Thread: How much do you spend buying a vehicle?

I own eight vehicles , seven utes and a car , all toyota’s .
The utes are for my business , the oldest is a 1996 ( basically retired but still my favourite ) and the newest is a 2012 .
The work utes average about 50,000km a year and they are purchased secondhand with no more than 150,000km on the clock .
I can pick them up for a reasonable price ( still not cheap , but easily less than half a new ute ) at that mileage and I am fairly confident that they will last me four years of hard work . With regular servicing I’ve only ever had one “ blow up “ and cost me money . I pay cash for all my vehicles . I never trade a ute to buy another because I drive them until they die and then I sell them for a grand or two “ as is where is “.
I sat down with my accountant years ago and crunched the numbers and because I don’t borrow money to buy anything, this course of action is the financially prudent way of running a small fleet of vehicles. I always have the oldest ute when ever I pull up to a worksite, but I don’t give a shit because I’m making/saving money , and my ego doesn’t require me to swing my dick in front of a crowd.
Reliability / Parts availability / common models which everyone has had experience with are the deciding factors when I look for a new ute .
Up until now Toyota has been the go to for me , I only buy automatic’s now , clutch’s and gearboxes in a manual used to be my biggest cost , since moving to autos I’ve had zero transmission problems even with over 450,000km on the clock , but I dont tow anything and I have heard that the autos can cause problems when over worked .