The issue here is people are too quick to write off a few K of repairs for the *illusion* a new car or different car will be less expensive.
It comes down to amortization.
Lets say you get a 25K new car (which you can get a lot of car with, and is below the median new car price IIRC).
You get one with a 5/60 B2B so you have a 5K/y for 5 year cost for a car with 0 maintenance except for wear.
You then want the next 5 years to be issue free...so you have 10 year car, 2500/yr of actual buying costs.
After 10 years, its more then reasonable to expect some things to wear that need attention. Starter/Alternator, tie rods, some suspension parts, wheel bearings etc....these can add up to 500-1K repairs. ideally you want to spread it out.
If you have no issues for another 5 years...you sure have come out *ahead*.
If you have to put 1-2K a yr into the car is this really a huge cost when you factor in what you have been spending annually on costs for the car?
To me, if the thing becomes unreliable, starts stranding you, you have to bring it to the shop every 3 months for repairs and there are severe issues, yes move on.
If you are trying to keep milking a 15y car (which is what your Max is) and saving cash for a newer car then its still a keeper IMHO.
I do this with cars. I keep them a long time. Subaru WRX is 11 next month with 127K on it. Two previous cars had 10+ and 150K on each of them when sold (running perfectly well). I probably should spend the 1000-1200 and freshen up the WRX suspension a tad as it owes me nothing (its been reliable and done its job). I didn't hesitate to swap out some CVs when one started to leak a bit. If the 5sp grenades I will spend the 1500-2K for a new one and keep on trucking.
Every month it runs issue free is $400 in my pocket from an amortization point of view. The way I keep cars is atypical. Most people are in the 5-7y car life span...so they are happy spending 3-5K/year on car costs for most of their lives.
I am not
- b