100k trouble-free miles out of it.
 
From a financial perspective it makes more sense to keep it. Cost savings on fuel for a new 40+mpg car are a couple hundred bucks per year with normal driving and this goes away when you factor higher insurance premium on a newer car vs your old car which is cheap to insure. So fuel saving is a non issue.

If all you're looking at is financials, keep it.
If you're also considering invonvenience of breakdowns, I wouldn't be surprised if a 20+ year old lexus well taken care of (like yours I assume) will be more reliable over the next 10 years than 50% of fuel sippers on the market today. All brands are far from equal in that matter.
 
Financially, It's always best to keep driving a car until
It's totaled.

However, at some point an older car becomes less reliable and less dependable. That's the point at which I prefer to sell it.

Furthermore, we are discussing transportation capital costs. I prefer to look at vehicle costs per mile. Capital costs really don't vary much new vs old over a vehicles useful lifespan. Fuel, maintenance, insurance are all involved.
 
Just keep on top of maintenance and save the thousands of dollars you didn't spend on a new car. You're about 1/3 into the life of the vehicle
 
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