<prompt> Human:  <response>: It depends on the brand and car, of course, but a lot of the used-is-really-cheap mentality comes from when I was a teen 1980s and cars still kind of sucked for longevity. Routine maintenance on 1970s cars was every 2,000-5,000 miles, and cars simply didnt last much longer than 100,000 miles before everything started breaking. By the late 1980s, engines had EFI and far harder alloys that didnt wear as much, transmissions were better, and all in all longevity shot through the roof. In 1984, my first car was 10 years old and was practically valueless -- we bought it for a couple of hundred dollars, or maybe the equivalent of 600 today -- about 8 of its new price in 1974. Now, in 2013, a 10 year old Toyota Prius in reasonable condition can fetch 4,000 20 of its new value and some models known for longevity hold value better than that. Meanwhile, the things that do break are less susceptible to the shade-tree-work-is-free strategy that made used cars such a great value three decades ago: since the 1990s, car repair has required ever more sophisticated tools, and a simple 40 set of wrenches and a timing light wont cut it anymore.Thats not to say used cars are necessarily a bad deal, just that the value proposition is not so clear cut as it once was. 