So people have all kinds of different theories about the best way to own a car. They generally agree that the most expensive way is to buy a brand new car and keep it 2 or 3 years, then buy another brand new car and keep it 2 or 3 years. There's all kinds of evidence about when cost of ownership goes up the most and when depreciation is the worst. I think generally there are two points at which depreciation is actually the worst. When you drive a brand new car off the lot it drops between 15 and 25% in value. So of course there's people who wait till the very end of a new car cycle and if they want that particular car they try to pick it up on sale at the end of the sale cycle. In other words if it's going to drop 25% maybe they can get it for 15% off anyway. Maybe this works, not sure. But there's other problems with brand new cars. the registration is the most expensive the insurance is the most expensive generally it's just more expensive. So if you buy a three-year-old car with 35000 miles on it, it still looks and runs basically brand-new but Cost Less. The insurance is a little bit less the registration is less and the car cost less. The big advantage of the brand new car is reliability.
Then somewhere between 4 and 5 years the car depreciates again significantly so another approach is to buy 5 year old cars. if you pick the right car you can sometimes find cars that are over half off of what they were just five years ago. And they may only have 50,000 miles on them. This kind of car may go a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand miles with sort of normal cost expectations but your initial outlay was half. Then of course another huge way to save money is to do your own maintenance. There's some things that are relatively easy to do like changing oil and probably changing filters but then there's things that are not terribly easy to do like changing axle boots and things that require you to Jack the car up and get underneath. With a few simple tools the average person can probably change the brake pads. But most people either take their car into the dealership which is incredibly expensive or take it to a local mechanic. the warning here is most local mechanics aim to hit you for 500 to $1,000 every time you walk through the door. That's where Anthony comes in. there are a few Anthony's in every city. ask around and you'll find them. they only fix what needs to be fixed. They have a team of mechanics that they Trust and have probably worked with for years. So roughly speaking If the dealership will charge you $1,000 for some maintenance work then the typical local mechanic will charge you $500 to $800 for that same work. the Anthony's out there will charge you somewhere between 300 and $600 for that same work. the Anthony's are literally saving you thousands of dollars over the life of the car. They are completely trustworthy if they say the cold air valve sensor on the Left Bank needs to be replaced immediately. Do it. if they say that rattle isn't any big deal ignore it.
oh there's one other theory of car ownership. read on the internet and look around and find the cars that go two to three hundred thousand miles with regular maintenance. the Toyota Corolla appears to be one such car. occasionally you can pick this car up for about $2,000 for an old one. so the way it works is you pay no more than $2,000 for a car and you just drive the thing until the engine or the transmission falls out on the pavement. then you go get another one. the insurance on these is rock bottom because you only get liability insurance. The registration is less than $100 a year many times. Pretty cheap. obviously the downside with anything other than a brand new car is that your car is going to spend some time in the shop and you're either going to have to have multiple cars or you're going to have to rent or Uber sometimes. which of course adds to the total cost of ownership but if you go with the Toyota Corolla it won't be in the shop that often.
As a warning or heads up it's important to understand that old cars have a personality. that is they have quirky little things that you learn about as you own or you read about on the internet. For instance some of them might require you to disconnect and reconnect the battery every so often to clear some little computer sensor thing that gets out of whack. Cost zero, but you have to know what to do. The door locks might act flakey. there might be a certain fuse that blows every so often. There's all kinds of little things that they'll do. there might be a rattle in the glove box and you can stuff something in there and quiet it down.
If you're rich buy new cars every few years and enjoy the good life. Everyone else buy used and depending on your temperament pick your approach.
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