As of yesterday, my family’s cars all are at least five years old and have at least 50,000 miles on them.  I’ve been paying close attention to this because until a couple of months ago, I had two cars that were in a race to hit this first:  One was approaching five years of age and had well over 50,000 miles, and the other was well over five years of age but approaching 50,000 miles.  As it turns out, time won out over distance; the younger, higher mileage car hit five years at the end of November but the older, lower mileage (and not snow-worthy) car didn’t cross 50,000 miles until last night.

This is mostly an opportunity to express self-satisfied virtue, as I feel better about having a garage of well-used cars.  I grew up in a family where we never had more than one car at a time and it was expected that you’d keep each car for at least 100,000 miles, a threshold I have yet to achieve as an adult.  I went through a period a number of years ago where we bought multiple vehicles over a relatively short span of time to address family “needs” and it’s nice to know that’s well in the past.  As much as I like car shopping and new-car smell, I’ve never enjoyed the process of stepping into a dealership and contemplating or executing an actual purchase.

At least for now I’m hopeful that this situation continues, as all of our vehicles are in relatively good condition and there are no cars on the market that I consider significantly better suited to our needs.  That said, I feel slightly unpatriotic for not going out and buying a new car just to help get the economy moving again.  If only the Escalade Hybrid had tail fins…