Tell me about your crappy first car!

[Kevin]

You know it just occurred to me that I've never owned a car that was less than 7 years old...

Ah well some day I might get an actual new car. ...

Unless I can afford to burn money, or they are giving them away cheaper than used, I'll never buy a "new" car again. There are plenty of slightly used cars that you can get for half the cost of a new car.

Unless the new car had some compelling feature that I absolutely needed, I'd go for the slightly used car at let someone else pay for the first year depreciation, higher insurance rates, and initial new car taxes.

Oh I know, but I think it's more of one of those wish fulfillment things really.

I've also never spent more than $3000 on the initial purchase price of a car either, which shouldn't be surprising when you look at the four vehicles I've owned. Of course I've also never come anywhere close to 30,000 miles in a year either. I've broken 20K in a year couple of times (twice I think). I'm at 30K on the Taurus in 2 years and I drive it more than I've driven most cars in the past. This year I've made four 1600 - 1800 mile round trips and three 800 - 1000 mile round trips and I've got at least one more of each of this happening this year I think. but if I don't make one of those trips it gets 200 - 300 miles a month. So whatever I get and resell will be a low mileage vehicle, unless my driving habits change a lot (which is possible).

But again it's more a wish fulfillment thing.