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I find buying a 3 or 4 years lease return car is a better deal than a new car. You lose money the minute you drive it off the lot. The bulk of the depreciation happens in the first few years and the car is still relative new to be had at a deep discount.
I have bought new cars before and I regretted it the minute I left the lot. Nowadays, I treat car as disposable item. If it costs too much to fix then I just junk it. I do not need to buy full collision for used car and it is a win-win. Case in point, I bought a 1999 Neon 5-sp for my son for $1600 and he has been driving it for the last 4 years almost trouble-free, apart from replacing the engine mount. He changed oil every 4K miles and has some minor fender benders (broken mirror ), otherwise it has been a nice little car with good gas mileage. My daughter drove the 300D to the NoCal meet last year and that was a disposable car also. She drove it for 2 years but had problem with the rear brake in the last 6 months. We gave her another car and took the 300D back to SoCal, upgrade the radio and check other stuffs and I am sure she would like to have it again. She finds the 300D a very 'cool' car.
The bottom line is that as long as the old car is reliable and does not cost an arm and a leg or a lot of your time to maintain it then it is worth keeping. If it costs $200 a month to fix plus your time then I would move on to a different car.
Just my $0.02.
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