Old Cars. thoughts?

[place-saint-henri]

Hey Fellow Road Enthusiasts!

Myself and Duke87 recently had a discussion while Roadgeeking in Quebec last weekend. Why not get an old but reliable used car instead of forking over for a new one? I used to own a 1995 Subaru Legacy and I literally ran it into the ground. I also plan to buy a Volvo 240 (probably the greatest car ever made and one of the only 25+ year old cars you can realistically expect to use a s a daily) from the late 80s when I graduate from University next year. I feel that there are some models from back in the day that were just made better. I dont like computers and navigation systems and self parking that today cars are spoiled with. Thus, I prefer to get an old car and put a little elbow grease to keep it on the road, rather than buy a new characterless machine.

Duke on the other hand feels that having a new car with lower mileage is ESSENTIAL for long distance road geeking. He plans to get rid of his Focus after 100k miles for this reason and while I understand his rationale, I disagree. I have a friend who took a 1993 Volvo 940 from New York to California and back this year, and I have friends in Vancouver who have toured up and down the west coast in a 1987 GMC Vandura with 300k kilometres on it. the thing is that these people know how to perform self maintenance on their vehicles.

So, I am curious are there any road geeks here who have a car from before the year 2000 as a daily? or even better something from before 1990!  what are your thoughts? would you be willing to put miles on an old car if it was reliable and you know how to perform basic maintenance it?

[corco]

I drove a 1997 Escort until about a year ago, and my cars right now are 2001 and 2002. I had the Escort for a couple years, got it with 52K miles in 2011 and dumped it with 96K miles in 2012. It got good gas mileage, was inexpensive and easy to self-maintain, and I never had reason to doubt it.  It was worth maybe $3000 when I got it, and was worth about $2500 when I sold it, so I only lost $500 for 44K miles, because 96K is still low mileage for a fifteen year old car. I probably put $600 into it- had to buy new tires, recharge the A/C, and replace the motor mounts beyond regular maintenance. So I still came out way ahead against where I would with a new car.

I think there's a definite sweet spot in car age- I prefer to find an older, lower mileage example and drive it until it's cashed out, that seems to be the sweet spot. New cars lose value too quickly, but beaters become too much of a hassle to maintain.

I think driving a brand new car as a roadgeek is a bad idea from a depreciation standpoint- you're going to put a ton of miles on your car, ideally, in not that great an amount of time. You certainly want something reliable, which is why I like the simpler, lower trim, older but low mileage cars.

I rent for road trips if it's more cost effective, but when I take my own car (usually for thos random 800 mile day/overnight trips), I know I've got a reliable, low mileage older vehicle that isn't going to lose too much more value by me racking up miles. I feel like if you insist on driving a brand new car and you put your roadgeek miles on it, you're going to end up in a situation where you're either in a never ending cycle of making car payments, or you risk going underwater on the terms of your car loan by putting a ton of miles on a new car. If you can afford to pay cash for a brand new car, that's probably ideal, but you're still taking that depreciation hit.

My preference for multiday trips is to assume that if I had a brand new car, I wouldn't be building equity by taking it for a ton of miles, so I'd rather just give that depreciation hit to a rental car company so I always get a new car.

I'm looking at probably buying a brand new car next year, but I'll still rent for extended trips because I always want the new car to be worth more than what I owe and with interest rates so low there's no real incentive to put a big down payment down. Now, once that car is paid off, it'll probably become my primary roadtrip car.

[bugo]

1980s cars aren't "old cars".  Anything before the '70s is.  I thought this thread was going to be about late-'50s chrome encrusted land barges with huge fins.

[Alps]

Totally depends on the model and maintenance. As long as the car isn't exhibiting signs of trouble, 200k should be a non-issue for continuing a roadtrip. That said, I've settled on the model of renting for longer trips where the cost of rental is less than the accrued cost of maintenance, so I don't plan to run into this sort of problem. Your mileage may figuratively vary.

[vdeane]

I currently drive a 1997 Accord which I'm going to replace next year because it's at the end of its economic life and I don't know the first thing about car repair.

[Takumi]

I find most new cars boring. I can count the number of new cars I would consider buying on one hand (Toyota 86/Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ, Ford Focus ST, Ford Fiesta ST, Subaru WRX, Audi RS5...notice I didn't include a Honda). My two cars are 16 (the daily, 1997 Prelude SH) and 20 years old, extremely simple to work on for the most part (the torque vectoring system on the newer one is a nightmare but that's it), and they're becoming more common in junkyards so parts come cheap. Most importantly, they're both fun to drive.

[1995hoo]

Totally depends on the model and maintenance. As long as the car isn't exhibiting signs of trouble, 200k should be a non-issue for continuing a roadtrip. That said, I've settled on the model of renting for longer trips where the cost of rental is less than the accrued cost of maintenance, so I don't plan to run into this sort of problem. Your mileage may figuratively vary.

My brother just drove his 2005 Civic that had 189,000 miles (at start of trip) on an 8000-mile roadtrip last month and had no problems other than two flat tires.

But when he got home with 197,000 miles, he knew he was due for a timing belt/water pump, possibly a new clutch soon (he was on the original clutch!), and several other things that, while all routine, would add up to over $2000. Our father had offered to give his 2004 TSX to my brother, so he accepted and sold the Civic to Carmax for $1500.

I think that's the real bottom line: When do you conclude the maintenance costs more than you feel is worthwhile?

I don't drive our 1988 RX-7 for roadgeeking, or really for any purpose, if I'm going further from home than Waldorf, Maryland (around 70 miles roundtrip). I don't trust its reliability. Love driving the car, especially with the top down, but I don't like being stranded. With AAA Plus I get the 100 miles of towing, hence the 70-mile distance.

[J N Winkler]

So, I am curious are there any road geeks here who have a car from before the year 2000 as a daily? or even better something from before 1990!  what are your thoughts? would you be willing to put miles on an old car if it was reliable and you know how to perform basic maintenance on it?

A lot of the previous replies have addressed this question from the standpoint of depreciation and the comparative cost of renting, so I will just address the DIY aspect, drawing largely on my own experience.  If you wish to do long-distance roadgeeking in an older vehicle which you propose to keep for a relatively long time and use for general purposes (not just long road trips), you are better off with a vehicle whose make and model is known for reliability and high fuel efficiency, whose ownership history is both known and clean, and which has been engineered for easy servicing.

I have had three vehicles which I have used for roadtrips of varying length.  The first, a 1978 Chevrolet Impala which came into my hands with just 5,000 miles, proved to be a reliability nightmare.  It had an underpowered inline six, was difficult to start when cold (flooded easily), idled roughly when warm (GM's carburetor technology didn't play nicely even with the very modest level of emissions control equipment that was legally required in 1978), and was expensive to drive even in the era of $1/gallon gas.  It was the base model with no options whatsoever (purchased originally by my maternal grandparents, after they retired from farming, as their going-to-church vehicle), so it had no A/C or cruise control, which made it very tedious to drive on long trips.  After it was left ungaraged in the worst hailstorm of a generation, it had a considerable amount of cosmetic damage as well.  It was sold after three years with accumulated mileage of 20,000.

Next car was a 1986 Nissan Maxima (GL trim).  It is still, by far, the best roadtripping car I have ever had.  It was small, got good mileage (30 MPG or better on the open road), and had plenty of trunk capacity for luggage, camping gear, and basic auto maintenance tools and supplies.  It was engineered for easy servicing, so I could do oil and filter changes on the road (as I did once in Alamosa, Colorado, as well as multiple times in Maryland), as well as typical tuneup stuff (replacement of spark plugs, air filter, and coolant, plus a transmission fluid drain and fill) at home on an annual or biannual basis.  But it did have expensive items fail--idle air control solenoid (cost about $200), brake pads and rotors, wheel bearings, etc.  (These last few items are poor candidates for DIY because brakes have to be absolutely unimpeachable.  As I mentioned in another thread, the rear brake rotors failed on a long roadtrip in 2003 and had to be replaced during a short stop in Berkeley, where I was extremely lucky to book my vehicle into a highly regarded local shop specializing in Japanese imports.)  I still have the service history for this car and between my notes on work I did myself and the various tickets from repair shops all the way from Berkeley to Auburn, Massachusetts, the total documentation is about two inches thick, spread across three or four file folders.

I got this car from my mother in 1996 when it had 56,000 miles.  In 2007, at 227,000 miles, it was donated in lieu of sale--by then the battery had gone sour (not being driven enough was a contributing factor), the front driver's seat was severely discolored by sweat stains as a result of a San Diego-Phoenix trip along I-8 in September 2002 without air conditioning (the car had working A/C; I just didn't use it, not being aware until it was too late of the damage my own sweat would do both to the seat and to my clothing), the clearcoat was peeling, and the exposed paint was severely oxidized.

My current car is a 1994 Saturn SL2, which came into my hands with about 125,000 miles.  It is a not-bad errand-running car, but for long-distance road trips I don't consider it particularly trustworthy.  Its fuel economy is poor (I haven't broken the 30 MPG barrier once in the 3000-odd miles I have owned it), though still within EPA ratings for this make and model.  It has been troublesome.  In the past year and a half, the A/C has required repair twice (at a total cost of $400); radiator has had to be replaced (cracked); and brake pads and rotors have had to be replaced.  The standard of service engineering for this model is very poor.  Bulbs and the air filter are the only items I can replace easily--I can't change the oil and filter without lifting the car (filter changes are especially tricky because the dirty oil has to be prevented from dripping onto the CV joint boot immediately underneath the filter mount).  I have heard I could boost fuel economy by 6 MPG if I replace the existing spark plugs with Copper NGKs; the existing plugs are 60,000 miles old and so need replacement anyway, and in theory are easily accessible, but I am afraid to try changing them because the engine is cast aluminum.  (The Maxima, the last car in which I did a spark plug change, had cast-iron cylinder heads, so I didn't have to worry about cross-threading or thread stripping.)  Just in the last month the fuel gauge has gone squirrelly and the odometer has frozen; since the latter can be replaced on a DIY basis (parts cost is only $50!) but entails complete disassembly of the instrument panel, I am using my Android phone to track mileage.  This car has hail damage as a result of another once-in-a-generation hailstorm (and is on a salvage title as a result).  There are also interior finish problems which are too numerous and too tedious to describe here.

So, in summary, I suggest you choose your model carefully.  I actually wouldn't go out of my way to avoid electronic control because the alternative--doing tuneup work on carburetors etc.--is messy, smelly, and three-quarters black art.  With an older model, component reliability is important, but less so in comparison to the accumulated service history than would be the case for an almost brand-new car.  Also, past a certain age, component reliability relates more to the basic engineering of a given part than to the statistical frequency of defects, which is a result of quality assurance and quality control during manufacturing.  (The odometer failure in my Saturn is a classic example of this--Saturns had a reputation for high reliability, especially in the marque's early years, but this was largely a result of quality control procedures.  Odometer failure is very common in older Saturns because the number wheels are driven by urethane gears which are attacked over time by their petroleum-based lubricants and so are fundamentally mis-engineered.)  You also want to be sure you can get in and out with minimum hassle when you do regularly scheduled maintenance.  If you routinely have multiple calls on your time, you don't want to be hassling with jobs left half-finished for want of the appropriate tools (some of which, such as stands and hydraulic jacks, are very cumbersome to store except on property you own).  You must also be clear-sighted and honest about what you can do or are willing to do; unless you are a trained mechanic, there are some jobs for which you just won't have the know-how, while there are others you can do but for which you will be reluctant to allocate the time.  (As an example, I hated drain-and-flush jobs--none of them actually went wrong, but they took ages and were messy.  On the other hand, I could be done with a slosh-free oil and filter change within 45 minutes, including the time required to change into working clothes.)

[oscar]

My brother just drove his 2005 Civic that had 189,000 miles (at start of trip) on an 8000-mile roadtrip last month and had no problems other than two flat tires.

But when he got home with 197,000 miles, he knew he was due for a timing belt/water pump, possibly a new clutch soon (he was on the original clutch!), and several other things that, while all routine, would add up to over $2000. Our father had offered to give his 2004 TSX to my brother, so he accepted and sold the Civic to Carmax for $1500.

I think that's the real bottom line: When do you conclude the maintenance costs more than you feel is worthwhile?

My 1982 Honda Accord bit the dust in 1998, under similar circumstances, at over 282,000 miles.  It was looking at multiple major repairs all at once, including needing a new clutch, and major air conditioner service as summer approached (seriously complicated by the a/c's using Freon coolant which had been phased out and could not be easily replaced).

By then I was using a 1996 BMW 3-series for long trips, so the Accord was in its last years used only for commuting and other local travel. 

[1995hoo]

My brother just drove his 2005 Civic that had 189,000 miles (at start of trip) on an 8000-mile roadtrip last month and had no problems other than two flat tires.

But when he got home with 197,000 miles, he knew he was due for a timing belt/water pump, possibly a new clutch soon (he was on the original clutch!), and several other things that, while all routine, would add up to over $2000. Our father had offered to give his 2004 TSX to my brother, so he accepted and sold the Civic to Carmax for $1500.

I think that's the real bottom line: When do you conclude the maintenance costs more than you feel is worthwhile?

My 1982 Honda Accord bit the dust in 1998, under similar circumstances, at over 282,000 miles.  It was looking at multiple major repairs all at once, including needing a new clutch, and major air conditioner service as summer approached (seriously complicated by the a/c's using Freon coolant which had been phased out and could not be easily replaced).

By then I was using a 1996 BMW 3-series for long trips, so the Accord was in its last years used only for commuting and other local travel. 

I had a 1982 Accord as well (my dad bought it new and sold it to me in 1991 when he got a new Accord) and absolutely loved it. It succumbed to underbody rust in 1995. I was sorry to see it go. Only had 157,000 miles, but it failed state inspection. Too much winter driving without being vigilant about undercarriage washes. Replaced it with a 1986 Acura Legend that I drove until the summer of 1999, when I decided the maintenance at 178,000 miles was simply too costly compared to car payments. The last straw was when the clutch failed on a Friday morning on my way to a hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria.

[nexus73]

For relatively low cost and high durability, GM's 3.8 V-6 FWD full-sized cars are hard to beat.  30 MPG on rotgut regular makes them even better.  Want to go with the Blue Oval?  Crown Vics and their cousin cars (Grand Marquis, Town Car) with the 4.6 and body on frame construction have a proven track record for durability.  That's why so many of them got used in police, government and taxi service!  MPG's in the high 20's are easy to deal with too.

Whichever car you choose, you will get full-sized comfort and a big trunk, both essentials for road trips.  These cars will easily surpass 200K on the clock.  Since they are not "hot" and popular, you get a whole lotta mobility for your moolah.  Plenty of older folks get them new.  They are the kind of buyers who don't tear a rig up, they maintain them well and the mileage per year is usually lower.  That combined with depreciation makes a car with that kind of start out of the gate as good a combination of factors as one could want.

Things to watch out for: The GM FWD's need McPherson struts and a 4-wheel thrust alignment.  That runs around $600.  4.6 and other FoMoCo engines from 1997 to 2001 had a plastic intake manifold (as I remember).  Some were replaced under a manufacturer's recall.  Check to see what's up before hitting the Buy button. 

Rick

[corco]

Agreed with the W-Body/Panther recommendation- a late model Impala with the 3.8 is one of the very best used cars money can buy. The Panthers are great too, but that might be too much car for some.

[1995hoo]

I currently drive a 1997 Accord which I'm going to replace next year because it's at the end of its economic life and I don't know the first thing about car repair.

I had a 1997 Accord that replaced the 1986 Legend mentioned in my earlier post. Got it in August 1999. August 2004, I had just over 99,000 miles, one payment left, took it for service and the mechanic said how well I maintained it and that I'd easily get 250,000 miles unless I were in an accident.

Next day, got rear-ended and insurance declared it a total.

[Duke87]

I see two key issues here.

One is that, while a good car that's well maintained can still run reliably with 150k miles, it can not do so so reliably as to make having a breakdown unthinkable. If I had such a car, I would be comfortable driving it, but would not want to ever drive it more than a few hours from home lest I bust a hose or something in a distant place and end up marooned until I can get it fixed. As of right now I have never had to call a tow truck due to a breakdown... and as far as I am concerned, the instant that happens once, the car has broken my trust in terms of reliability and it's time to replace it.

Secondly, even without breakdowns, older cars require more maintenance and more frequent maintenance... which, whether or not you do it yourself, is bothersome and time consuming.

I will grant you, buying a car new and then trading it in at about 120k is more expensive than keeping it longer or buying one used. But those options are incompatible with my lifestyle - my hobby of going on crazy roadtrips combined with my desire to avoid having to do more maintenance than necessary means I can't drive a high mileage car.
And I don't like buying anything used if I can avoid it - I don't trust that I'll be getting something in good condition. And I just feel kind of "eww" about it since in my mind if it belonged to someone else before me, it's tainted.
Besides, you have no idea what the previous owner did with it. Do you want to drive a car that for all you know some other dude repeatedly had sex in the back seat of? I don't!

[corco]

It seems to me like your most economical option, then, would be to just rent a car everytime you go on a long roadtrip and drive a higher mileage car for local runs. Then you have no maintenance concerns and you're not making car payments- you're giving the money to a rental agency to keep a car in great shape for you.

[Duke87]

It seems to me like your most economical option, then, would be to just rent a car everytime you go on a long roadtrip and drive a higher mileage car for local runs. Then you have no maintenance concerns and you're not making car payments- you're giving the money to a rental agency to keep a car in great shape for you.

Except that renting a car is a lot more bother and has a lot more potential snafus than just getting in mine and driving off. It'd also be an extra hour on each end of the trip getting to/from the rental place and signing paperwork and whatnot that I could otherwise spend driving. I wouldn't completely rule it out as a thing to do but it is significantly less convenient.

As for car payments, I'm not making those either way. My current car was a college graduation gift from my parents and I already have more than enough saved up to buy a new one without needing to take out a loan. So, meh. I can afford it.

[corco]

Okay, yeah, if you have the money saved up to pay cash for a new car without completely nuking your savings that's probably the way to go, but that would but you in the vast minority of 25 year olds.

As far as renting a car...an hour is a gross exaggeration. It takes usually 15-20 minutes to pick up a car if you find a rental car place on your way. I'm assuming that's easier in New York than it is in Montana.

[Duke87]

As far as renting a car...an hour is a gross exaggeration. It takes usually 15-20 minutes to pick up a car if you find a rental car place on your way. I'm assuming that's easier in New York than it is in Montana.

That's assuming I drive to somewhere, leave my car there, and then take the rental the rest of the way... which I suppose could work, the issue then would be parking.

I'm assuming I'd be not touching my car at all and taking the bus to the rental place... which takes about half an hour and cuts nothing off my driving time to wherever I'm going.

[DSS5]

I do just fine road-tripping in my '91 Oldsmobile. Cue a line about how they don't make 'em like that anymore.

[wxfree]

I love old cars.  My previous car was a 1979 Buick, a full-sized American boat.  Even though I usually travel alone, I like big cars.  The old Buick got clattering valves and it cracked a head.  Everything else was perfect, but I decided it was time for something newer.

I got a 1999 Cavalier, which was 3 years old at the time.  It's my daily driver and my car for road trips.  It's approaching 300,000 miles.  Because of my easy driving style and a lot of highway miles, it still has its original clutch and I've changed the brakes only twice in the years I've had it.  I change the oil every 5-6 months, depending on mileage, and never have to add oil between changes.

The only things it's ever seen a mechanic for are alignments and a fuel pressure test, because I couldn't find the proper tool here in town.  Everything else I do myself, which saves a lot of money.  It also helps that it doesn't need much work.  The only significant work I've done to it is replacing the fuel pump twice (I damaged a connector on the original and after a few years the second one produced too much pressure) and replacing a drive axle.

I consider it old, not at all a classic but just well-worn.  But there's nothing wrong with it so I just keep going down the road with it.  If I were wealthy, I'd have quite a few much older cars fully and beautifully restored.

[J N Winkler]

One is that, while a good car that's well maintained can still run reliably with 150k miles, it can not do so so reliably as to make having a breakdown unthinkable.

That is true of new cars also.  Cars, of whatever vintage, are quite complex pieces of equipment with several thousand parts and reflect the outcomes of nearly as many engineering decisions--and even the best-engineered cars incorporate the results of at least a few bad design choices.

If I had such a car, I would be comfortable driving it, but would not want to ever drive it more than a few hours from home lest I bust a hose or something in a distant place and end up marooned until I can get it fixed. As of right now I have never had to call a tow truck due to a breakdown... and as far as I am concerned, the instant that happens once, the car has broken my trust in terms of reliability and it's time to replace it.

I have never had to call a tow truck for any of my cars.  Not once!  Notwithstanding the various war stories in the repair-woes thread, it is also very rare for cars to be completely disabled in a remote location in such a way that an extended wait for parts is necessary before repairs can be done.  Among the members of this forum, it is the older ones who are more likely to have had at least one experience of this kind, because (1) they have been driving longer, and (2) they started driving at a time when cars in general were far less reliable than they are now.  I have been driving for over 20 years now, and I have not had an experience like this, even once.  My own contribution to the repair-woes thread was a story in which my car was still able to limp.

Secondly, even without breakdowns, older cars require more maintenance and more frequent maintenance... which, whether or not you do it yourself, is bothersome and time consuming.

I think you are making this more of an obstacle than it really is.  Yes, it is nice that newer cars come with spark plugs, coolant, automatic transmission fluid, etc. rated to last 100,000 miles minimum, or in some cases as long as the life of the car.  But old-school car maintenance is not that time-consuming when the car has been properly engineered for easy service.  When I was putting 30,000 miles annually on my Maxima, the basic service regimen was an oil change every 3,000 miles (45 minutes to an hour and a half of my time 10 times a year), plus new spark plugs, air filter, coolant, and automatic transmission fluid (drain and fill on the last two items) either annually or biannually.  The longer-interval services usually took me a half day for the engine and fuel system-related stuff, and then another half day for the draining and filling.

I will grant you, buying a car new and then trading it in at about 120k is more expensive than keeping it longer or buying one used. But those options are incompatible with my lifestyle - my hobby of going on crazy roadtrips combined with my desire to avoid having to do more maintenance than necessary means I can't drive a high mileage car.

A few observations:

*  If you buy new, you are burning cash through accelerated depreciation.  Buying new therefore makes financial sense only if you are planning to squeeze more surplus out of the car toward the end of its life by being far more scrupulous about maintenance throughout its entire life than is typically reflected in the resale value of older cars.  This is the basis on which my parents typically purchase cars:  they buy brand-new and then garage-keep for 10 years minimum, following the severe-service maintenance recommendations throughout.  This typically results in a car which feels "like new" after ten years, which is very unusual for ten-year-old cars in general.

*  Trade-in is an expensive convenience--the amount a dealer offers you for trade-in is almost always less than you could obtain through a well-scheduled and well-advertised private sale.

*  Limiting ownership from new to 120,000 miles makes little sense if the vast majority of the mileage is on the highway.  If you want to program ownership of a car in such a way that there is little unused surplus when it leaves your hands, you are better off planning for a shorter ownership period for a car that sees lots of short-cycle city driving and a much longer ownership period for one that sees primarily long-cycle highway driving.  When the time comes to sell the car, the effect of mileage on the final sale price will be determined entirely by the odometer reading, with no allowances for the quality of the mileage (whether highway or city).  So if you unload a car that has mostly highway miles when it has 120,000 on the odometer, you are hurting yourself to do the next owner a great favor.

And I don't like buying anything used if I can avoid it - I don't trust that I'll be getting something in good condition. And I just feel kind of "eww" about it since in my mind if it belonged to someone else before me, it's tainted.

Does this mean you go "Eww" when confronted with, say, an incunable?  And what if the used car in question is not being bought blindfolded (the usual scenario at a dealer, auction, or online wholesaler), but rather a friend or family member who can be trusted to have been scrupulous about carrying out and documenting maintenance?

There is no such thing as a completely new car.  I can guarantee you that any car you find that is advertised as "new" is full of fingerprints from the assembly-line workers, the person at the factory who did the final systems test before it was loaded for shipment, and from the first few people to test-drive it at the dealership.

Besides, you have no idea what the previous owner did with it. Do you want to drive a car that for all you know some other dude repeatedly had sex in the back seat of? I don't!

That is a very strange thing to be worried about.  When you stay in a motel room, do you worry about the possibility that other people who had the room before you had sex in the same bed?

[Duke87]

Does this mean you go "Eww" when confronted with, say, an incunable?

If the appeal of something is specifically that it is old (e.g. old baseball cards or old maps), then it's a different game because you obviously can't find such a thing "new". It's also very different (in my mind at least) when the used item is something you are collecting rather than something you are making use of.

And what if the used car in question is not being bought blindfolded (the usual scenario at a dealer, auction, or online wholesaler), but rather a friend or family member who can be trusted to have been scrupulous about carrying out and documenting maintenance?

Then the trust part wouldn't be a problem. But the fact that it belonged to someone else before me still makes it less desirable.

That is a very strange thing to be worried about.  When you stay in a motel room, do you worry about the possibility that other people who had the room before you had sex in the same bed?

I'm not particularly worried about that specifically, I just threw it out there as a dramatic example of a way in which a previous owner of something can have marked it as their territory.
And as for your counterexample, no I don't worry, but that situation is very different. If I'm borrowing or renting something, its previous usage history is irrelevant to me. But if I am buying something and calling it mine, then I feel that it cannot truly be mine (in a philosophical sense) if it previously belonged to someone else.

So, I don't care about hotels or guestrooms, but I would never buy a used mattress.

[corco]

*  If you buy new, you are burning cash through accelerated depreciation.  Buying new therefore makes financial sense only if you are planning to squeeze more surplus out of the car toward the end of its life by being far more scrupulous about maintenance throughout its entire life than is typically reflected in the resale value of older cars.  This is the basis on which my parents typically purchase cars:  they buy brand-new and then garage-keep for 10 years minimum, following the severe-service maintenance recommendations throughout.  This typically results in a car which feels "like new" after ten years, which is very unusual for ten-year-old cars in general.

This is exactly right- the appeal of buying new is that in 100K miles, you basically can give yourself a free 100K mile car whose service history who know intimately, making it worth far more than a random 100K mile car from the newspaper.

[JREwing78]

I have no problem with older vehicles as long as they're well-maintained. I put so many miles on my vehicles that it simply doesn't makes sense to buy new. Let someone else take the depreciation hit.

I consult places like Consumer Reports to get a good idea of what used cars are reliable, which ones have taken the biggest depreciation hit (typically American nameplates), and what models are pleasant to drive. Ergo, my current ride, a 2005 Ford Five Hundred. The mileage was higher than I wanted (I purchased it at just under 100,000 miles), but the vehicle is in immaculate condition inside and out - and I work hard to keep it that way.

As for "random 100K car", I took that variable out of the equation by getting one with a full service history showing it had been well-maintained, and by having my mechanic inspect it prior to purchase.

[J N Winkler]

And what if the used car in question is not being bought blindfolded (the usual scenario at a dealer, auction, or online wholesaler), but rather a friend or family member who can be trusted to have been scrupulous about carrying out and documenting maintenance?

Then the trust part wouldn't be a problem. But the fact that it belonged to someone else before me still makes it less desirable.

Of course.  But buying used from a trustworthy seller is essentially a value-for-money proposition.  The car won't be fresh, but if it has been driven gently and maintained well, it will be reliable for a very long time.  If it has been garage-kept, it will also be cosmetically like new except for parking lot dings and the like.  (Cars made 30 years ago and later stand up much better to intermittent UV and road salt exposure than older ones.)

Corco makes a good point upthread--if you have enough money to buy new, that is nice, but it also puts you in a microscopically small group.  For most people just starting their careers, a limited amount of income has to chase multiple spending needs, such as general-purpose transportation, getting a foot on the property ladder, and (as is increasingly the case these days) paying down student loan debt.  The two-thirds of the purchase price of a new car that is lost within six years to depreciation delivers a negative return; on the other hand, the equivalent amount of money invested in property in a stable local housing market usually delivers a positive return.