I really like my 2020 but as soon as the warranty is up, it’s gone. Trust, confidence and knowing the truck will do what it’s supposed to do every time you get in it is the bottom line. Every vehicle must be maintained and that cost is not insignificant. Engines and transmissions though? I sold my sports car because an engine failure would cost about $30 large and to have that possibility hanging over my head was too stressful and so far outside the pleasure that driving it gave me.
with debt the way it is today, anybody can buy the latest luxury barge but few of us can manage the extra cost of transmissions and engines.
Time to sell it.
Nothing wrong with that at all. Although I'll say that the only 2 times I've ever been stranded were with newer cars with less than 50K miles.
For my part, my faith in a vehicle comes from owning it a long time and knowing it inside and out... knowing exactly what I have. I've bought several cars brand new, and always had faith in them, but after losing $35K in depreciation on a new BMW over 4 years on top of $100K or so in depreciation on new Land Rovers prior to that, I decided to look a little harder at how I was spending money and apply my mechanical skills to making cars last so I could retire earlier. Not having a daily commute (I work from home) makes that easier also.
The strategy I've settled on now is to start with an older vehicle that's a perfect fit for our lifestyles, for which parts are inexpensive and know-how is widely available, but between 25-40% of the cost of new. I bought my 2012 XL Denali in 2018 with 92K on it for I think $23K. It was still about as reliable as a new one, but since that time I've spent about $5K in parts to both upgrade and renew it so that it's exactly what I want, and also is at least as reliable as new. In the process, I've learned its quirks, and how to handle most things that could happen on the road with a traveling toolkit, but so far haven't needed it.
With excellent care, I hope to keep it for another 10 years until both kids are off to college, and then re-assess what we want for the next 10-20 years. I'll be 60 by then and getting closer to retirement. In the process, I figure I'll save around $150K in depreciation I'd otherwise be paying out if I bought new cars every 5 years like I used to. That's enough to cover college for at least one kid, maybe two if they go to state schools.
