dogman dan
1 PW
Much depends on what you call newer, and more expensive. That's very relative to your income, and or expectations.
My own history, a crap ton of cars that often had 120,000 + miles on them when I bought them. Used to be, this was a not so bad approach. I could fix stuff on them fairly easy myself. We did well with the 62 pickup, the 64 falcon, the 70 maverick, the 78 vw van and the 66 bug, all this was in the 80's. We did so so with some others, a Cherokee, and several other trucks, and a couple subarus. We did have to start looking for at least under 100,000 miles.
The subarus needed work a fair bit, but one of the major reasons I started buying them was that they are very easy to work on. Many times easier to replace an alternator on them than any Honda, or other more modern cars. Even today, you can put a Subaru engine on the table in one hour. A bit longer than it took for the bugs, but still amazing compared to doing a timing belt on todays cars.
But after the falcon, we did start paying just a little bit more for my wifes cars. She just needed more reliability. If she was late for work, hundreds of chem students would be unable to do the lab till she showed up to unlock the stock room.
So since about 90, we held out for cheap cars that still had low miles, under 50,000 miles. To keep it cheap, this meant some fairly shitty cars, like a ford festiva ( similar to a geo metro), and a couple of ford focus cars. One of the focuses was a bit of a lemon, and a salvage title. But it still ran good for the cost. The second one (which just burned up in the fire) had been a great car, with little need for working on it.
All her cars ended up having a very low cost per mile, around 40 cents more or less. Not bad, considering some of my e bikes have come in at 35 cents a mile! But the bikes would be cheaper if I got by on less battery size.
Only once have I paid big bucks for a car, more than 10 thou. When I got sick, I was still trying to work through it for two years. I needed a new car bad, and could not settle for one I'd have to work on. I was way too weak to do a timing belt or water pump on a car.
I went to the high dollar dealer in town, and bought a used Subaru with 18,000 miles, two years old. I paid way too much for it. Part of that was the easy financing. I could pay more and get a really low interest rate, or pay cash and pay closer to what it was really worth. Then, I tacked on an extended warranty bumper to bumper for 3 years. This jacked up the price to stupid paying too much.
But it worked!. I had a strategy in mind. I still had the old Subaru around, and kept driving it around town. It could not do a long trip, but it could make it across town. We drove the wifes focus a lot too. Basically, I tried to keep the miles I put on the new car down to a minimum. The cost of this car including insurance was 450 a month, whether I drove it or not. So the cost of using it turned out to be around 75-80 cents a mile.
Today the car is recently paid off, and is the only good car we have. It's never needed anything but tires and a battery.
But now its cost per mile is only gas and repairs, and it still has only 60,000 miles on it. To buy one like it, would be about 12-15 thou. Bottom line, it may still cost me a lot per mile when I total its entire life up. But for the next ten years or so, it should run pretty reliably for very little out of this months check. In 40,000 miles or so, I'll pull the engine and do the valves, timing belt, and water pump, if it does not have problems sooner. That will cost less than a thou, since I am now heathier again. More or less, I will be doing just tires, gas, CVs, battery, etc for quite some time now.
So the first thing you need is a strategy. Will this be a car you need to be utterly reliable? Will you need that for longer trips out of town? Or can you get by with a car that you know will need that water pump and timing belt? Then after that, and maybe some CV's, it will be reliable enough, but not as much as a low miles car.
Our household really likes having one car well under 100,000 miles. The second or third vehicle can be much less reliable, with a lot more miles. This approach really only works because I can do the CV's or whatever, even if its a bitch to work on like a focus or Honda. But if I had my wish, we'd have like three subarus, all easy to work on. One very new, one 10 years old, and a beater I could bash around the desert in.
My own history, a crap ton of cars that often had 120,000 + miles on them when I bought them. Used to be, this was a not so bad approach. I could fix stuff on them fairly easy myself. We did well with the 62 pickup, the 64 falcon, the 70 maverick, the 78 vw van and the 66 bug, all this was in the 80's. We did so so with some others, a Cherokee, and several other trucks, and a couple subarus. We did have to start looking for at least under 100,000 miles.
The subarus needed work a fair bit, but one of the major reasons I started buying them was that they are very easy to work on. Many times easier to replace an alternator on them than any Honda, or other more modern cars. Even today, you can put a Subaru engine on the table in one hour. A bit longer than it took for the bugs, but still amazing compared to doing a timing belt on todays cars.
But after the falcon, we did start paying just a little bit more for my wifes cars. She just needed more reliability. If she was late for work, hundreds of chem students would be unable to do the lab till she showed up to unlock the stock room.
So since about 90, we held out for cheap cars that still had low miles, under 50,000 miles. To keep it cheap, this meant some fairly shitty cars, like a ford festiva ( similar to a geo metro), and a couple of ford focus cars. One of the focuses was a bit of a lemon, and a salvage title. But it still ran good for the cost. The second one (which just burned up in the fire) had been a great car, with little need for working on it.
All her cars ended up having a very low cost per mile, around 40 cents more or less. Not bad, considering some of my e bikes have come in at 35 cents a mile! But the bikes would be cheaper if I got by on less battery size.
Only once have I paid big bucks for a car, more than 10 thou. When I got sick, I was still trying to work through it for two years. I needed a new car bad, and could not settle for one I'd have to work on. I was way too weak to do a timing belt or water pump on a car.
I went to the high dollar dealer in town, and bought a used Subaru with 18,000 miles, two years old. I paid way too much for it. Part of that was the easy financing. I could pay more and get a really low interest rate, or pay cash and pay closer to what it was really worth. Then, I tacked on an extended warranty bumper to bumper for 3 years. This jacked up the price to stupid paying too much.
But it worked!. I had a strategy in mind. I still had the old Subaru around, and kept driving it around town. It could not do a long trip, but it could make it across town. We drove the wifes focus a lot too. Basically, I tried to keep the miles I put on the new car down to a minimum. The cost of this car including insurance was 450 a month, whether I drove it or not. So the cost of using it turned out to be around 75-80 cents a mile.
Today the car is recently paid off, and is the only good car we have. It's never needed anything but tires and a battery.
But now its cost per mile is only gas and repairs, and it still has only 60,000 miles on it. To buy one like it, would be about 12-15 thou. Bottom line, it may still cost me a lot per mile when I total its entire life up. But for the next ten years or so, it should run pretty reliably for very little out of this months check. In 40,000 miles or so, I'll pull the engine and do the valves, timing belt, and water pump, if it does not have problems sooner. That will cost less than a thou, since I am now heathier again. More or less, I will be doing just tires, gas, CVs, battery, etc for quite some time now.
So the first thing you need is a strategy. Will this be a car you need to be utterly reliable? Will you need that for longer trips out of town? Or can you get by with a car that you know will need that water pump and timing belt? Then after that, and maybe some CV's, it will be reliable enough, but not as much as a low miles car.
Our household really likes having one car well under 100,000 miles. The second or third vehicle can be much less reliable, with a lot more miles. This approach really only works because I can do the CV's or whatever, even if its a bitch to work on like a focus or Honda. But if I had my wish, we'd have like three subarus, all easy to work on. One very new, one 10 years old, and a beater I could bash around the desert in.
