Or perhaps people are starting to realize that you don’t need a new car as soon as your 5-year loan is paid off.
I do okay financially; if I wanted a new car, I’d buy one. I bought mine brand new off the lot 15 years ago, and I intend to keep driving it until I can no longer repair it. Why would I possibly want to buy a new, 5G-connected, spyware-infected plastic shitbox when what I have works perfectly well and probably has another 100k miles of life with a few minor repairs and maybe an engine swap at 2-300k or so?
Only reason Id buy a new car is to get a full electric, affordable, nontesla that has more than 150 horsepower.
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Car payments are a poverty trap. I haven’t had one in a decade. Buying a used car for cash is such a better deal anyway. I do need suckers to get those 1-2 year leases though to make my cars cheaper.
Same, my 2013 Sonata Hybrid has ~80’000 miles (130k km), paid off yeeeaaarrrsss ago, no problem with it, why change?
My 2010 Passat Wagon has 211000 Miles and is about to get its first set of new shocks/struts. some big things I had to replace were the mechatronics and rebuilt the cylinder head. Cylinder head was because I ignored a timing issue with the chains. Chime in if you have high mileage.
Only reason I am thinking of replacing our car is because a BEV would pay for itself fairly quickly if I hear back from a job I applied to that has a 50 mile round-trip commute. Gas alone would be an extra $1000 per year compared to our current 11 year old vehicle.
For sure. I had my last car for 20 years until it finally NEEDED to be replaced. And my current car I’ve had for five years. After paying it off early, I’ve enjoyed not having that payment, and I hope it lasts just as long as my last car.
How to sound like a boomer without saying you’re a boomer.
“It’s just more stuff to break! I don’t need none of that wifi or internets and touch screens or whathaveya”
Not wanting unnecessary “features“ that are just thinly veiled spyware that overcomplicate every aspect of driving is not a boomer opinion. Wanting buttons you can feel without looking for instead of a giant screen that has automatic updates and needs to have access to your cellphone for basic functionality is not a boomer opinion.
Knowing that tacking voice activation onto every ‘smart’ device, including vehicles, is just an excuse for companies to record everything you say for their shitty marketing isn’t a boomer opinion.
In my experience doing tech work, boomers love that shit and fall for all of it, and it all fucks up in some way much more quickly than should be allowed.
I’m not OP, but if wanting cars that have physical buttons and cars that don’t charge me subscription fees makes me a boomer, then I guess I’m a boomer.
What a strange take. In fact most highly technical people tend to want simple unless they have enough money to treat things like cars as toys.
Okay techbro
Ya if you don’t like pissing your money away that makes you a boomer!
Sick take chief.
How dare people decide to hold onto their current cars instead of paying 9% on a 60K car!
Won’t somebody please think of the shareholders?!?
“Durable goods lasting longer than ever, but spun as economic anxiety”
So many of these cars are designed overseas, too. Its almost as though countries that don’t have unlimited access to pillaged resources consider durability, energy efficiency, and ease of maintenance to be value-adds rather than profit-reducers.
Also, it should be noted that Americans basically don’t make sedans anymore. Its all trucks and suvs.
Every car I have ever owned since I started driving in the 1990s, I have driven until I can’t anymore. Either they got too old and broke down or something was just so expensive to fix that it wasn’t worth it or someone totaled it. All of them have been bought used as well. And I plan to do it again with my 2016 Prius. I’d love to own an EV, but no way am I going to look into getting one until the Prius isn’t driveable any longer. If that’s more than 12.6 years, so be it.
I’m in your camp. Take care of them and drive them into the ground.
I can understand the lure of buying a new car. They’re neat and shiny and have features your car doesn’t. But it’s so wasteful and unnecessary. It’s not like upgrading a computer because it won’t work with any modern software and you won’t be able to use the internet. A model A Ford can drive on the same roads as a Tesla assuming it’s been maintained.
Drive it until the frame is toast is what I do, then I buy the same car used and the old becomes a donor.
Requirements for a car. 1: All wheel drive 2: Small station wagon 3: Manual transmission 4: No touch screen 5: Does not connect to internet
Yup, looks like 2014 is the newest car I can buy.
Get your shit together car companies and maybe I’ll be interested in you products again.
The only newer feature I like is rear view cam. Its really a useful feature.
I do like those, but can add my own easy enough.
It’s* really
Volvo XC70
Subaru outback is the goat of station wagons
Always wanted a Volvo, my sister in law raced an V70 R for a while.
V70 R is a sleeper car. So fast!
They also last longer. Cars used to turn into a pile of rust before they hit 100k miles
For light or commuter use maybe. Ive had three ford pickup trucks that have spent more time in the dealer shop than on my farm this year. And a waiting list over a month to get them in. Constant problems from day one. Recalls, premature breakages and issues i normally dont see until well past 150k miles. Mid duty or heavy duty use vehicles dont exits anymore. I cant even change brake pads on a new chevy truck without a computer reset at the dealer. It is beyond infuriating.
Hard disagree. Rust is a consequence of the material, not of the vehicle’s vintage. Furthermore, older cars are not only simpler and easier to work on, but also, parts are cheaper. If any 1990s Honda isn’t making it to at least 200k miles, its an anomaly.
Older cars for sure did rust faster because the manufacturers didn’t adopt galvanizing until the late 80’s. Then in the 90’s various other spray coatings and sealers became common. Aluminum is also now prevalent to save weight.
Old cars in the south and southwest didn’t have road salt accelerating the oxidation. But if they were brought up north they caught up quickly. Cars in the north prior to galvanizing would be rotted out in 100k miles easily.
Neat, i’m glad we agree. Early 90’s is still very early in perspective to this audience. I’m driving a '92 and that’s 32 years old now. The cars from that decade last much longer than the 100k quoted above. Also, this is beyond 2.5X the average quoted in the OP article. Clearly, these are “old” cars. In sum, the 100k-till-rust-apart claim isn’t anchored in reality.
Except that only started on luxury brands. And the Japanese brands have struggled with it the most.
Hondas were still well known for rusting out too quickly into the early 2000s. They even had recalls on 2007-2011 CR-V.
Toyota in 2016 settled a class action suit for multiple models from 2004-2008. And that was on top of a different recall for rusting that spanned 1995-2003 models.
Nissans still tend to have the transmission blow up before the car can rust out. But did have their own rust issues.
Basically, Japan doesn’t use road salt. And their engineers had much less experience dealing with it. But the issue has persisted way longer than it should have taken them to solve for.
What are you talking about? American made cars (majority of historical volume) were notoriously bad until recently. Hondas and Toyotas were the exception. Now the expectation is that every make/model makes it to 200k miles.
And rust was an issue because they used inferior paint on older vintages. I don’t see how blaming it on material deficiencies supports your point.
I think you’re conflating American-made and American-branded. Most of the Honda, Toyota, Subaru, etc. vehicles are still made in the USA and are part of the majority market share you mention. These cars lasted 200k easily, and usually past the 300k mark.
That’s the case now, but not historically. The big 3 were making garbage cars until foreign companies expanded their US presence with domestic manufacturing. Widespread foreign makes built in the US is relatively recent.
Yeah in the 80’s people in the US were freaking out about Japanese cars but in the end the US cars became better in order to compete
The newer cars aren’t any harder to work on for driving related functionality. Or, at least they’re not any harder than they were 20 years ago.
The electronics are a layer on top of a relatively legacy layer of “car”.
Nice to not read a BS headline reframing things along the lines of “stingy millennials refuse to support new cars because of DEI!”
My baby turns 24 this year 🥹
I seriously have an emotional attachment to my car at this point. Driving something for so long, I’m going to be sad when it bites the dust. I’m shooting for another 10 years or until it hits 300k miles.
Wow 24 years and still under 300k? Impressive
I was fortunate enough to live very close to my job for a number of years. Now I wfh so she doesnt get a lot of mileage these days either.
Yeah bruh, i bought a Camry 11 years ago and a Sienna 7 years ago, i plan to drive them both for 20 years, minimum.
Feel the same way. My Camry is a 2013—recent enough to have a simple display and Bluetooth, but old enough to predate the ‘modern’ infotainment systems.
Believe me, I plan to drive this car until the scrapyards run out of part donors.
Laughs in late 90s model Astro van and early 2000s Toyota Camry.
I have a coworker who did a frame off (yes, they had a partial frame) restoration of their astro van. Some of those astro van people are really into them.
I mean, they are cool as heck on the inside. I can see why they would be into them.
Didn’t they come with an awd v8 version?
AWD, yes. V8, not sure. I think they share some underpinnings with the s10, so even if they didn’t come out of factory with one it wouldn’t be a hard swap.
AWD, yes. V8 is an extensive mod.
I’m daily driving a 32-year old car. I have no interest in something newer. AMA.
My truck is -07 and it’s the newest vehicle I’ve ever had. I’m not even especially interested about newer models because they just get more difficult to fix yourself and come with bunch of features that I prefer to live without. I prefer a work horse over fashion accessories tho mine is quite nice to look at aswell. Especially from distance.
Seems about right. I rather continue keeping my current vehicle (2016) well maintained than to get a high interest loan with a overpriced price tag on a new OR used vehicle.
Seems right to me as well. I do buy new but always kept them until repairs cost more than the car is worth, generally 10-15 years in.
I’m sure someone willing to either do the repairs themselves or risk spending more, could keep my cars on the road even longer
I buy or lease every 3-4 years. Why? Because I can. I’m doing my part to make sure to eat the depreciation hit for people who want to buy them on the used car market and drive them to the wheels fall off.
There’s definitely good arguments for this, for some people, although I do believe many are making a mistake.
There’s an even better argument for leasing an EV, since the technology is changing so rapidly. A prime example is the upcoming shift to NACS chargers in the US. From the larger perspective, it’s an even better idea to help jump start the used EV market
Two of my my recent leases were/are EVs for that reason.
Due to cost or reliability improvements? Or both? Because cars are definitely operational a lot longer than they were 25-50 years ago.
