> The total annual cost of ownership of a 2-year-old Camry is far lower than a 10-year-old Camry.
Really? Maybe 10 years ago but cars have become remarkably good recently. I wouldn’t expect a 10 year old car to give you many problems beyond maybe the difficulty of sourcing parts.
A lot of the push towards fuel efficiency led to tech that was in some ways or another half baked.
Examples:
- Direct Injection : Good for Emissions and Fuel economy, but many first generation systems have carbon build-up issues (Toyota D4S and -newer- Ford Ecoboosts don't have this problem because they have 2 sets of injectors)
- All the transmissions: Ford's DCT is notorious at this point for reliability issues, Hyundai's DCT is not looking so hot so far, Nissan's CVT is a joke, Subaru's CVT is a bit of a diceroll as to whether it blows up at 100k or not, the ZF 9 speed that many manufacturers uses has issues...
I'll note that SOME of these are newer problems, but most of them started happening around 10 years ago and are only finally getting smoothed out.
As a counterpoint, however, the costs of all of these newer safety systems is driving up repair costs in accidents, as well as the insurance premiums for newer cars.
Re the direct injection comment.. one small trick can save you $300 on engine flushes from carbon buildup: you can get an oil catch can installed for under $100 that solves this problem.
But you can’t argue direct injection is worse than older fuel injection. You save more gas, get better performance (even though you don’t get as many valves), and have a cooler running engine with direct injection. That’s a net positive for the environment and your wallet over the life of your car
Really? Maybe 10 years ago but cars have become remarkably good recently. I wouldn’t expect a 10 year old car to give you many problems beyond maybe the difficulty of sourcing parts.