A carnever reallyhas to die. As long as there's some owner who's passionate about keeping it (and who can afford to keep it fixed). After all, there's still model-T cars that have been kept alive.

 

When I lived in Maine, the deciding factor of whether to keep putting money into a car was the condition ofits body. Long, salty winter conditionsturned just about every car intoa rust-bucketpretty quickly.Exhaust system components routinely lasted maybe two years. Back in the 60's and 70's, if you got 6 years out of a car you were lucky. For this reason, used cars that had spent their life in Maine had much lower value than cars from states that had milder winters. If that's still the case in Maine today, car ownership there must be prohibitively expensive.

Warm-climate cars can at least theoreticallylast a very long time.

For high-mileage cars that still havea good body,the engine and transmissioncan be relatively-inexpensivelyreplaced with a low-km, JDM unit, and inexpensive aftermarket parts can be used to repair the rest of the car. To me, this makes far more sense than dropping $20 - 30k ona new vehicle, especially since I live inEdmonton'slong-winter environment - an environment where any vehicle used as a daily driver isgoing to suffer.

 

My previous car (1990 Toyota Tercel Coupe) lasted for 16 years before I said 'Farewell'. I told myself, as long as I'm not spending more than I would on a new car payment, then I'll keep it. It pretty much bit the dust the year before last and I got my 'new' car. With the amount of money I'm putting into it now, I should have it for at least as long. I've heard great things about Honda, so I'm not afraid of investing a little money, LOL!, and enjoying the benefits!

StevePhy

 

386,000 and still my everyday driver, 120 miles a day