It's crazy to me how much people are willing to pay when their car hits 100,000 miles and a bunch of maintenance is due at once. Tires, shocks, timing belt, various fluids...yeah, if you're paying a mechanic, those add up to a couple grand, but once you're through it, your car is pretty much good for another 100k with normal maintenance, for a whole lot less money than a brand new car. And if you do your own car repair, it's a few hundred bucks in parts.
Not mechanically inclined, will happily pay a mechanic... but we have a car that went over 200K last year and had a couple things go wrong. Took it in, no problem, can fix it all for about $1800. Great, do it. Spouse had a busy day at work so a co-worker took me to pick it up and we had this convo on the way:
CW: So are you getting a new car soon then?
Me (with surprise): No? It was pretty cheap fix!
CW: But you've had that car for the entire time we've worked together, it has to be up there in miles.
Me: a little over 200K, but we've literally done nothing in 12 years of ownership besides basic maintenance. This is the first thing to go wrong that wasn't something you'd expect to replace.
CW: And you trust it? I never drive mine over 100k!
Me: … I guess if fixes start happening more regularly we'll weight the cost, but for right now, yeah. Happy with it.
CW: Well, hopefully it doesn't leave you on the side of the road!
And a year later we've twice driven it across 2-3 states to visit family and our normal driving. NO additional work outside of basic maintenance. CW has purchased a new car and last we chatted is already talking about what she'll "upgrade" to in a year our two.