[Hazlitt777]

I would like to see what posters here generally do?

Do you run your cars till they drop, or do you trade your new car when it is 3, 4 or 5 years old?

I ran my first car till it had 168,000. It could have kept going but too much rust for my taste. So I traded it for a car with 75,000 and ran it till it had 183,000. It was getting rusty and I was getting bored. Then I traded that one for a car with 35,000 and ran it till it had 150,000. That was my 2004 Chevy Impala. It still looked great and ran great. But I couldn't help myself and broke my rule and traded it for my new 2014 Chevy Cruze:>(

I should probably run this one till it drops, but I'm toying with the idea of a 2017 Cruze base (L) model with the manual...if they put a cruise control on it without charging me an arm and a leg forcing me into the next trim level up. (Hopefully they won't do the same thing they are currently doing with the 2016 model.)

Curious as to what you guys do when you face such a "dilemma."

 

[obermd]

Yes, but not in that order.

 

[ChevyGuy]

In the past, it's been "run it into the ground". However, with the different safety features coming along, that may change. Partly because I think it may change the "at fault" status of common fender benders. If you're the only "manual" car in a sea of automatic braking, how is that going to work out?

The other part is that I'm a low-mileage driver. I look at some of the lease terms reported here and I'm wondering why the heck did I buy.

 

[jblackburn]

I generally keep em until they either die or I get annoyed at constant repairs.

I've put so little mileage on the Cruze that I don't know yet. It may end up being traded on a bigger car in a few years.

 

[Aussie]

I kept my 1999 3.8 Commodore until I bought my 2012 CTD. Then with 250,000km on the clock I got $5000 for it as it was a manual fitted with a tow bar and in good condition. It also had duel fuel and was cheap to run. Rust is not a big problem here.

 

[brian v]

I used to keep a Pile of stuff for ever until I really had to shoot IT to get rid ot IT ..Parts were cheap back in the day , engines even cheaper ..

As of this last decade I have had to trade UP for the next best POS that has tripped my light fantastic and have found that Fords are better !

 

[Aussie]

Hey Brian, we all know that you will buy another Chevy one day.

 

[Daisy81]

I used to keep a Pile of stuff for ever until I really had to shoot IT to get rid ot IT ..Parts were cheap back in the day , engines even cheaper ..

As of this last decade I have had to trade UP for the next best POS that has tripped my light fantastic and have found that Fords are better !

Heresy

I won't lie that Fusion RS sounds pretty tempting But that is too rough of a car to be driving it from State to State often. I'll probably go with a Malibu or an Impala. Although by the time I buy the Impala will probably be in a refresh and the Malibu at the end of it's cycle. Hopefully the Impala loses that god awful steering wheel.

 

[NickD]

Hazlitt is from my neck of the woods, road salt, Wisconsin. Ha, never was one to keep up with the Jones's, put well over 200k miles on at least eight vehicles, and when they turn into a pile of rust, that is when I get rid of them. 04 Cavalier was short lived, only 150K miles on it, but gave that to my daughter where she took it down to Milwaukee and had to leave it on the street to be blasted with road salt.

Giving that car to her was cheaper than trying to find a used one and for us, buying a new Cruze. Used cars around 4 1/2 years ago were extremely expensive, wasn't about to pay over 10,000 bucks for something with over 130K miles on it. And the replacement parts for just about anything is completely outrageous, even doing the work myself.

 

[txcruze26]

my 1st car was a 1999 dodge neon, stuck with it thru high school and a little after, bought it with 70k miles for 2k, sold it for 2,300 with 140k miles
lol

2nd car was a 2008 Impala, bought it for 18k with 80k miles (19 years old with NO credit history, got SCREWED) but ended up only paying 14k since the Insurance declared it a Loss after 2 major hail damages, Sold it for 6k with 160k miles

now I'm carless lol but use my girlfriends 2014 Cruze, got it for 15k with 14k miles, currently at 27k miles a year later, we love the car since it's just the 2 of us, but if we start a family in the future I don't think this is the car for a family

 

[sparkman]

Run it to the ground.

Car payments and higher insurance rates suck.

 

[boraz]

i budget $100/mth for repairs/maintenance/upgrades on my old vehicles, run em forever

 

[Chevy_Country]

First car was a 98 regal I poured money into upgrades and then the master cylinder, abs control unit and the rear calipers froze, estimated $1500 parts alone so I ditched that with 170k on the body and 90k on the engine, then I bought a 98 blazer but couldn't keep uppity the front end repairs, got an 07 impala I drove for a few months from my grandfather with the option to borrow or buy and I bought my 2011 Chevy Cruze LTZ instead of buy the impala because it was better on gas and felt better/sportier on the road. Sometimes I feel I should have ran the impala down to the ground, had about 30k on the odometer for a 7 year old car and was in perfect shape. Traded it in for my fiancées 2014 soul red zone. Owe maybe 11.5 grand on the Cruze I'd get maybe 7 grand trade in if I was lucky so I'll just run her down and buy a cheaper pickup to beat up for work and get a few more years out of my girl.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Hazlitt777]

In the past, it's been "run it into the ground". However, with the different safety features coming along, that may change. Partly because I think it may change the "at fault" status of common fender benders. If you're the only "manual" car in a sea of automatic braking, how is that going to work out?

The other part is that I'm a low-mileage driver. I look at some of the lease terms reported here and I'm wondering why the heck did I buy.

If I like a vehicle, I guess I get attached and have a tendency to drive them if not into the ground, close to it. But now a concern I have, related to yours I think, is that cars are so complex, it may not be as prudent as it was in the past to keep them for more than say...10 years. Maybe it makes sense to trade when they are 6-8 years old...don't know. I do keep my vehicles in the garage all the time when not being used. So that should go a long way in protecting the electronics, computer etc.

This is one argument that is going on in my mind that makes me wonder...not to mention that the 2016 Cruze base trim is selling for under 17,000.

 

[NickD]

People I know that can't repair their own vehicles, and have to pay some idiot shop a hundred bucks an hour for repairs that don't know what they are doing are the ones that trade them in for a new one. Its a lot cheaper.

A lot more motivation to trade for a new one today due to extreme outrageous parts cost even doing the work yourself, not only with vehicles, but with just about everything. A motor and a timer for a washing machine cost more than a brand new one, just as one example.

Frame on my 65 Buick was bullet proof, sheet metal was more decorative and very inexpensive to replace. With over 330K miles on this car, had to rebuild the fuel pump several time, kit cost a buck. POS fuel pump on the Cruze is 170 bucks, was 255, see they did bring the price down a little, its throwaway like so many other components used today.

If you can't do it yourself, more like a thousand bucks.


Unibodies on this new crap is throwaway, blower motor is another, no way to put a couple of drops of oil in it, and can't replace a brush where could buy two for a quarter. Every thing on the new crap is this way.

Least by buying a new one, get some kind of warranty, if you don't mind spending hours fighting with your dealer. Still some good ones out there, but like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

 

[bostonboy]

I have 18 more yrs that I can get classic plates for my 2014 cruze LTZ. I think she will be a collectable car someday

 

[Daisy81]

People I know that can't repair their own vehicles, and have to pay some idiot shop a hundred bucks an hour for repairs that don't know what they are doing are the ones that trade them in for a new one. Its a lot cheaper.

A lot more motivation to trade for a new one today due to extreme outrageous parts cost even doing the work yourself, not only with vehicles, but with just about everything. A motor and a timer for a washing machine cost more than a brand new one, just as one example.

Frame on my 65 Buick was bullet proof, sheet metal was more decorative and very inexpensive to replace. With over 330K miles on this car, had to rebuild the fuel pump several time, kit cost a buck. POS fuel pump on the Cruze is 170 bucks, was 255, see they did bring the price down a little, its throwaway like so many other components used today.

If you can't do it yourself, more like a thousand bucks.


Unibodies on this new crap is throwaway, blower motor is another, no way to put a couple of drops of oil in it, and can't replace a brush where could buy two for a quarter. Every thing on the new crap is this way.

Least by buying a new one, get some kind of warranty, if you don't mind spending hours fighting with your dealer. Still some good ones out there, but like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Sadly everything is becoming throw away.

Apple devices are throwaway. The laptops are no more serviceable then a iPhone. I can't touch the inside of my iMac without voiding the warranty.

My PC I built myself and the parts ares till available online but it is a dying art. Most young people think of desktops as dinosaurs and get ripped off buying junk. I imagine it is the same with cars.

I'll keep my Cruze another 2 to 3 years and by then I'll probably have at least 150,000 maybe 200,000.

 

[jblackburn]

Sadly everything is becoming throw away.

Apple devices are throwaway. The laptops are no more serviceable then a iPhone. I can't touch the inside of my iMac without voiding the warranty.

My PC I built myself and the parts ares till available online but it is a dying art. Most young people think of desktops as dinosaurs and get ripped off buying junk. I imagine it is the same with cars.

I'll keep my Cruze another 2 to 3 years and by then I'll probably have at least 150,000 maybe 200,000.

Eh. Desktops are still king in the PC Gaming market, but laptops have become insanely more powerful over the past few years (especially with solid state drives and advances in graphics performance).

iPhones/laptops, etc. are serviceable if you've got the patience for it. I'm still rocking the same laptop from 2010, and have upgraded things along the way. True, the cheap stuff is usually soldered in, but a lot of it (hard disk, CPU, RAM) can be upgraded to something from the same generation.

Would I try to repair something like a power supply with a bad capacitor or something? Nope - that is something where you should buy an entirely new one. As cheap as most parts are for the Cruze, I'd probably do the same thing...if it were European with parts 3-5x the cost, I'd probably think differently.

 

[Daisy81]

Sadly everything is becoming throw away.

Apple devices are throwaway. The laptops are no more serviceable then a iPhone. I can't touch the inside of my iMac without voiding the warranty.

My PC I built myself and the parts ares till available online but it is a dying art. Most young people think of desktops as dinosaurs and get ripped off buying junk. I imagine it is the same with cars.

I'll keep my Cruze another 2 to 3 years and by then I'll probably have at least 150,000 maybe 200,000.

Eh. Desktops are still king in the PC Gaming market, but laptops have become insanely more powerful over the past few years (especially with solid state drives and advances in graphics performance).

iPhones/laptops, etc. are serviceable if you've got the patience for it. I'm still rocking the same laptop from 2010, and have upgraded things along the way. True, the cheap stuff is usually soldered in, but a lot of it (hard disk, CPU, RAM) can be upgraded to something from the same generation.

Would I try to repair something like a power supply with a bad capacitor or something? Nope - that is something where you should buy an entirely new one. As cheap as most parts are for the Cruze, I'd probably do the same thing...if it were European with parts 3-5x the cost, I'd probably think differently.

Apple MacBooks use soldered RAM, glued in batteries and proprietary SSD drives. When you buy a MacBook you are always going to have what you have.

Some PC laptops are still upgradeable but not many.

If you want a gaming desktop the best bet is to build your own or you will spend lots of money. Especially if you want to play at 4K resolutions.

Thankfully the parts in the Cruze are robust. In 90000 miles my only problem was dealer idiocy.

 

[obermd]

Thankfully the parts in the Cruze are robust. In 90000 miles my only problem was dealer idiocy.

Unfortunately Chevy Dealerships aren't robust.