bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

for financial prudence, keep it as long as you can.

for fun, when you get the itch and can afford what you want to get instead.

lamar411

The longest I've ever owned a car was 8 years, but the oldest car I've owned before i sold it was 12 years old. I get the itch around 6-7 years.

Lex2InfiN

I think there comes a point if you've owned a car for a long time, that the resale value is just not substantial enough to justify selling it. In those cases, since you've owned the car for so long and have spent so much on maintenance and you know the history behind it, it's better in my opinion to just keep it until it dies or becomes too expensive to fix. So instead of selling it and getting something else, I would just keep it as a secondary car. But if you're used to buying new cars every 2-3 years, then that's different. I think it's a poor financial decision to buy a new car and then sell it 3 years later, given how much value you'll lose during that time, but to each their own.

mmarshall

I know this sounds like somewhat of a cop out, but, IMO, if you buy rather then lease, anywhere from 3 to 7 years is the ideal range to keep a car. Before three years, depreciation takes too big a bite, and, after seven years, too many things usually need repair or replacement.

Whitigir

Let's say Job, Financial is not the problem here.

I do agree that about 2-3 years, or generally 3 years, car will lose it appeal factors, and also is boring to the owner, or old. I believe everyone will agree on this.

There are a few things I am thinking about

1/ After 3 years, your car depreciate 50%. The 50% you trade in will not be Taxed.

2/ After 5 years, your car depreciate almost 73%. The 37% will not be Taxed.

**Now compare to the lease** You lose almost the same amount if you leased it, except in some instances like Tax exemption from Residue Value toward the new car. Now, you may lose less VS Leased. You also have more freedom to drive per milage.

3/ Kept any longer than 10 years, and the car paid off itself. Which means you have to keep it for another 10 years, or 20 years total to have benefits from it.

4/ But if you keep it for 20 years, there are things you have to keep on buying. FE, Tires, Brakes components, and replacing the older rusted parts. Also, due to the CAFE regulations, there is a huge change in Gas Consumption from now to 20 years in the future.

After all that analyzing, I do think the car is best to be kept until 3-4 years of age.

Except those tuner cars, such as S2000, Supra, NSX...those are all worth keeping a little longer

Whitigir

I totally agree with this as well. After 7 years, the car depreciated to almost 20% residue value, and a lot more to replace, while you are Stuck with an OLD OLD vehicles

LexusChris

iTrader: (1)

Our Mazda MPV 2001, still running though underpowered with only a 2.5 v6 still running with 116,000 just regular maintenance too , no serious trouble with it at all, so I suppose as long as it's running. However we did have a 2002 Nissan Pathfinder that we retired at 106,000 miles that was giving too much issues with the transmission and 4WD system, got a low $4,500 in trade.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

For regular cars I would say 4-6 years. For specialty cars I'd say until you get tired of it.

GSthe4th

iTrader: (1)

As multiple people have mentioned, this question is complicated and personal. Suffice to say, flip flopping cars is quite the inefficient way to manage one's funds. But financial situations differ from one to the next, and if you are fortunate enough to partake in the game, by all means 2-3 years does the trick.
My wife and I just had this talk before we swapped leases 21 months into a 24 month lease!

SW17LS

Another issue for me is technology. Technology is moving so fast, when you look at the tech that cars had 5 years ago and look at today...its a pretty big difference...think about 5 years from now.

Some of that tech is fun and convenient, but a lot of that technology is safety related. PCS, accident avoidance, better stability and traction systems, better crash test performance. Think about the small overlap test...if your car is 3 years old...it fails that test because the test didn't exist when the car was designed. if your car is new...it passes that test. Every year this stuff gets better and better, and the rate at which that happens has accelerated, and is accelerating still.

If I'm going to be driving around in a car or my family is going to be driving around in a car...I want all this latest technology to be there to keep us safer.

SO...I lease my car so its going to be new every 3 years...the other car I don't see us keeping more than say 4 or 5.

Whitigir

Exactly, that is another point for trading in to a newer cars. Not only those Technologies, but the biggest there is = Gas consumption. Considering the most distinct different between the C7 to the 2005 Corvette. Such a huge different.

Beside the Technologies, the Newer vehicles is also worth for trading in. I mean you get everything "new"

Say you are driving a 50K Lexus now. 3 more years, people would look at it as 30k vehicles. But if you take a bit hit of the depreciation, you will be again driving another 50k Lexus. But most importantly, you have the New car all to yourself.

FishBike

With one exception, I've kept my cars until they're 10-11 years old. Current and previous cars were bought new, the ones before that were bought used. Around that age is when things to rust or fall apart. However with each new car, they have been in better condition at that age.

For example when I got rid of my first car (10 years old) and wanted to know what the dealer would offer as a trade-in amount, the salesman took one look at it and asked, "How much gas is in it?"

Whereas earlier this year when I traded in my 11 year old Acccord, I got about $4,000 for it.

Unless I win the lottery or something, I'm expecting to keep my current GS 350 until it's pretty old as well.

tex2670

Not sure where these numbers come from, but they certainly do not apply to my '07 IS 250, according to KBB private party sale value. [And you mean 27% will not be taxed...]

Good luck on sites like CarMax finding a 3 year old car for 50% of its original price--I've looked, and never found anything close to that.

Kira X

iTrader: (24)

I keep my cars until they blow up or until I get bored of them.

If I buy another car it's in addition to what I already have.

corradoMR2

Cars fall into the "want" category for me so every 2 years max, I change. Financially, this is bad, but I have no other vices, my wife tolerates this, so all is well!