What is the longest you've ever owned a vehicle?

[Llep]

22 years, 1997 Acura Integra, 180k miles, bought new. Tires are 8 years old and it hasn’t stayed in 5th gear in over a year. Was my primary car for the whole period but bought a newer car last month. It’s still fun to drive and I mainly use it now to go to places I don’t want to take the new car to, like parking lots that have lots of shopping carts in them. I really like the car and don’t plan to part with it until something catastrophic happens.

[outafocus]

I bought my 1993 Nissan truck new in 1993. That's 27 years of excellent service.

[leadfoot4]

Originally Posted by outafocus

I bought my 1993 Nissan truck new in 1993. That's 27 years of excellent service.

Your "location" entry says that you're in Texas. Must be nice, not dealing with snow, therefore the road salt that's used to keep the roads clear. While the salt does a good job of that, it also does a good job of destroying a vehicle. You never see a car in this area, that's been driven "year round", last for 27 years!

[Wolverine607]

Originally Posted by elnina

10+ years. I like to enjoy a car that is paid off and actually is mine, and doesn't belong to the bank. I usually keep my car till a repair exceeds it's worth.

Bingo. I am the same way. I have never had any loans nor debt in my life. Have paid cash for everything including my house nearly 7 years ago and all improvements I have made to it over the years have saved for it even with only a few thousands $ left in the bank afterwards. I have rebuilt my savings to 10s of thousands of $ over the years after major home improvements were done. I also had only a few grand in the bank afterwards when I intended to have at least $20K after home purchase because prices started to go up on homes and I wanted to buy one before they ran away from me and I refused to ever have any mortgage or any other forms of debt so being able to pay cash was worth it even with a small amount of thousands only left in the bank and almost all money tied up in the house because at least I feel it is truly mine and I am happy that way.

I want everything to feel like it is mine and not the banks. And if you have a loan on something it ruins it for me because it feels like a debter box and not something that is really mine. I even threatened to live in an SUV to save to pay cash for a house if my parents would not let me stay with them until I saved to have cash for a house. Of course my parents would let me stay with them almost as long as I wanted but did not understand why I was so anti-debt for anything but supported me always. I lived with my parents until I was 29 years old and had a few different jobs to save for a house to pay cash in addition to inheriting half of home value from my grandmother after she passed I split the sale price with my brother in 2010.

I have only owned 3 cars in my life. One a 1995 Ford Contour that I had from 2001 to 2005 before handing it down to my younger brother. Then a 1999 Ford Taurus I had from mid 2005 to early 2010 before handing it down to my brother.

Then my current car a 2009 Ford Escape I got for college graduation gift in January 2010 when it was 10 months old and only 6700 miles on it where as my dad was driving it before with the intention to give it to me. when I graduated college. Still driving it today with only 49660 miles on it and it will be 11 years old in late March this year.