Buy Another Car or Use Existing Car 'til It Runs No More
Please help me resolve a debate with my husband. I am a first time car owner. I bought a new Jeep in 8/04 for $23,600. I put $5K down on the purchase + my loan is for 60 months. I would like to trade in the liberty before it gets too old + has too many miles on it. Does it make better sense to drive the car into the ground then buy another one or is it smarter to trade this one in for a new model, try to get the same payment + drive a new car instead of the Liberty which is going to continue to depreciate over time + give me maintenance problems in the process. My concern is that I already have 13,000 miles on my 16+ month old Liberty. My thoughts are to trade it in while it's still worth something + be able to drive something newer. I'm not concerned about having to have a new car, but I'm trying to be smart about car ownership + don't know what makes the best sense.
I figure, if I'm going to be making these payments for the next 4 years anyway and after that my car isn't going to be worth much and I'm going to be paying maintenance costs because of its age, isn't it better to trade it in soon and get something newer and make the same payments as I'm making on the Liberty (if that's even possible) and not have to deal with the maintenance issues down the road? At the end of my 5 yr loan, I'm probably going to need a new car anyway, and I'm back on that treadmill again of the same payment rollercoaster, only the payments will probably be even higher. My payments right now are $341 a month.
I would really appreciate some insight into this.