How long do you keep your vehicles?

I just hate changing vehicles.

This topic comes up as somebody I know well, who must have a truck due to his line of work, has taken up the practice of trading them in when they reach about 75,000 miles.  This same practice was the one that the state and Federal government used to employ with its motor vehicle fleet and maybe it still is.

It isn't the one I employ at all.  Indeed, in the back of my mind, with at least my last two trucks, including the one I currently own, I've more or less assumed that I'd keep them as long as they ran decently.  My current one I seriously hope to keep until: 1) I can no longer drive due to the passage of time or the passage of me; or 2) electric vehicles are the norm.

Everyone in my family says this is nuts. At age 56, they maintains, I'll long outlive an 07 truck and will end up replacing it at the point at which its junk.  Indeed, they all maintain that I'll soon be putting more into the vehicle than buying a new one would cost.

Well, not yet, and on top of it I don't think that argument makes sense given the modern price of trucks, which has hit the super high level.

Indeed, that's part of my difficulty in grasping this argument.  When my father drove his trucks into the ground it probably did make sense as they never got up to 100,000 miles before they were wrecks and during their last few years they were in the shop all the time. But modern vehicles really last.  My 96 Ford F250 diesel made it up to 175,000 miles before it started to have engine problems, which it sadly did, and it started to rust away.  I'd never even had the brakes worked on the entire time I'd had it.  The current 07 Dodge 3500 is going strong at 175,000 miles.  For that matter, the 97 Dodge 1500 is at about 150,000 miles.

On Monday here I posted an item about diet, which I realize has nothing to do with vehicles, but one thing it did was to link in a post to a blog which referenced buying less stuff.  It didn't mention it in this context, but I note that as I'm continually amazed by the degree to which people are so ready to buy trucks here which are extremely expensive and yet they don't really expect them to last long term.  As most of them are purchased by way of loans, and therefore are even more expensive than the negotiated price, that makes them a major and continual expense that people seem willing to engage in.  I guess my thought, perhaps naive, is that if I spend that kind of money on a thing, it ought to really, really, last.

Of course, vehicles are rolling stock and they do not last forever.  They do wear out, or they can wear out.  But well maintained, they don't have to wear out that quickly.  The logic of frequently trading in is that way they retain their value, but the counter to that is that if you do that and are paying with a loan, you are always paying on loans.

Additionally, I never have a 4x4 that I don't end up customizing in some way, with that usually being the addition of a heavy bumper or grill guard and a tool box.  Now that I know what the situation is with differentials, in order to really have a truck outfitted the way that I want it to be, I need to swap out the open rear differential with a torsen differential and put lockers on the front axle.  A person can't, however, buy a long bed 4x4 pickup with these features, or at least not a diesel American made one.  Let alone one that is also a crew cab, as  is.  You have to add the differentials yourself.  Sinking brand new differentials into a brand new truck would be silly, let alone expensive, and for that matter new tool boxes and bumpers aren't either.

All in all, I guess, I don't get it.  I don't understand why people don't get trucks or cars of the type they really really want, and just keep them.