<prompt> Human: Curious to see what PF thinks is the smartest way to buy a car, financially. Auto buying fascinates me, because its a rapidly depreciating asset that almost every one spends a lot of money on, yet there doesnt seem to be a clear-cut best way.Ive heard of a few different methods, such as:- buy new and hold onto it for 10 years. That way you can ensure its well taken care of, and the depreciation hit wont matter because youre not selling it for the foreseeable future. Assuming you dont foil your plan by getting the new car bug and changing cars at any point before the 10 years.- buy a slightly older 2-3 yr old model to get a better deal and let someone else pay the large initial depreciation hit. The risk is you could be inheriting someone elses problem. You also may spend more in maintenance because its older and if the previous owner didnt take care of it.- the Dave Ramsey method pay cash for a 1K clunker and put the amount you would have spent in car payments every month into a savingsmutual fund account. Every year add the amount you saved cash from selling your clunker to buy a better car outright. Repeat process until interest from mutual fund is enough to buy a car outright every 5 years 15K. Personally, I think this one has too much risk. If there are any major repairs with your clunker and its a clunker, so Im sure there will be, it basically ruins this plan because all of your car payment savings were just spent on repairs or buying a new clunker. - buy old luxury cars: every 2 years, buy a 10 year old luxury car in the 15-25K range. At this point the car has basically stopped depreciating, so you can resale for the same value. Go with a luxury brand in that range because it was a very expensive car and previous owners are more likely to take care of it. Resell at the 12 year mark before major maintenance issues rise. Similar to the method above, this one seems like a lot of risk: if you buy a problematic car it can completely sink your strategy. - always buy old clunkers or older commutersbeaters and drive em until the maintenance issues or more expensive than the cars value. This one just seems like a constant headache. Thoughts?  <response>: Im convinced that it doesnt really matter whether you buy new, slightly used, moderately used or heavily used. What matters is that you a buy a reliable brand and b drive it until it doesnt make sense to repair it anymore.To me, that means buying a Subaru, Toyota or Honda maybe a fe other brands that arent coming to me right now and driving it until it is over 15 years old and you have a 2,500 repair; maybe drop that down to a 1,000 repair at 20 years old.At that point, does it really matter when you originally got it? Drive a 20,000 for 20 years, a 10,000 car for 10 years or a 5,000 car for 5 years? The math comes out basically the same in the long run.I personally prefer to buy new because I dont trust myself to not wind up in a money pit used car. That can happen with a new car as well, but then its just luck of the draw rather than getting suckered into someone elses lemon. 