Do Car Experts Keep Their Car Longer?

Not a mechanic myself, just do most of my own work tools and space permitting. It is random for me. I have sold cars after a few months just because it wasn’t working for me. Have also kept cars for long time too. I usually buy used, do a lot of research on reliability and DIY friendliness of the cars, but it doesn’t always go as planned.

We had a local farmer here who passed away about 15 or so years ago. He was very well off financially.
:However, he chose to continue to drive a 57 GMC pickup and a 65 4 DR Bel Air Chevy; both of which he bought new back in the day. He had that Bel Air on the road almost every day of the week and was driving right up to the time he passed at around 90 years of age. And a good driver too in spite of the age.

A neighbor of mine has a 71 GMC pickup (6 cylinder, 3 speed on the column, bare bones) that he’s owned since the mid 70s and it’s still a daily driver. Like the bunny, it keeps on going.

Generally, I keep my cars for 15 years on average but at some point they have to go due to sheer mileage as I live out of town. If I want a beer it’s a 50 miles round trip so the mileage does accrue quite a bit.
My antique motorcycles have been with me since 1974 and 1977 respectively. Plan on riding those through the Pearly Gates at some point although my wife said Saint Pete would probably throw out the spike strips… :wink:

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I still do most of my own workn but never drove my car more than 15000 miles a year because if I lived more than 20 miles to work, I would either move or get another job. I hate changing cars. Because of laziness I buy new cars now. I know it is more expensive but finding a good used one is a lot of work and I don’t have many other expenses and all of my children and grandchildren are self supporting save one, but she is 8 years old. She has nieces who are in their 30s and a nephew who is 40she also has 2 great nephews who are older than she is. I would love to have a car 20 years but they rust out beyond repair long before that if you use them as a daily driver.

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Might be easier if you don’t buy them one at a time. :smiley:

When we built our house the closest grocery store was 20 miles away. But New England has been growing very fast. Now I have a nice grocery store less then 5 miles away. But still have to drive 3 miles on a dirt road to get there. Still rural enough. I don’t like city living.

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Also not a mechanic but enjoy doing the work and greatly respect the good ones so my rules are:

  1. Most new cars will run a couple hundred thousand miles if you simply do the maintenance and be aware of issues, fixing them as they come up
  2. Stay in your wheelhouse. Some jobs like transmission repairs, modern clutch replacement, exhaust replacement and for me, all body work, require special tools and knowledge so leave it to the pros.
  3. But at some point every machine just plain wears out or rusts out to the point that it’s not economical or practical to fix. i.e. Costs are too high, parts are unavailable, unreliable, unsafe, etc.

So in general, I start thinking about replacement at around 200,000 miles or 15 years old.

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Pretty much. The question really comes down to income and cheapness. My dad was good at fixing cars, and even though he had a plenty good enough income to drive a nice new car every few years, he was also very cheap and would drive his cars until they literally rotted around him. I remember my mom making him get rid of the '69 Corolla he had in 1984 because you could look down through the hole in the passenger footwell at the road going by.

I know another guy who’s good at fixing cars but who buys a new car at least once a year. He makes a lot of money and it makes him happy, so…

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I still fix my own vehicles and do most maintenance (electrical plumbing home repairs). I can easily afford to have it done. But my dad taught me to do most of this work and if I can and have the time I will do it myself. Just the way I was raised. Big projects I don’t do anymore. When my wife and I first got married we bought a duplex to rent out. I spent every weekend renovating it. Took it down to the studs. Luckily it wasn’t a large duplex and took me 4 months. When done I rented it out at a good monthly flow. Then bought another one and did the same thing. Then another one. At one point I owned 5 pieces of income properties in nice neighborhoods generating a good income. I almost quit work. Then the crash of 1987. It was a good thing I did all that work myself because I was more financially stable enough to able to ride out the storm with several tenants leaving and many staying vacant for a couple years.

There can be a lot to say for sweat equity. I’ll work on my own vehicles as long as I’m physically able to.

I agree. When I said “cheapness” I was referring to the question of whether people who know how to fix cars keep their cars longer, not whether or not they fix their cars themselves.

My dad was cheap, and that’s why he kept driving a car well past its expiration date even though he could have gone out and gotten himself a very nice car to replace it without hurting his finances at all. Heck, even when he finally did replace it, he insisted on paying as little as possible for the new car, which is why he ended up with a base model Tercel that didn’t have air conditioning or even a radio.

Back in the late 1940s through the mid 1950s, my dad was a customer of a mechanic who bought a new Nash, sometimes every year and sometimes every other year. When I was first married in the mid 1960s, a mechanic who owned his own service station, bought a new Pontiac every year. He had a buddy from WWII who owned a Pontiac dealership. My mechanic neighbor had customers who would tell this mechanic what features they wanted, and this was what the mechanic would order. The mechanic would drive the Pontiac until it was time to order next year’s model. He would then sell the Pontiac to his customer and drive his service pickup truck until the next year’s Pontiac he ordered came in. He did this every year. I was a customer of one mechanic who bought a new Mustang. This was in 1968. On the other hand, I have been a customer of a mechanic that would pick up an old car, drive it a couple of years and part it out.
I am no auto expert. I would buy the newest, used car I could afford, and drive it until.it was almost worn out. I did minor repairs–alternators, fuel pumps, water pumps, spark plugs, etc. As my job became more demanding, I had professional mechanics do the work on my cars. I would look at the repair that needed to be done. If it looked like the job would be more than a couple hour project, I took the car to a professional mechanic. When I was in graduate. school and the years I lived in apartments, there was a limit as to what I could do in the parking lot. Even when I owned my residences, I had to balance time against the cost of doing a job as to whether to do it myself or have a shop do the job.
As the technology changes, I find that there are fewer repairs on our cars and household items that I am able to do. I used to repair my television set in the hand wired vacuum tube days. I could replace a water pump on the car in s couple of hours. I had to have a water pump replaced on the 2011 Toyota Sienna I used to own and the engine had to be raised to replace the pump. Both Mrs. Triedaq and I grew up in families where money was limited and that has influenced the purchase of vehicles and other items. For instance, we are having a new washer and dryer delivered tomorrow. Our present dryer is 20 years old and our washing machine is almost 30.years old. The heating element burned out in the dryer. The shaft bearing is going out in the washer. I could have replaced the heating element in the dryer, but the motor might give out. I am busy making video recordings of Christmas music with a community band and a horn quartet. We decided it was time for new equipment. I have become so involved in various activities since I retired that I still don’t have time to do automobile maintenance and household repairs. In fact, I may have to get a job to retire from retirement.