r/Frugal • u/Brokecracker84 • Nov 01 '24

What old cars are you frugal people nursing through life? šŸš— Auto

I remember the older generations would buy a car and drive it for two or three decades. Today it is pretty popular to replace a vehicle regularly. What are some old vehicles you all are still driving. Iā€™m stuck in the early 2000s, because they are new enough to have some features, yet, mostly simple to service.

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u/Checkmate1win Nov 02 '24

A more frugal approach would probably be to buy a ~3 year old car and drive it until it dies. That way the most aggressive depreciation has occurred before your purchase.

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u/YouDontTellMe Nov 02 '24

Definitely this. Buying a car with 25K miles on it, still under warranty. Save big monies.

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u/theberg512 Nov 02 '24

My Honda was 4 years old with 50k when I bought it in 2009 (for only $10k, it was a simpler time).

It's still my daily, though now I let it rest during the worst of winter. It never let me down, but I don't trust some other jackass to not slide into me.

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u/PmedicProfessor Nov 02 '24

This is wrong advice and I wish people would stop giving it. This hasn't been true for quite some years.

In 2019, I bought a brand new crew cab 4x4 xlt f150 for 26,000 although the MSRP was 44,000. The kbb on it still today between 26,000 and 30,000 (and it just rolled over 50,000 miles last week). Before that I bought a brand new 2016 crew cab 4x4 f250 xl for 30,100 and traded it in 3 years later for 30,000 with 36,000 miles on it (with an original MSRP of 39,000). If you buy a new vehicle with decent resale and take care of it along with paying below MSRP you will come out far ahead. Especially since people like you keep buying vehicles like my truck for "10,000 under new" when by shopping around I got the same deal brand new. I've had 5 more years of warranty and know every little detail along with every well maintained mile driven on my truck while someone like you could be buying 5 years of unknowns such as exceeded towing capacity or little to no oil changes. You don't get the same benefit buying used and pay almost the same price.

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u/AspiringDataNerd Nov 03 '24

Except now for an additional $2-3k you can buy brand new and not have to hope the previous owner took care of it properly. Used cars are still ridiculously expensive unfortunately

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u/KobiLou Nov 04 '24

I think this used to be the case but since COVID and the chip shortage this is less true unfortunately.