this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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This is the only excuse for the massive inflation of new car prices vs. rate of wage increases over the decades. I will give auto engineers props for this accomplishment; cars are so much safer now than 30 years ago.
Dont sleep on either "many new cars are electric" or "cars last a fuckton longer".
Per-capira "total cost of ownership" for a car from purchase to retirement hasnt increased nearly as much as first-sale price would suggest. (Though the "financing cost" of the one-or-more transactions is a separate matter.)
Never buy new. Let someone else deal with the frequent hassle of getting all the problems fixed "under warranty" while the lemons get sent to salvage. Give me the vehicles that survive. Case in point, I bought my first car for $500, drove it for 24 years, and the biggest age-related expense was rebuilding the front end for $600. I sold the car in 2011 for $1000. I bought my current SUV in 2009 and the biggest mechanical failures have been replacing the power steering pump and the 4WD short axles.
I had a friend who insisted he needed to spend all his money buying new cars. He tried to tell me how much money he was saving because the dealership was fixing all the problems for free. I pointed out that he had barely even driven his new car because it was spending more time at the dealership every week or two and he was constantly wasting his own time taking it back for yet another problem.
Good advice, though not really germane to the topic.
Somebody has to buy the new cars for there to be used cars for you to buy, and the price you offer has to be more valuable to them than the car they're selling.
FWIW, A good argument for buying new isn't "look what the dealer's fixing", but rather "I don't want hidden surprises". Private party sales can very much be caveat emptor, and even getting a dealership to stand by their claims can be unprofitable.
That's what rich people are for -- to suffer for the benefit of the working class.
For the high end. Sure.
And poor, financially illiterate people buy up the low end.
But who buys the middle?
Imo that the sweet spot for leases. People who want modern safety/reliability/warranty, and resigned themselves to the fact that they'll always have a car payment if they prioritize these things.
What year was that? I don't believe a $500 car would last 24 more years. These days you can't even buy a 24 year old car for $500
It was a '74 Pontiac LeMansthat I bought in 1987. And sorry, I did forget about one thing... I had to replace the transmission a couple times, but back then you could get them from a junkyard for cheap, and it only took a couple hours to replace. Probably would have lasted a lot longer if I'd taken the time to rebuild the clutches though. Of course it's not like you can drive any vehicle forever, there was the maintenance as things like bushings and alternators wore out. For this discussion though I don't count things that you have to do on any vehicle with 300k miles on it. Everything wears out eventually, and yeah even the motor was starting to smoke by that time.
Yeah kinda burying the lede on this. Cars built in the 70s had a much more simple, serviceable construction.
By the time you let it go, it was also probably grandfathered in to emissions requirements because it's a classic car.
Anything from the 90s- 2010 will not hold up like that one did.
My secondhand 1999 Crown Victoria went 284000 miles over 19 years. I had to put some work into it, but when I traded the car in, everything still worked, minus the trunk lock (super glued by frat boys) and the driver door handle (snapped off in my hand, twice, replaced with channel locks clamped onto the remaining nub).
I mean, my SUV is a 2004 and seems to be holding up pretty well. I give it full synthetic oil and take it off-road occasionally, so it gets a wide range of treatment. Maybe I'm just not as bothered as other people are by the occasional bit of maintenance. I just replaced the thermostat this Fall, which was certainly a lot harder than on the old car because this one is buried down along the side of the engine, but it was still a pretty simple job.
The cheapest car I ever owned was listed on Craigslist for $1,000 but I managed to talk it down because it had a broken fuel gauge, only lasted me about a year. It was a 1993 Dodge Dakota, so we're in OBD1 era here. I'm currently driving a late 90s Honda with almost 300,000 miles, it burns oil but it's still drives fine. I'm going to drive it until it dies and then hopefully I'll have enough money to buy something on Craigslist. In my experience $500 would only buy you a mechanic's special. I first got my driver's license in the 2010s and I live on the west coast, if that makes any difference
Electric cars are still kinda expensive because they are new, and not yet the majority. But wow they are going to be so much cheaper in the long run. Fewer parts and easier maintenance. It’s surprising how much longer something lasts when it doesn’t need to contain numerous miniature explosions per second.
Everything is a special model these days which makes the price higher. You don't see mid range, average cars anymore.
Don't forget CAFE abuse. It incentivizes the boom of CUVs and SUVs we have now, and makes it challenging to have a good coupe/sedan platform. Pretty much killed the 3-door/5-door wagon, imo the superior car.