Personal Finance

The car will lose its most value in those first 3 years and lose value more slowly after that

That's a bit less true these days than it used to be, cars are retaining their value a bit longer.

I personally go for about 5-7 years old, and I keep it as long as the repairs cost less than the expected cost of a new one, averaged out over the expected life of the new one. That ends up being something like $1000-1500/year in repairs and depreciation, so that's kind of my rule of thumb.

As a result, my cars are old (one's almost 20 years old), but still quite reliable. I'm finally looking to replace them, not because repair costs are high, but because better options are available. Our family car chugs gas like there's no tomorrow, and I can get a similar car w/ twice the fuel efficiency. My commuter isn't particularly inefficient, but I could totally get an EV for it and never have to visit a gas station for that car again. So I'm looking for inexpensive replacement options for each.

However, I also have a garage, two cars, and am willing to do basic repairs on my car myself, so I'm a lot more tolerant of older vehicles than someone who only has one and doesn't have the tools or space to do their own repairs.

The only time I recommend buying a brand new car was during COVID, when they were actually cheaper than gently used cars. Get something used that's about half the price of when it was new, which should be somewhere in the 3-7 year mark, depending on the make. Most cars are expected to go 150-200k miles (250-300k km) without issue, so find something with relatively low miles (50-60k miles, or <100k km) and you should get way more than half the expected life for less than half the cost vs new.