The advantage in buying new is that you know exactly what you're getting which is never the case with any used car.
We've bought six new cars in the past 34 years.
1. 1986 Civic Wagon, kept 17 years and 203K, brakes, tires, a couple of batteries, a starter, a fuel pump, a clutch and the timing belt and that was it. Last car we bought without AC.
2. 1997 Aerostar 3.0, kept for 14 years and 175K, brakes, tires, a battery, a starter and that was it.
3. 1999 Accord LX (VTEC), kept 13 years and 175K, brakes, tires, a battery, a starter, a clutch and a timing belt and that was it.
4. 2009 Forester PP, now a little under 100K. Tires, brakes, a battery and just had the timing belt done. Active vehicle.
5. 2012 Accord LXP, around 75K now, needed the OEM tires replaced last year. Active vehicle.
6. 2017 Forester PP, bought in July, around 4K now. Active vehicle.
We buy them and keep them. According to my calculations, there would have been no savings per mile of use in buying comparable vehicles that already had years and mileage on them and that would also have involved dealing with vehicles that had already seen potentially poor maintenance as well as bad driving habits. All of these cars were also bought at prices that would have made a used example look like a foolish purchase. There are no great deals on used recent model year Hondas or Subarus and the Aerostar was unbelievably cheap ( Anyway, my point is that buying new makes a lot of financial sense if you treat the car as a long-term investment in transportation, the value of which is measured in cents per mile of use including repairs.
If anyone thinks that buying cars new or buying something used and cheap is the difference between wealth and penury then they either don't have a very healthy family income or they don't know how to manage their money in general.
Also note that none of the new vehicles we've bought have been at all extravagant although we've gotten great utility out of all of them.
