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As much as I like driving a car into the ground, I think getting a new car every 10 years is the sweet spot between safety upgrades, frugality and shiny new toy

As much as I like driving a car into the ground, I think getting a new car every 10 years is the sweet spot between safety upgrades, frugality and shiny new toy. Here's some highlights and keep in mind there's a lag between the first car with a feature and it becoming a widely adopted standard. And of course each new feature is always being improved. 1959 - First car with 3 point seat belt as standard 1971 - First car with anti-skid brakes (ABS precursor) 1978 - First car with electronic 4 wheel ABS 1983 - First car with anti-skid control (ESC precusor) 1995 - First car with ESC 1997 - Curtain air bags 2002 - Knee air bags 2004 - Lane keeping assist 2009 - First car with emergency pedestrian braking 2009 - Rear-seat center airbags 2010 - Seat belt airbags 2016 - Tesla Autopilot 2018 - Reverse cameras become mandatory

DavidPeiffer 6y ago
>As much as I like driving a car into the ground, I think getting a new car every 10 years is the sweet spot between safety upgrades, frugality and shiny new toy. The balance between frugality and safety upgrades is my internal struggle. Growing up, I remember it being a big deal when cars hit 100,000 or 120,000 miles. That's pretty common now, which makes the safety aspect more important. I average ~12,000 miles/year, which is pretty close to the US average of 13,500 miles/year. With cars lasting so much longer than they used to, buying an older low-mileage car means you'll be driving a pretty old car by the time it becomes high mileage. I'm going to run my 2010 Civic for awhile longer, then probably look at a ~3 year old car with ~80,000 miles. I can run it for ~6 years, end up with ~150,000 miles, then sell it to a high school kid who is only going to put 5,000 miles/year on it.