WVCR-V

Good to see I'm not the only one hanging on to the same cars forever. I forgot to add that my 1994 Suzuki Sidekick has been mine for 15 years and my step father bought it new. That's another one that I just can't get rid of. Too much fun for offroading, costs little to maintain and is worth very little so why sell. Buying the S2000 a couple of years ago and thinking about its value retention has really opened my eyes even more. I'm not one to expect or care if values go up but I'm just happy that I can drive this car for very little if any loss. There are lots of new cars that I would like to own but just can't stomach the thought of losing several thousand dollars per year never to be seen again. The new civic sport hatch is super tempting for the decent performance and amazing gas mileage but if you actually crunch the numbers you're losing way more in depreciation than you are saving in gas.

S2020

jeffbrig

I tend to fall into the "keep cars a long time" group. Mainly because it's relatively expensive to keep buying new cars and taking the depreciation hit over and over. My philosophy has always been to buy what you really want, and own it long term. I've owned my S2000 for 16+ years (since new). I've owned the Cayman for 6+. I've briefly entertained the notion of selling both and getting a newer Porsche for myself, but looking at prices has always convinced me to stay put. I think I'll finally put the S2000 up for sale come spring. It's been a great car, but I think I'm ready to move on... it's just not getting driven enough to justify having it. The 911 Cab has largely taken its place on nice days.

The CX-5 will stay in the fleet as a utility vehicle - probably 10 years, 150k miles. And I don't see the 911 going anywhere anytime soon.

sam_spider

I suffer from automotive ADD. Daily drivers tend to run anywhere from 6 months to 3 years, we've been through a bunch of cars in the last 10 years. I've owned the S2000 for 13 years though, not a daily and was never intended to be. I've also got a 78 Scirocco that I've had for 8 years.

Hertz Donut

Cars in New Zealand are generally much more expensive than in the US, with the exception of used JDM vehicles. When I was a kid I used to buy, mod and sell about every 2-3 years but that was just throwing money away. At 45 years old I've only owned 10 cars, 3 of which have been bought in the past 2 years, one of which was sold for the S2000 as it was only ever a short-term vehicle.

Earlier this year we crushed the car we'd been using for just under 19 years, a 1996 Holden Commodore. It was pretty tough to do since we'd had many happy times with it and it had taken an absolute flogging while being badly neglected maintenance-wise, and just kept going. It even went 8 years and over 60,000 miles between oil changes at one point, because it was a total beater. I bought it as a project car because it had a trans fault and I was going to do an LS swap on it once the trans let go. It ended up going 200,000 miles with exactly the same trans fault, and I never got to do the swap. The only reason it got crushed was because today's vehicles are so much more solid it really wasn't safe enough on the roads any more.

Right now we have a 2004 Nissan Stagea (essentially an Infiniti G35X wagon, owned 5.5 years) for long-distance and towing, a 2013 Leaf (owned 6 months) for round town and school runs, and the S2000 (owned 2 months) for fun times. The Leaf was bought as a test bed to see if we could handle driving an EV, and we've been pleasantly surprised. It's the most likely to be sold next and it'll be replaced with a longer-range EV, we're holding out for the Audi and Porsche models but they're taking their sweet time about it. The Stagea has assumed the Commodore's role of beater and will likely just be driven into the ground, at which point it'll be replaced by something large and preferably LS-powered, because I still need to scratch that itch.

white98ls

For a car enthusiast, I'm a long-termer. Not necessarily for depreciation reasons (I've made money on 2 of the 3 cars I've sold and won't lose much on the current ones), but taxes at 10% do add up, and I generally like to really get to know and like a car.

'98 Integra: Owned 13 years
'01 M5: Owned 6.5 years (would have owned longer if a good friend didn't give me a very generous offer)
'02 S2000: Owned 3.5 years
'11 M3: Have owned 2.5 years so far but plan to keep another 4-5+ since no other sedans really draw me away
'07 Elise: Just got this year, but no plans to replace in the next several years

Keep in mind there's a lot of overlap here of owning 2 cars. Out of the 3 cars I've sold, I'm averaging about 8 years.

I couldn't stomach regularly trading cars that depreciate. My parents are about to sell their '13 Accord bought new. Even though that car was only $25k, they're about to lose more in depreciation in 6 years than I have across all of my cars combined over 18 years - even if I sold both of my current cars for realistic values. It does help that I've only driven about 7k/yr throughout my adult life.