[pmg102]

There's no obligation to buy a new one. Keep your existing cars on the road or replace them with other low mileage used ones.

I bet repair costs on used are less than depreciatiom + finance costs on new, and there's pleasure to be gained from a retro aesthetic.

[wavemode]

This is what everyone said to me when phones started losing their headphone jacks (purely so that phone makers could sell overpriced wireless earbuds).

But eventually old phones stop working on the new network and you realize every major new phone has followed suit in the cash grab. sigh

[jemmyw]

You can still get a Sony Xperia flagship with a headphone jack and SD card support. I've got one, it's pretty good.

[contact9879]

A USB-C to headphone adapter is $5.

[pmontra]

Time passes and sooner or later the oldest available used car will be from 2024. Add the effect of legislation which could deny access to some areas important for you unless you have a car compliant to regulations made in 2030.

[Mountain_Skies]

ICE vehicles can be legislatively removed from the roads or so burdened with fees and regulations that they cease to be viable for anyone other than a collector. They can't do it today because the percentage of ICE vehicles is too high but as EV market share grows, green laws can get far more aggressive. Just look at what happened during the pandemic in the name of safety. Now look at you ICE vehicle's tailpipe. That's the new method of control over you and your vehicle and the precedent has already been set that's it's an ok thing for them to do as long as they can drum up the level of hysteria, which they're now quite experienced at doing.

[outime]

>There's no obligation to buy a new one

Maybe at your location. For example in Spain, many people will just not be able to drive in many places in 2024 if they don't qualify to have a good-enough "environmental distinctive" which is a label you put in your car that shows how much your car pollutes. No label or too bad of a label? You can't drive in many places.

Note: In reality it's bs as many other regulations since e.g. any ECO-labelled car (2nd best distinctive) can be a 600 CV Ferrari with a tiny electric engine.

[Broken_Hippo]

I bet repair costs on used are less than depreciatiom ...

There are more considerations than simply cost of repair. Used cars break more than new cars. You are more likely to need some sort of backup plan if you have a used car. I'd be fine here in Norway: My 25 year old car is only used a few times a month. Otherwise, my partner and I walk and/or use public transportation. But I'm lucky enough to live in an area with a fairly robust public transport and pedestrian path system.

I couldn't be this secure when I lived in Indiana. Most places had little public transport, and fewer had affordable public transport (taxis only, though they likely have uber now). These options only worked if you stayed in town - but if you were like a lot of Midwestern folks, you have to drive to work and working in the next town over wasn't uncommon.

Which means: Something happens to your car, you might wind up unemployed or minimally, it pushes you ever closer to being unemployed. Hope your kid doesn't get sick and you have to miss even more work.

I'll also add that "another low mileage car" will still be expensive and you won't generally save yourself a car payment. I was lucky to find mine and if it weren't for a friend finding it, I wouldn't have it at all.

[lallysingh]

25yrs old is a bit extreme for anecdotal data on used cars. My 10yr old truck has been pretty reliable.

[bluefirebrand]

Sure, I plan to drive my current car until the wheels fall off, but that's not the point.

I'm young enough that I will very likely need to buy a new-to-me car eventually, and there's a good chance that by then a lot of the used cars out there will be the enshitted versions. I'm not looking forward to it.

[tempestn]

What's particularly frustrating, and I think relevant here, is when new things are better in some respects, but glaringly worse in others. So you can only have the good parts of the new thing if you accept the shit along with it.