Bought a 2 year-old Infiniti still under full warranty. Paid about 1/2 of new car price. Paid it off in 2 years. Just gave it to my oldest daughter after I put 70k miles on it. She gets a well-maintained reliable older car. I didn't pay a car note for three years and had low maintenance expenses.

Bought my wife another car under similar circumstances. She'll drive it until the next-oldest kid moves out.

etc.

I bought the older M-B as a beater for my middle kid and have horded it for myself. I've dumped about twice the money I'd intended to (now up to about $8k and still need some non-critical work) because I like the dang car and can't help myself.

Next year I'm going to buy another w124 or perhaps w126 but this time I'm buying it for myself--not a beater. I figure I'll budget about $8k-12k for purchase and refurbish and pay it off in a year.

We had a good plan for cars until I bought the Mercedes. Now I'm on my way to spending a lot of money for maintenance. Why? Because I like the cars and I can afford it.