[white-flame]

My car costs me a bit over $100/mo including insurance and gas, and I'm in one of the highest priced car insurance areas of the country. Amortize oil changes (a couple times a year) & tires (even less frequently), and it adds a bit more.

That's not a lot of money compared to taking a couple dozen Uber rides a month, though it is more than a monthly bus pass and a bicycle which is far less practical than a car for most American cities. Especially if you have a 24-hour lifestyle and the buses only run during the day, and take 2 hours to cross your large city vs 20 minutes on the freeway in a car.

I'm not a grease monkey by any stretch of the imagination, but as a technical person I have the curiosity to learn the basics of how things work, and when something goes wrong to try to generally understand the core failure. It doesn't take much to find a decent used car of a decently trusted brand that you can buy for cash, and drive it for years without a huge bill and without constant worries and nuisances.

It's exactly the same as dealing with the maintenance issues of anything you own, whether it's a computer or an appliance or a business or a house. You learn enough of the ins & outs of it so you can watch out for & eliminate the nuisances and focus on getting the benefits.

I will certainly agree that the cost of new cars are far outpacing average salaries, and used car prices are being pulled in the same direction. But as for right now, used cars are still quite manageable and affordable TCO-wise, and the vast majority of places in the USA still effectively require an individual means of transportation to work, shop affordably, and engage in activities.