<prompt> Human: Which is better? New or Used? If used, then how used?The common financial wisdom on this subreddit is that a 2-5 year-old reliable toyotahonda gives the best bang for your buck. Presumably in units of driveable mile. I had never seen any evidence to support this claim other than the obvious youre dodging the early depreciation by buying a slightly used car. I wanted to test this wisdom using the Toyota Corolla as a case study. Method and assumptions:1. All purchase maintenance gas prices are in todays dollars. 2. Each car is bought from a dealer in cash at the KBB very good quality price3. Linear approximation of maintenance. Assume a fixed mile maintenance here are the maintenance and gas prices frequencies that were used. 4. Ignore the cost of insurance. Im not sure how to incorporate this fairly, but with the assumption that a more valuable car leads to higher insurance rates, this factor would favor older cars. In this way, our results in this analysis are biased towards newer cars.5. Ignore manufacturers warranty benefits. This biases the results toward older vehicles. 6. Assume that the car is purchased, then is driven until it becomes undriveable or unrepairable at 300,000 miles. If anyone wants to see the data assuming a different maximum, please let me know.7. 15000 miles per model year. So if youre buying a car with 0 miles, its a 2016 model. If youre buying a car with 120k miles, its a 2008 model. Etc. 8. Ignoring registration fees, which are assumed to be a flat rate. This will have no comparative impact, only an impact on the magnitude of miles.9. Cars on average get the EPA combined MPG value. Results: Here is the tabulated data: Here are the mile results plotted as a function of how many miles your car has when you buy it: Discussion: Technically, a 2006-2008 Corolla model is least expensive in the long run, but the 2014-2015 models are only slightly more expensive 3 mpg improvement in fuel economy levels the field. Overall, it doesnt really seem to matter which option you choose. Theres even only a small difference between new and used in the grand scheme of how much it costs to own a car. Takeaway message is: Choose a reliable car which has good fuel economy, has good comfort and safety features, and drive it until it breaks. Nit-picking about new vs. used. vs beater will save you at best 10 over the lifetime of your car.Additional considerations:1. If youre financing a new car, dont crash it during the first few years. Insurance wont pay out as much as you still owe on your car, so you stand to take a loss. Alternatively, you can get special insurance which promises to cover the difference. 2. This analysis ignores the opportunity cost of what your money could be doing instead of being tied up in your cars equity.  <response>: Does this factor in the increased costs of both insurance and taxes for the newer models? That can be significantEdit: I glossed over the insurance part. Thats 200-1000 difference a year. Taxes are hundreds as well. Over 5 years, an additional 3-5k is reasonable to expect for a car 6-10 years newer 