[MathDoc]

Buy a Honda or Acura. I have always been surprised (pleasantly) how well they hold resale value.

I haven't worried about resale value since I had kids. I keep cars until they are dead. When a car is over 300k miles, and in bad enough condition that it's not worth fixing, it doesn't matter who made it. The nice thing about Honda/Acura/Toyota and a few others is that their cars make it that long if you treat them right.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

I have seen some amazing longevity in Japanese cars that I have owned. First Acura I owned for 9 years and 127K miles. Still an enjoyable and reasonable car when some knuckle headed UW-student with love on his mind rear-ended it at 40 mph and totaled the vehicle. When I got the insurance check for the loss of the vehicle I was stunned - about 2x my rough guess of its probable value. After another Acura that delivered great value, I had a Nissan 240SX - which ran to 126K miles at time of trade in - on very little maintenance - and get this - original clutch.  I still do not know how to explain that.

My current Acura is 4 years old, is halfway to it's first scheduled tune-up (at 115k miles) and is just wonderful. I was always "right-side up" under the financing for it and will drive it for a long time as well.

Anyone who is the focus of this article - was not thinking very hard about their auto transactions- and was going to be victimized sooner or later. The fact that it was in an auto transaction is coincidental.