I lucked out.

I was given a 91 Ford Escort Wagon beater. Thought I'd drive it till it quit but it's still going, averaging 32mpg on the ethanol blends and I've put on over 60k milesin two years. Everything works but the cruise control. Manual Windows. Heater, Defroster, AC charged. I run synthetic Oil and I get blue smoke on cold startup but no significant oil usage, no drips, no car payment, It's wonderful! The Wife and I even drove it to Calif on vacation last summer, and she's pretty particular about what she'll ride in.

It's not a chick magnet, but like a mutt dog, I've learned to love this thing for it's loyalty.

There really is no "Best Way".

It's a different path for everyone. Obviously there are some guide lines that you can follow but one of the best way to reduce the cost is by maintaining the car yourself.
And again that's not an option for everybody.

If you're a single gal who can't fix her own car then buying or leasing a new economical car may be the best way to go.

If you're someone who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty (Summer or Winter) with almost no notice then buying a bomb and fixing it yourself becomes an option.
But have you ever had to change a water pump at 8pm on a weeknight during the dead of winter because you needed the car the next day?
Take my word for it... It's not a lot of fun.

One thing I always think about... And that is TCOO. Or total cost of ownership.
What I do is buy a sensible robust car and the only thing it goes to a professional for is types an wheel alignment.

And I keep it until it falls apart... I don't' skimp on insurance.

Get the bonnet and roof repainted if it becomes sun faded. I can't stand ugly cars that have faded paint. They just look so getto to me.
Change the wheel bearings and suspension bushes when needed.
Change the oil twice a year and the filters once.
Fix what needs fixing but never go to after market wheels and junk like that.
I may put a good CD/MP3 player in but no sub woofer and extra amps. That's my daily.

My 911 is totally different. I keep that car as close to 100% as I can.
That means everything works and is in good order. Porsche genuine parts when available but otherwise good aftermarket parts.
It really is in mint condition so it's still worth what I paid for it 12 years ago. Although finding a buyer may take some time.

Good thread with lots of info I agree with. I've never sold a vehicle for less than I've paid in my life, (that I can remember, anyways), but I'm a cheapskate who always buys "birds with broken wings" and fixes them up. And I don't buy high mileage/rusty/ugly schitboxes no matter how cheap they are. My last DD, a Mercedes diesel, was as close to a loser as I've ever had and I sold it for exactly double what I paid 6 months ago. After factoring in parts and my labor, I probably did not break even.

My 911SC was sold for $4500 more than I paid 3 years earlier and it was also a loser after my own labor and parts were factored but it was sold under distress, (health issues), and I miss it to this day.

Whoever mentioned fuel costs gets the chicken dinner. My latest DD is a 1996 Mercedes S500 w/ low miles that I was basically given for free. (Needing a couple grand in immediate repairs/maintenance). It is a phenomenal car, quite possibly the safest car ever made and had a MSRP of ~$85k in 1996 dollars. It gets about 12mpg city on premium but ~20mpg highway. I'm almost never on the highway and L.A. freeways don't count most times because of the varying speeds. It costs me $100 a week in fuel to drive it the short distances I cover in town on a daily basis. I could lease a new Prius and fuel it for about the same $$ and have zero maintenance costs + a new car. (Or any other high-mpg economy car). It's the most expensive "free car" I've had in a while. My Mercedes diesel cost exactly half in fuel costs, even with the higher price of diesel.

FWIW, my buddy who gave me the S500 got a new BMW 335d that gets ~30mpg in town w/ no-cost maintenance for 4 years. I got repair receipts w/ the Benz showing $13k spent in the last 4 years. (He's not a car guy and was getting raped by a rip-off shop + the dealer but that's par for most owners). If he'd leased the BMW, the fuel savings alone would be over half the lease cost and it's a $57k MSRP car.

Fuel and maintenance are HUGE factors, aside from depreciation/insurance. When I look at what people spend on new luxury cars and SUVS, (total cost), it's staggering. :cool:

true - more metal, more volume, are expensive to haul around. ... but so too are hospital bills and recovery time if you get hit, when driving some econo-box. (read: ping-pong ball)

congrats on the W140. They really are exceptional in so many subtle ways.

This is what I do, and it seems to work for me:

1. Buy a new car. Yes, I will eat the depreciation of the car, but I always plan on keeping a car around for a long time. However, the warranty on new cars are typically 4-5 years long, and in most cases anything major going wrong with a modern car will occur in the first 3-4 years. So the warranty offsets the depreciation of the car somewhat, and I can have worry free driving for a couple of years. The except to this rule is toy cars -- my next Porsche will most likely be a used Cayman S or 996, which I will buy used. (Buying a new track car is too expensive, especially when I start ripping the suspension apart!)

2. If I don't have cash in hand to pay for the car, I put as much $$ down as I can, and finance the rest at the best rates available. If I can pay off the loan early, I do.

3. Keep car for 10+ years. Case in point: I bought my 1995 Subaru Legacy new in 1995. Kept it around for 13 years, and nearly 200,000 miles. It was a solid reliable car that owed me nothing when I sold it for $500.00.

4. Pay attention to the law of diminishing returns: at some point, an old car (whether you bought it new or used) will cost more to maintain than starting the cycle over again.

5. Regarding resale value: I don't buy a car so I can sell it -- I buy a car to drive, so resale value means very little to me. By the time I am ready to sell my car, my expectation is that the resale value will be close to $0.00.

I get a lot of satisfaction knowing that to kill someone inside of a w140 takes serious munitions or a speeding cement mixer. In the Princess Diana death car, the one person wearing a seatbelt survived an ~80mph frontal crash into an immovable object, dead center. He was in the front passenger seat and totally survived his injuries. Un-freaking believable. That's almost plane crash impact. :eek:

An old HS friend of mine suffered an unimaginable tragedy over the winter in Minnesota when he lost control of his Ford Escort on an icy highway, crossed the center line and was T-boned on the passenger side by an oncoming SUV. He lost his 13 y.o. daughter in the crash, she was sitting in passenger front seat. He is a school teacher raising a family on limited $$ and needless to say, he picked the wrong place to economize in the household budget. :(

Would she have survived in a Volvo? We'll never know.

I typically do what Z-Man does, buy new, take care of it with regular maintenance and drive it for 10+ years. I did that with a Mazda 626, put 160K on it, would have kept it, but had a bad accident that made it worthless. In 10 years I put on tires, brakes, wipers, one battery and one starter motor.

My cheapest car to own was my 1970 VW camper. I bought it in 1986 for $2500 and sold it in 2003 for $1500. I put 370,000 miles on it. I replaced the motor 3 times for a total of around $3000 and painted and restored it once for around $3000. Add around $2000 for tires, this and that and it comes out to around $9000 for 17 years and 375,000 miles. I only had to be towed once when the oil cooler blew a seal and fried the motor.

- Dave

To avoid running beater and in general cars that suck in comfort and make you look like a cheap student, I buy a slightly damaged salvage title vehicle for about 1/3rd of the going market rate. I put maximum 2-3k in it and have myself a nice, comfortable and modern car. I drive it for 2-3 years and then sell for about the same it cost me in total. Sometimes it comes out a bit more.

But like everybody says, in general, keep something for as long as possible and do not pay a mechanic to work on your car, that's the formula to eliminate vehicle expenses. What else would you spend your money on in a car?

- Sergei

Side impact, from a 60 mph SUV, directly on the passenger door, with his car having some velocity too? I don't think a Volvo is a silver bullet.

Last year, I bought a 95 Grand Cherokee for $300. Full leather interior, and every option but automatic climate control, and a V8. It supposedly had a bad head gasket, and a blown transmission. The head gasket was a radiator, and the transmission was a couple of solenoids. So, $100 for a new radiator, and free solenoids out of a junk trans at the salvage yard core pile, some Armour All, 409, and misc stuff, I'm up to $500. Just did a tune up, and added an MSD 6A to it, and now I get 25 highway, and around 18 in town. 196k on the clock, and 4 liter jeep engines can go reliably, to 400k if you keep up on maintenance, so I ought to be set for a while. PLUS, If I want to go Cathy Bates on somebody, I'm out about $600 total. I just don't have the ego that needs a new car to feel good about myself. Not saying that's anyone HERE, but I do know people that HAVE to maintain that status.

There's somewhere in the middle of having a shiney new car with a steep depreciation curve and driving a $500 car that you need to keep maintaining. You only go through life once, spend a little and enjoy life. This is a car board afterall.

True, but the other half of that statement is that if I drove a 'nice' car on a daily basis I couldn't afford a 911.

I don't want to spend every weekend fixing a crappy daily driver, so 'lowest cost' has to factor in some sort of value for my spare time. Which is why a drive a 90's Volvo.

I have to agree. (I think Volvos are over rated . ..and Volvo has worked hard marketing that image)

The MBz W140, otoh. . . the doors are so heavy (strong) that they contain pressure assisted door closer actuators. The W140 is also a wide car, allowing for more (potential ingression) space between the door and the passengers. The window is double-glaze, and of course they have side air-bags. ...oh, and it's no ping-pong ball.

get yourself a 98-2002 vw TDI....... do your own work if possible..... 50+ mpg and the engines are bulletproof as long as you stay on top of your t/belt changes....

Looks like the lowest cost of ownership for any new car is a Nissan Leaf. May not work for you, but the cost per mile is amazingly low - may well go lower too (rel. to buying gas).

Pretty much sums up my philosophy...well stated!

Keep looking for crazy people that like overpaying for used cars.

I've never seen such lunacy in Canada, but that's probably cause we are forced to over pay for everything.

The price difference on new cars is insane. $34,000 ($34,800 with dest charge) USD Evo is like $42,000 CDN ($43,400 with dest charge), and our dollar is worth more. :(

And most manufacturers don't cover cross border warranty anymore.

That was my philosophy and I wish I had stuck to it. But I had a 2003 MB E320 that needed $700 worth of left front suspension work at 60k miles and ate up another $1000 in misc. repairs. When it needed tires and exhibited the same suspension symptoms on the right side I traded it for a BMW 525 - worst automobile transaction in my life. I so wish I had put the $$$ into the MB and kept it.
I probably won't ever buy another new car. I'll get by on a pickup, a daily beater, and assorted fun cars from now on.

Actually, I can boil it down for me into one very simple direction:

I buy the car that I lust after the most in my set price range.

I wanted to spend $500, I got a 68 Type 1.
I wanted to spend $4000, I got a 924S.
I wanted to spend $20K, I got a Boxster S.

Next up is the $40K range, and it's either a 996TT, a Lotus, or a 348TS.

Whatever gets my heart pumping and goes around a track. Maintenance cost? F*$# it. Fuel mileage? Gotta pay to play.