Seems like you mostly have your mind made up on the type of vehicle. At work we make axles for the Jeep. I've not worked on that line in a couple years and then only to do an egronomics study. Gal at work bought a new Liberty and loves it... her first 4 wheel drive. We also make lots of Ford parts. I don't think any go in the vehicles you mention. I try to focus on the type of vehicle I want rather then any particular one. Last time I went shopping I wanted another Bravada but came home with a Blazer. The Chevy was about 5K cheaper then the Olds I looked at and well optioned. No heated leather seats but I'm happy with the cloth. That was in '03 and the little white truck is still trucking. About 3K in repairs/maintenance but that is still cheaper then car payments... I paid off the loan in 3 months so I only have to keep up with repairs. When I was younger I often looked for vehicles that needed repairs. If it needed tires, brakes, battery, muffler it was a good excuse to demand a rock bottom price. My Firebird needed all that stuff and the dealer knocked a couple grand off the asking price... which nicely covered the needed items. When buying used I make low ball offers and stand firm. I tell the seller I have "X" amount of cash and ask if they will take that. Then I pretend I really don't have another dime I can scratch up. I put the blame on the bank and say that is all they will give me... that way they don't waste time trying to work me over for more money. They can say no and I can find another vehicle to make an offer on. Most of the time I get the vehicle! Watch out for little snakes that want to run a credit check first. They are really just fishing to see how much they can soak you for. Tell them you have your own bank. First sign of pressure or implication you don't have enough money just walk. I've had them chase me to my vehicle offering to try to make the deal work... umm no... deal square from the get go or I'm gone. Sales people hate me... and I like it that way. If they leave you in the waiting room for an extended period of time just leave. Car salepeople tend to be fat heads that think it a sport to jerk you around. Always remember you have the money they don't. Any car dealer having a sales event should be avoided... they have special teams of high pressure jerks at those. : ) lyra

Thanks everyone for your insights. Over the last 29 years, between DH & I, we've had 10 Fords. Every one has lasted 10+ years and the lowest mileage one we had when traded was 135,000. I think this 2002 Taurus is just a "dud" but I've had 3 other Taurus' since 1986 & had excellent records. I had a 1989 Ford Explorer that ran over 200K miles & 13 years. I sold it for $2,000 when I bought the current Taurus and some college kid is probably still delivering pizzas in it! And the love of my life was my 1983 red Thunderbird - DH and I traded it back and forth for 13 years, until our 2nd son was born and the back seat was way too small for 2 car seats. My mechanic gave me a good insight on the "gas guzzler" Crown Vic when I discussed with him what he would buy if he were looking for a used car and had less than $10K to spend. He said he'd go for a full size sedan becuase they still get around 20 mpg, and cost around &8 to $10K. If I kept the car for 6 years, and gas even went back to $4 a gallon, I'd still spend way less total than buying a small car for $14K or more. Plus with 3 unusually tall boys, a small car just won't fit us. He said his top pic for a used sedan would be a Nissan Maxima but it's just not big enough for us. I am very hard on cars - I only live 3 miles from work and most days drive 10 miles or less of 'stop at every corner' type driving. That's really hard on a car, so if my Fords have lasted 135,000 or miles or more, it's like double that in highway miles. I will most likely buy another Ford, mostly because of my good experience up to now, and also because Ford is in better financial condition and will be around to honor any warranty. I know intellectually that I should get rid of this car before it blows, but emotionally I'm just not sure I am ready to spend the $$ on a "new" car. Every time I say I'm going to look at cars, I come up with an excuse not to. I just took 2 weeks off work and had several days with no plans, but never managed to make it to look at cars. I live right in the city & near a major business corridor with 5 or 6 dealerships in a 5 mile stretch, but still can't seem to make it over there!

How did a question about wasting turn into a slam-fest? Everyone does things that are wasteful as well as conservative. I still have old lightbulbs that have not burned out yet, and CFLs in the ones that have. I have a plasma TV, a new microwave, a jacuzzi and a crockpot. The crockpot is used around 1-2 times a month and I love it in those instances. I drive a truck, don't have a clothesline and use my air conditioner. I recycle religiously. I conserve water, pick up trash in parking lots, give anything away that could possibly be used again, use freecycle and drag my scrap paper from work home (with my boss's permission)for my daughter to color on. I turn off lights if I'm not in the room. I turn off the water when I brush my teeth. I also fly back to my homestate of Hawaii 2600 miles away(and fly my daughter back) using tons of jet fuel. Before we throw stones at our neighbors try googling Al Gore's house and George Bush's house for a shocking comparison of energy waste/conservancy. It just goes to show we all make choices. Acknowledging that we are making a choice when we expend/reduce energy use is the first step towards using less. That person who uses old bulbs and a crockpot may recycle everything, drive 50 miles a month in a tiny car and not use plastic. As a side note, I grew up 30 miles from the nearest town, where we didn't have a Wal-mart/Kmart/Costco or anything similar. Due to bad roads it took over an hour to get there, once we made the 1/2 hour trip down our 4wd road to get to the highway. We had catchment tanks for water, and the water went right down the sink and onto the trees on the side, outhouses, solar and kerosene for light. I got my clothes from the "free box" at our local co-op, and we bought our food in bulk. We had no refrigerator/freezer/television/radio/appliances except for a gas stove, and that was used by ten or so people in a community kitchen. The shower was a hose attached to a tree. When we got hot water, it was from a paloma, and we took "Navy" showers. (Some habits die hard, I still take 5 minute showers and turn the water off when shaving, etc). Our homes were made out of recycled lumber and bamboo, with every scrap used. We'd go to town once a week for supplies, and we'd carpool with neighbors to get there. You may be imagining someone living like this pre- 1950. I'm 30. I've lived in San Diego for two years now and enjoy having air conditioning. I think that frugality is only as good as quality of life. Awareness and compassion for why people are living the lives they choose is essential. When people tease me for saving every last drop of water I remind them the mentality I grew up with...When you are constantly conscious that the water you are using can be depleted and there is no way to get a water truck to fill the tank up you use a lot less! Sorry.... I just grew up more frugal than most people could ever imagine, so the argument about bulbs, etc. is just silly to me. Try using a kerosene lantern at night to do anything. We got everything done during daylight hours, believe me! Wear them until they're standing on their own, then wash clothes by hand, wring them out with a foot powered wringer. Don't use any pesticides, herbicides, anything not organic. Wash your hair with fresh Awapuhi ginger. Live in harmony with the bugs around you... misquitoes, cockroaches (we'd call them B-52 bombers), you name it- and the way we killed them was with our feet and hands. This was in the rainforest, with 100' trees, 1-2' vines, giant tree ferns. There was mold. On everything. So, after venting! The waste I see every day (personal pet peeves): 1. Watering giant lawns that no one ever sits on 2. Private swimming pools 3. Eating food out of season 4. Throwing away plastic containers

Cars will last a lot longer than most people will take the time and effort to make them last. It appears that many people have a lot more money to buy new things than they have time to take care of things, or at least they pretend that's the case. As gas prices have spiked up again lately, there is a lot of interest in smaller and more fuel efficient cars, which in itself is a good thing. But if a person trades in a 20 mpg vehicle for a 30 mpg vehicle, and if they drive 15,000 miles a year, that's a savings of 250 gallons of gas a year. Certainly that's worth considering IF you need a new car anyway, but even at $3 a gallon, 250 gallons a year is only $750. The sales tax alone on the new car is likely to take all of the first year's savings, and even much of the second year savings if you live somewhere with a high sales tax. Then there's the interest you pay, higher insurance, etc. The bottom line is, the best way to save the most money is to keep the car you have for a long time and drive it in as efficient a manner as possible. It's amazing how many people are literally "car poor." If you trade yours in for a new one every two or three years, you're always paying interest on loans and always absorbing big depreciation losses. Consider a $20,000 car that's purchased new and kept for three years, and traded in for $9,000 (in many cases that's an optimistic figure): Sales Tax @6%: $1,200 Depreciation: $11,000 Interest: $2,500 Total Cost for Three Years: $14,700, or just under $5,000 a year. Many people go through this with not one but two cars, raising the yearly cost just to have these vehicles parked in the driveway to $10,000. And that's before they pay the first insurance premium, perform the first maintenance service, or buy the first gallon of gas. Even if you go from two new cars to one new and one old one that's paid for, that's $5,000 a year in savings. So if you have an older car that's paid off, there's just no earthly way to save any money by trading it for a new one, even if the new one gets double or even triple the gas mileage of the old one.