I grew up in a family that did the "buy used cars keep until the repairs got too expensive" thing. We spent a tremendous amount of time at mechanics, paying lot

I grew up in a family that did the "buy used cars keep until the repairs got too expensive" thing. We spent a tremendous amount of time at mechanics, paying lots of money for repairs that may not have even been needed, and then selling or trading in the piles of junk to repeat. I remember many times waiting for tow trucks by the side of a highway or out in the middle of nowhere to come tow one of our cars. I made a list one time and I believe my family has owned at least 20 different vehicles this way. Thus conditioned, the idea to me of buying a used anything and keeping it for 10 years sounds like a recipe for answering the Ship of Theseus thought experiment. When I first struck out on my own, I had a used, but good condition Toyota that a year later had $3500 worth of engine trouble that ended up costing me a job. I finally swore never again. After that Toyota, I bought a brand new, small, car for $12k with the highest reliability I could find and kept it for over a decade. It required exactly one repair to an O2 sensor after 10 years. Being small and commodity, maintenance was cheap (a set of four new tires ran under $350). One day, 12 years in, the engine conked out and the repair was estimated at $500. The car was still worth $5k. I made a deal with the mechanic and he bought it for $4k. Considering that the cost to "buy" the car was about $8k, maintenance was cheap, and fuel efficiency was high, the car cost pennies per mile to drive over its life with me. I've since bought another reasonably priced new car that I fully expect to drive for another 10-12 years. And my family, after seeing my experience with proper cars has also cried uncle and now only buys new, reliable, cars. My father can't believe that he doesn't even know a mechanic anymore, whereas he used to spend significant time cultivating relationships with "good" mechanics to deal with repairs. Hundreds of dollars a year used to go into towing fees, and thousands were lost to lost work or other opportunities when a vehicle was down and being worked on or to rental fees so we could still get around. I know that its possible to get a highly reliable used vehicle, but honestly, its impossible to know what a used car has gone through before it ends up in your hands.