Me thinks that someone who pours money into an old Daewoo Lanos should not be giving financial advice .
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Itās a proven fact that the best way to avoid car repair expense is to buy a brand new car with a warranty. Me and Dave Ramsey disagree on the issue of buying an old car.
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I think Dave Ramsey has some good ideas and approaches to finance.
But you have to think about the new/used car from both ends. A new car will be more expensive on the front end, and probably have fewer problems during its life. A used car will cost less on the front end, but may have more problems during its remaining life.
Either way, youāre going to pay. I donāt know what those amounts areā¦but thereās also the āpeace of mindā factor. As well as the Happy Wife consideration, which canāt be valued monetarily. 
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Depreciation or repairs is how I see it.
Depreciation is funny money though. No one ever writes a check to pay for depreciation. Always amused when people complain about how much their car depreciated driving off the dealer lot. Oh my gosh market is down today and I lost money-not.
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Depreciation becomes very real when you sell the car, though.
The key word is āsellā. You donāt realize a loss until you sell. And if itās a 58 Chevy, it was a gain.
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Iām eagerly awaiting my 2002 Taurus to reach that kind of gainā¦ 
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Just be glad that you donāt own a Daewoo Lanos of the sameāor olderāvintage.
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I really expected my 86 Riviera to become a classic. No such luck though. $50 tops so I figure it cost me a penny a mile for depreciation.
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Barky- precisely. Thatās why I lease cars. The lease cost is simply the depreciation plus a few bucks of interest.
I heard an interview the other day (on the radio I think) about the path to a successful retirement w/a physician who specializes in treating the elderly. He said that among his patients, the best predictor of a happy & healthy retirement is walking, and those patients who go for a 1/2 hour (or more) walk every day have by far better results than those who donāt.
I think Dave Ramsey is right if you do the math. Buy a new car and drive it 200k miles. Figure the cost. Buy a couple of years old, low mileage used car and drive it for 200k miles. Figure the costs on that. Heck, throw a transmission rebuild in there if you want. Lease cars for 200k miles and figure the cost on that. I think used is going to be less money overall, just mathematically speaking.
Iām not against buying a new car, or leasing if thatās what you want to do. The last car we bought my wife we bought new. Of course now itās 8 years old with 150k miles, but thatās beside the point! But if youāre just speaking in purely financial termsā¦well, I think āpeace of mindā is certainly more of a āfunny moneyā idea than depreciation.
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I donāt understand your logic. If I followed the unanimous advice given here to junk that car and spend no time or money trying to diagnose/repair it, I would have had to spend a lot more money buying something else to drive. I also like to drive a car with certain features, which are difficult to find, and unfortunately cars with those features are often not properly appreciated and cared for by their owners, which leads to additional repairs. I try to DIY as much as possible, so I am only paying for parts, not labor or shop markup.
Also, I am not sure why this car gets so much hate. It is an inexpensive economy car, similar in features and quality to many other popular cars which were common 20-30 years ago. I can remember when you could not look out the window without seeing a Ford Escort, Chevrolet Cavalier, Dodge Shadow, Toyota Tercel, etc. Most have disappeared due to owner neglect, and the fallacy that you shouldnāt spend more than the Blue Book says your car is worth on maintenance and repairs, not because they were poor quality to begin with.
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one thing to keep in mind is that small cars now a days have come along way as far as accident impact. my ex had a ford escort when I was dating her 35 years ago. I was driving it one day and while stopped at a light a guy rear ended me and took off. the escort was totaled. and I dont know how he got away in his car but the cops could not find him. the escort crumbled like a can. the small cars of today are a lot better made than when the escort was made.
You pay for the depreciation up front. Another way to view this is you leave a $35,000 deposit, when you return the vehicle you receive some of your money back. You lost the use of that money for that period of time.
Some of us donāt mind driving a $3000 vehicle that is out of style yet fully functional and put the $32,000 towards the mortgage so as not to become one of those mentioned above that ālost everythingā because they were at an age that they could not find employment that pays 4 times what I earn.
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Iām not going to argue with whatever anyone feels comfortable with as long as the wife agrees. Iāve done both. Bought new and driven it 30K a year, bought new and kept it for short trips, bought used and driven it 30K a year. Most of my cars I drove for work got anywhere from 250-500,000 miles on them over a 35 year period. The thing is when I went back and calculated cost per mile, there wasnāt a dimes worth of difference in new or used. Just depends on miles driven of course and I tracked the marginal cost per mile for each 10,000 mile interval from new to junk. Iām just happy to be in cars where everything works and the odds are Iāll get from point A to B without help.
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I actually have a lot of sympathy for the OP although I think some of the problem is self generated. That rental car business has to end PDQ though. Even something off of a BHPH lot would be a better option.
As for financial issues I think most have been through them. No shame in it IMO. At one time I did when the oil boom went bust here in OK. Iāve never seen an area go so flat so quickly and precipitated by the Penn Square bank debacle. The dealer I worked for was tied up heavily in bad oil investments and dealings with that bank. You can only snooker the Feds for so long.
Several dealers went under along with half the indy auto repair shops. I went from flagging 65 to 70 hours a week flat rate to not even getting 10 for the entire week. Things got a bit tense with a family to support and a 50 miles a day commute.
It took me a month to find another job and I ended up having to commute a 170 miles a day round trip for that.
In one of those weird twists of fate the new job was right across the street from the closed Penn Square bank.
+1
Part of my daily routineāwhen weather permitsāis to go for a 30-45 minute hike. Hurricane Ida has screwed-up my plans for the past couple of days, but I will return to my usual walking regimen when all of the roads re-open.
A couple of weeks back I happen to work on replacing spark plugs and other maintenance on 2005 Prius of my daughter before she would take it to college.
The car has 133K miles on it and was maintained ā¦ letās say ā¦ āper spec - by the prior owner AND was really pampered by me, the second ownerā.
Influenced by reading the prior thread on OP Prius, I checked the PCV and if I was to sell this car for parts, I could probably sell this PCV as a ānew part, happen to buy one, but never installed itā - it was clean as a whistle and the entire ventilation system is as dry as a bone.
Needless to say, spark plugs insulators were almost white and the only thing to note was slightly increased gap on one of them as I let it go past the recommended replacement interval, with new plugs engine runs like silk.
When I read that engine was āheavily carbonized internallyā in the original OP post few weeks back, my first suspect was itās either trashed or maybe (slight chance!) it has crankshaft ventilation system malfunction and it may be saved with really small expense.