alt Hacker NewsVery few people buying a new car keep it long enough to make it cheaper than buying $5-10k cars.
The last cheaper used car I bought, I kept for about 10 years, it was $10k. I sold it to my brother in-law after that, who had it another 5 years… it would have gone longer, but he didn’t realized I had changed the timing belt before I sold it to him, so he misjudged how long the one he put on would last, and it destroyed the engine… anyway, let’s go with it..
The last new car I got, was relatively inexpensive, as far as new cars go, at $35k. If a $10k used car ran for 15 years, I’d have to keep that $35k car for over 50 years to make it worth it.
New cars are almost never financially justifiable. And that new car will run into the same maintenance issues and costs as the used one as it ages.
The nicer the car, the worse this equation gets, as increased car pricing translates to luxury, not quality. This makes them very different from work boots.
The question isn't so much how long it lasts until the engine explodes, it's how expensive is maintenance. That's the boot theory part. If you can't save up enough for the $10k car that lasts 15 years (though you mentioned a timing belt replacement and on some cars that's a few thousand $, ask me how I know...) and instead can only afford to keep buying $1000 cars, that could turn into a slew of smaller fixes that add up to a lot more than the car was initially bought for.
I'm also a bit surprised you'd buy a new car. Off-lease is much cheaper and they're still fairly new ish.