2007 Lincoln Town Car, 480,000 miles on original V8, rebuilt tranny at 200,000, regular maintenance, never missed an oil change, engine purrs, compression good, easy on oil, ice cold air, excellent mileage, drives like new, body in good shape. These cars are amazing. This one will be with me until it dies.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. I bought my first car at age 22 or so, right after college. I’m 57 and have only owned 3 cars! I’ve driven each til the bitter end—Toyota, Honda, Toyota platform. I currently drive an ugly (beat up) Lexus RX 300, 2003, 179k miles. Basic maintenance and routine care and repair only and it runs well. My tween recently told me it embarrasses him. It embarrasses me a bit. I don’t like car notes and love buying regular trade gas though. I like the idea of buying my dream car although I am unsure what that is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're my BIL/SIL, you replace your car every 9 months and roll the new payments into your old lease payments, making your car payments total $2000/month because you insist on leasing fully loaded Navigators and Teslas.

I hope they have their own business so they can write that crap off. wtf.

But yes, a Tesla lease is like $1500/month. Nuts.

PP here. Nope. He's a mortgage broker and makes decent money, but not enough to afford that. She's a SAHM.

Anonymous wrote:If you're my BIL/SIL, you replace your car every 9 months and roll the new payments into your old lease payments, making your car payments total $2000/month because you insist on leasing fully loaded Navigators and Teslas.

I hope they have their own business so they can write that crap off. wtf.

But yes, a Tesla lease is like $1500/month. Nuts.

We buy a three year old car every 10-12 years. We only have the one car. Right now its a 2004 sienna. Very tempted to get Prius V, but we still have two kids at home, so likely will get another car with 3rd row. If we get something 2016 or earlier, we can pay cash. But the automatic emergency braking systems on the new cars are very tempting . . . we will have a new driver on the road later this year.

Kept my Honda Civic for 17 years, until I skidded on an ice patch, hit a fire hydrant and totaled it. Only 90k miles on it and no issues, would have kept it for another ten years.

If you're my BIL/SIL, you replace your car every 9 months and roll the new payments into your old lease payments, making your car payments total $2000/month because you insist on leasing fully loaded Navigators and Teslas.

PP here...I will probably keep the daily driver car another 3 years or 4.

One of our cars is 4 years old and a daily driver. I park it outside in the city, so it does take some abuse.

The other one is a truck. It is about 6 years old but is kept indoors and mostly driven on weekends.

I keep my car for as long as it will run. I’m on year 14 of my Subaru.

I love driving, don't care for any bells and whistles in a car, just the pure driving experience. I usually keep two or three fun cars around, always buy them used as the most fun cars are the older ones. I replace the ones i don't like very quickly, in less than a year.

I like to keep mine for 10 years. I’m not a car person. I’m envious of my friend’s car that has lasted 20 years. It’s hideous, but he’s gotten his money’s worth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m always surprised at these people who see keeping a car a long time as a weird badge of honor. I’d love to have it analyzed.

I am the pp with the 21 yr old Honda Civic and a brand new Tesla model S, P100D. I am not a car person. It runs. I’m happy. I love the Tesla though. I love gadgets: the Tesla has “ludicrous mode” (named after the movie Space Balls) - 0 to 60 in 2.3 secs: Faster than any supercar/Lamborghini/etc. - a freak’n family sedan - and does not use gas. Really cool. Paid cash.

The Civic - I had a trash truck back into me in a alley. No big deal another scratch. I forget to lock it sometimes and park on the street in DC. It’s still there one time someone went into my car and organized everything in the glove and storage compartment in neat little piles. It runs and never had a repair bill over $400, what’s not to love....

What’s not to love is I find it soul crushing to commute to work or cart my children in a car that feels like I’m traveling in a piece of junk. Brings me down.

Maybe I am too oblivious about people's reactions. Don't care what other people think. I love my civic. My son is embarrassed to be seen in the Honda: It really is a junker and I park on the street in DC. My son tells me sometimes people, other drivers, look at our car and shake their heads. Guess those are car people. We used to live in NYC, Manhattan, and parked on the street because monthly garage fees are what some people in flyover country pay in rent.

One of the reasons we bought the Tesla was because Tesla ended their lifetime free use of their superchargers on Sept. 16... so it was now and our car IS 21 yrs old. My son tells me that the Tesla is "out of my league" LOL! Several guys have told me that this is their "dream car". I like the fact that I can smoke any Lamborghini, Ferrari, etc. in a quarter mile race. The only car that can beat the Model S P100D for acceleration is a 2 mil+ Porsche and there are less than 500 of those in the world.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I typically buy a new car every 5 years, and keep each of our cars about 10. We figure after 10 years and about 100k miles we want something more reliable to haul around the kids. I am curious what other DCUMers do...we see some who lease and replace every 2-3 years, some replace a main car every 4 years while keeping a secondary car for 10-15. It's not a money issue for us - we typically pay all cash and don't buy anything flashy. Should we be keeping our cars longer? I am amazed that we can still typically get 40% or so of the car's original price as a trade-in 10 years later.

I don’t understand, you buy a car every 5 years and keep them for 10 years? How many cars do you now own?

Seriously, PP?

Year 1 - Wife buys car
Year 6 - Husband buys car
Year 11 - Wife buys car, sells old car
Year 16 - Husband buys car, sells old car
And so on.

Anonymous wrote:DH and I typically buy a new car every 5 years, and keep each of our cars about 10. We figure after 10 years and about 100k miles we want something more reliable to haul around the kids. I am curious what other DCUMers do...we see some who lease and replace every 2-3 years, some replace a main car every 4 years while keeping a secondary car for 10-15. It's not a money issue for us - we typically pay all cash and don't buy anything flashy. Should we be keeping our cars longer? I am amazed that we can still typically get 40% or so of the car's original price as a trade-in 10 years later.

I don’t understand, you buy a car every 5 years and keep them for 10 years? How many cars do you now own?