car ownership in America

there are lots of theories and approaches.
here are two.

1) Drive a car forever and just keep pouring money into it. it's paid off, so just keep running it to the shop.

2) Drive it till it starts breaking down repeatedly and then get rid of it.


in the end there is no free way to drive a car on gas tires and oil changes. they all have a significant cost.

my current perception is that there are two main factors in a car's longevity.

the first is age. when modern cars get to be about 15 years old all the plastic and rubber parts start breaking. since there are millions of plastic and rubber parts all over the car it's pretty much the end of the road. you can force the issue by just spending a whole bunch of money running it back and forth to the shop.

the second is mileage, and how that mileage is accumulated. highway driving is much easier on a car and City mileage is pretty tough. but it seems like cars get to somewhere around 150,000 miles and they just give up.

now of course there's a little old lady with a 1962 Volvo that's got 20 million miles on it. of course it happened somewhere in some universe, but generally not in mine.









drive it for all it's worth. then give up.