Best Of

I agree, Michael, and I think it all depends on whether it is maintenance activity or maintenance + repairs. Repairs are the things that go wrong (out of warranty), and, if you did good maintenance, it isn't overly likely that you will need to have repairs done. But, if you have a major repair such as transmission, head gasket, or differential failure, yeah, that will put you near or over that threshold (w/ accumulated maint costs).

When people take the time to add up the amount they spend on a long-term vehicle (just because the average age of vehicles on the road is >ten years doesn't mean that is overly common by a single owner), it is rare that they will be pleasantly surprised. However, it is even less common that the same person would then compare that cost to the amount they would spend on a replacement vehicle once, twice, or even three times during that same interval.

As CCBA'ers, we discuss often how to keep costs down on leases or frequent buys, laugh about getting new cars in lieu of replacing tires, etc., but, at the end of the day, once the vehicle leaves the garage, any dollar spent on it is nothing but vapor. So, let's do the math:

Maintenance/repair at $10,000 over 10 years = $1,000 / year.
Cheap new vehicle payment at $400 per month over 10 years = $4,800 / year (not confined to one vehicle over the full ten years!).

I can pay for a lot of maintenance and repairs annually and still come out way ahead on that one! For example, this year was a pretty expensive year for me in terms of maintaining my fleet. I had to replace the clutch on the 2013 Forester, put new plugs and ignition coils in the 2018 Crosstrek, replaced the turbo on the 2014 Q7 (among other items), etc.... I spent about $3,600 on all of that, or about $1,200 per car.