I have owned may be a dozen new cars since 1964. I only buy new and trade them in after 7 years or 150k miles, whichever comes first. All GM cars except 2 Fords.
So what is my point? My TOTAL repair bills for all these cars is still under $1000. That does does not include maintenance such as oil changes, tires, coolant changes, filters. Those are additional. I never needed a brake job on any cars since I anticipate stops and coast.
Actually, you and I have been doing exactly the same, with me doing it for about 10 years.
My last 2 vehicles have had 67,000 miles and 55,000 miles. I don’t trust that the bills after that kind of mileage will be the same as they would be for the first 4-5 years.
BTW, the 67,000 miles vehicle was a Jeep, and the 55,000 vehicles was a Ford. I don’t trust buying a vehicle from GM, especially after the Obama ‘takeover’ of GM.
And I didn’t have any big repair bills on either vehicle. The “only” repair was body work on the Jeep, which was a high-end Jeep, and those repairs ended up being HUGE just because it was ‘considered’ luxury by the repair shop and the cost of the body parts were high. NEVER again a high-end model for me. I’d rather purchase the lower-end models and switch them out after 4-5 years. Could end up being costly, but not as costly as the high-end Jeep ended up being. BTW, I didn’t pay for the Jeep repairs, since insurance paid for all of it, but I didn’t appreciate my insurance rate going up, even after it was proved that my wife was not at fault in the accident.