- If you want the absolute cheapest car, the optimum strategy would be to learn to do as many repairs as possible on your own. Then, while selecting a vehicle, you would want to pick one that you can actually repair yourself. This introduces the first major snag. If you're looking to buy a car that you can repair yourself, you likely want to stick to American cars built before the mid-1980s or early-1990s. So then, let's say that you pick a car from that era and your country suddenly makes a technology like ABS (anti-lock brakes) mandatory for all vehicles that are licensed? That could force you to buy another car, simply to stay on the road. Or, more likely, what if you buy a vehicle then suddenly have to move to a place with stronger emissions regulations?
- With fixing your own car, there is a huge gap between "I know how to do it" and "I'm confident enough to do it, knowing that my daughter will get in the car tomorrow." I'm an excellent example of this. When we bought our van, I resolved myself to do as many repairs as possible. I had great plans of being able to do all the consumables (oil changes, brakes, etc) by myself. Great idea, right? Then, my fucking brakes actuallu went. In the end, while I'm sure that I could have done the fix and it would have worked out, I was simply too nervous to do it with Lauren being my most regular passenger!