The average person can find a pick-your-brand Japanese car or crossover that’s 5-8 years old, if possible pay cash and get liability insurance only and motor for half the typical costs and basically the same reliability.

We bought my wife’s 2005 CR-V in 2011 for $8500 cash. In 8 years, it’s needed less than $750 in parts and we farmed out only one job (a clutch job which involves a good half-day of labor with a lift or a strenuous weekend without one). Total maintenance expenses have been under $2000 over 8 years and if the clutch job hadn’t been needed would have been under $1000. (Was a bearing failure not clutch wear.)

We’re under $11K into this thing, excluding gas, so $110/mo or so and still totally reliable.

You’re right on the market; it’s great that not everyone wants them: makes them cheap for those who know how smoking a deal they tend to be.

> and we farmed out only one job

That speaks of expertise and therefore is poor measure of TCO for the average person. That said, buying a 3-6 year old used car is frequent advice.

Where people fall down is not buying a used car. It's buying a used car they could not afford as a new car. If your buying a used vehicle that was 30+k new, your not actually getting a cheap vehicle, just an old one.

By far the cheapest car I ever owned was a Mercedes E300D turbodiesel. Was a $55K car in 1998 and a $6500 car in 2009. Mercedes in general but diesels in particular are built to last and are quite inexpensive to maintain if you DIY or use an independent mechanic.

A $6500 Jaguar is probably not a good budget recommendation though... :)

88% off on a 12 year old car is a serious discount. But, if it’s actually lasting 10 years as your daily driver without needing serious repairs you may just want to be buying lotto tickets :)

PS: A friend owned a used car for 3 years then sold it for a net profit without doing any repairs. But, good luck retreating that without spending a lot of time looking for great deals.

I suspect the biggest win is getting over the mostly mental hurdle of “I deserve a new car because reasons...”, deciding to buy used, and then just not picking absolute maintenance hogs. Most cars are quite reliable now and can easily go 150-200K miles without major drama. 10 Audis owned for 10 years will likely cost more than 20 Toyotas owned for 10 years. Even “over paying” at a place like CarMax (who makes it “easy” to shop for a late model used car) is better than getting fleeced at the new car dealer.

People love buying new cars though... It’d be a lot more amusing if it weren’t so financially harmful. (I confess to buying a new electric LEAF but only because it came with $10K in government money in the trunk. Even with you guys buying 1/3rd of it for us and Nissan financing it at 0% interest, it’s noticeably more expensive than our other cars. Good car though. Has needed wiper blades and washer fluid in 55 months of ownership.)

> Buying such an old car takes some knowledge and skill.

That was part of the point of the blog, transferring that knowledge.

> it doesn’t scale to society as a whole.

I dislike this argument, something doesn't have to scale to society as a whole to be a good idea. Tons of people that are rich or unwise can keep buying new cars and thousands of my readers can start buying used cars without throwing the whole world market off.

It’s not an argument, just a plain statement of fact. Remember, the context here is an article about the reasons why a huge number of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. It’s quite relevant to mention that having everyone buy old cars can’t solve this problem.