Exactly... I've been buying (or have been given) older vehicles for the past 25 years. My newest is a 2002 Ford Excursion Ltd, bought new in 2001 for about 40% off of the sticker price using the Ford "A Plan" since my wife worked for Ford. That one now has 510,000รท miles on it. Next is a 1991 Chevy Caprice, bought from the original original owner 5 years ago when it had only 86K miles. Then I have a 1983 Dodge Ramcharger that I drove off the showroom floor in that same year - 200K miles. Lastly, and just given to me, a 1968 GMC C1500 Sport Custom long bed pickup truck that my wife's grandfather bought new in '68, with 87K miles on it (that has been sitting in the barn for 34 years - another second owner vehicle for me.)
If you really want to keep a vehicle on the road, it can be done... with timely and proper maintenance. It really is cheaper in the long run. I hate making car payments, and haven't had one since 2004 when I paid off that Excursion early.
I also hate paying for car repairs on technology simply because I don't have an OBDII diagnostic computer system that does everything like those at the dealership. The last time I paid a dealership to make a repair on anything I owned, the hourly rate for mechanic work was $65/hr. But what really caused me to reject the very idea of paying for dealership car repair was the fact that they charge by the hour, and then they have a book that tells them how many hours a certain type of repair "takes." It doesn't matter if the technician had the vehicle repaired in 1.5 hours - the book says the job takes 3 hours, therefore you must pay for 3 hours labor. So they might "claim" lowest rates in town to get you in their shop, but they will still get you with the book that overstates the time it takes to do the job.
I'll end my rant now... But I do feel vindicated, now more than ever, on my "anti-new car" position. I'm just fortunate that I had a father that taught me how to do my own auto repair on vehicles that come from my "pre-computer" age past.
You can get a cheap ODB 2 scanner for about 24 bucks on Amazon. I have it and it works fine.