Damn the car market is really bad right now. Every dealer seems to be tacking on $7K markups on useless add ons.

 

Investing to double your money in ten years, whether it is one dollar or a gazillion dollars, requires that you earn 7% annually for each of the 10 years.

Rule of 72 is: 72 ÷ 7% = 10.3 years (Thus, it takes 10.3 years at 7% annual interest/gain to double your investment.

That might be easy to accomplish or might be very hard, depending on many highly unpredictable factors.

 

Cars are horrible investments. Usually. My gs is probably the last car I will own. My miles will run out before the cars. Having owned about 300 cars in my many years I have learned that you can never tell what cars will become classic. I remember selling my early Shelby gt350 thinking it was just a hot mustang. When automakers stop making a popular car it can appreciate. So my daughter gets my cars and maybe it will pay off for her. I think the gs350 is a very balanced car and very comfy for my back . Enjoy your cars.

 

They're even more horrible right now with those mark ups. When the market corrects itself all that extra money goes out the tailpipe.

 

Nothing against high mileage Toyota products. Excepting trucks, very few vehicles, including Toyotas, change hands in excess of 200K miles. https://www.iseecars.com/longest-lasting-cars-study

My takeaway is that most owners lose the motivation to keep their cars enjoyable to drive well past 200K miles, either because of the increased cost and frequency of repairs, or they just get tired of them. I suspect that it's a combination of both, since a car can run forever with our bulletproof drivetrains. But once the paint, upholstery and accessories get sketchy, we unload the car, usually to a friend or relative.

A case in point is my wife's Infiniti G35x where the driver's seat heater quit several years back at around 140K miles. She was quoted more than $300 by Infiniti to fix it. She balked at the repair, thinking she's planning to unload the car soon. She also let various scrapes and dings go unrepaired. Years later, she gave it to my son with more than 200K on it, and he's enjoying it, but he plans to replace it or relegate it to second car status, when new car prices get reasonable again.

So when I look at a car that has around 200K miles on it, I have to question how much TLC the previous owner invested in it over the last few years, even with documentation of dealer maintenance. It's much easier to trust a car with low mileage.

Finally, I don't disagree that someone could take the money saved by buying a high mileage car and freshen the comfort and appearance. But I'd have to be prepared to take on a project.

 

Those are key points. Given a choice between a lower mileage GS and a high mileage GS, it doesn't matter that its a Toyota, the components typically other than the engine and transmission are more likely to have problems. It won't happen all at once, but here is my story:

The engine and transmission on my previous 2001 GS430 (V8 engine) was great at 125k miles, but between 90k miles and 125k miles and no remaining warranties, I had repainted both bumpers, changed two catalytic convertors, two O2 sensors, MAF sensor, various window motors, and new alternator (which died and i was stuck on the shoulder of an expressway on my way to my wedding venue for a tasting...missed the tasting and had to reschedule!).

The final straw was the heater core going bad requiring the dash to be removed to fix at 125k miles. If I really wanted to keep putting money into the car, I could have done so and it probably would have been fine. The problem was the amount of time, energy, hassle, headache and money spent. It was likely over 10k over that time period of ownership - but more so my time that I figured I'd keep losing behind trying to upkeep this car. I loved the car so much because it was my first Lexus and a graduation gift, which is why I kept putting up the time/money.

I'm glad the OP @7birdies is going after the car that fits his budget and needs but my personal experience tells me that any used car regardless of brand will have issues - and more of them when the mileage begins to exceed 100k.

 

This point I do agree with.

At the the end of the day, people value money differently. With my confidence in the Toyota/Lexus brand, It would probably be worth the time, energy, hassle, headache and money spent to me - seeing how I saved $15K up front and could even invest that.

There's no right or wrong answer here. Choices are great.

 

Great post.

Is it safe to say that most vehicle hitting close to 100K miles will encounter some repair or so?

 

Happy I don't buy new cars lol

If you know how to negotiate, the used market can still be nice to you, though there is a lot of luck involved

To my eyes and KBB, I'd say my GS that I bought in December was an $18K - $19K car. Dealer was asking for $22K, I offered 19K at first, they declined. Left in the morning, went back late afternoon and offered $20K, they accepted. I wasn't gonna pay anything more for it. The $1-2K overpay was okay to me since it was the exact spec I wanted, and within 5 minutes from my house. Couldn't find another Liquid Plat/Black Interior F Sport w/ ML & BSM within distance (Wish I had power trunk though ) .

We know the GS doesn't sell as well compared to IS, ES, RX though so this could be a bad example. But yeah, negotiate people and be ready to walk away if the car isn't worth it and/or worth it to you!

 

The engine and transmission for the model year is not the same as any of the Toyotas you mentioned above. You can’t just go and swap in a part from those.

No one is saying they are afraid of anything. But assuming nothing expensive goes wrong in a 200k mile car is just wishful thinking.

 

They’re similar. Engine is Same block, different variations. They share multiple parts. Yeah, tranny is unique.

I never said anything won’t go wrong. My main point is there’s nothing to be scared of. Lexus is not the Germans. Maintenance costs may be higher than Toyota, but not anywhere near the Germans.