1.
Here's an interesting way to help decide when to buy a new car: Put together a
spreadsheet for your car's costs. Every month, record the dollars you pay for
car parts, car repairs, and car maintenance. Maintain a running total of $ paid
in another column. The running total must include the initial purchase price of
the car. Every month, divide the *total* you have paid for the car and its care
(over its lifetime) by the total months you have driven it. You may also compute
the $/mile, too. Initially, the dollars/month is very high, because the initial
cost of the car dominates. But then naturally the $/month immediately declines
for at least several years, as the initial cost is naturally "amortized" over
the car's life. Also the costs of parts, repairs, and maintenance in the early
years are minimal. Eventually, the $/month will flatten or even start to rise.
This is about when you know you should start shopping for a new car. Of course,
if you get sick of running the car to the shop all the time, this is another
good reason to get rid of the old car. If you have poor records, you could still
start the calculation today. The cost still should be declining every month, or
else you're due for a new car. (This approach is courtesy of a senior citizen
acquaintance of mine. I'm still mulling over its usefulness given the time it
takes, but so far it seems sound.)

2.
I disagree with your statement that one might as well buy a new car if one is
considering a fairly new used car. Car's depreciate very quickly (like the
instant you drive it off the lot, to use a hackneyed phrase). If one is not
going to keep the car for at least about ten years, he more economic choice
between a new car and a recently manufactured used car is the used car. If one
is going to keep the car for over ten years, buy new, so you know the car's
history well. If one is going to keep a car ten years or more, the difference in
price between new and used tends to be trivial.

3.
Certain Toyota and Honda models that are properly maintained will easily go over
200k miles and ten years in many climates. Other manufacturers' cars are now
lasting this long, but Toyota and Honda are still ahead of them, from what I've
read.

4.
As another poster said, a lot of the cost analysis depends on how much work you
do on the car yourself. Also, if one does a lot of one's own car repairs, I
think the spreadsheet approach above isn't very useful. My senior citizen friend
said I could consider converting my hours of car labor to $ and run the numbers
this way. This is an idea, but I also think it's pretty obvious when one who
does one's own maintenance is having to do more than they want.

5.
I'm on my second alternator for my 1991 Honda Civic, 150k miles, bought new. I
think the first died around 106k miles and 8 years, with mostly Northern climate
driving (which I think wears the battery and thus charging system more). Maybe
check Consumer Reports April car issue for whether electrical problems are worse
on Japanese cars. But I'm almost positive they're no worse on Honda and Toyota
than on other makes of cars, as it would be something I'd have noticed in my car
buying studies by now.


"Crunchy Cookie" <LSC400@Yahoo.com> wrote
> I thought I'd get a little cost/benefit analysis discussion going. I've
always
> thought the best used-car deals were ones between, oh, 2 and 8 years old. If
> it's too new, you might as well buy new, but if it's too old, you're just
asking
> for trouble, right? What's the average (range of) mileage where cars start
> konking out to a higher expense than their value? Most people seem to
casually
> say between 100K and 200K; most consider 200K to be a long life. The engine
and
> transmission rebuilds are the only really huge items, right? How much does
> rebuilding those cost? Anything else to watch out for?
> And is it me, or do Japanese car alternators die really easily?