Does the cost to maintain the vehicle eclipse its value? If you have a $3000 car and you are putting in $1500/year in fixing it to keep it on the road, you are spending too much.

disagree with this, $125 a month to drive a vehicle is great, regardless of the resale value. Thats cheaper than taking a bus.

and maintenance costs vs milage is a huge variable depending on make and model. I'm sure there are some Subaru, Honda and Toyota that are still a good value at 150,000+ miles, but most brands start to see major service costs around 110-120k miles. And some luxury brands are money pits after 80-90k miles, like merc air suspensions and bmw cooling systems/electronics. I think this new era of touch screens/infotainment running most functions is going to shorten the lifespan of many cars being sold now. Fixes to that stuff out of warranty is going to be expensive.

CPO is one of the best options for buying - but be careful on some brands - manf. discounts on brand new cars can be cheaper than a CPO with 20k miles. I got burned on subaru crosstrek CPO — granted I got the 100,000 warranty — I could have saved $1500 and updated infotainment by buying brand new.