Should I add a car to my fleet or upgrade?

My wife and I have a 19 Honda Odyssey with 135K and a 21 Tacoma with 195K. The Honda is paid off and the Tacoma is a couple payments away from being paid off as well. Neither car has ever needed a big repair, but at this age, there will inevitably be some stuff that breaks, and having a car out of commission would be a major hassle for us. So I’m considering my options.

If interest rates and car prices were still what they were in 19-20 I’d probably just trade them both in without thinking twice. But I am considering alternatives. I have no problem keeping either of these cars for 300k miles and know I’ll have to put some money into repairs at some point. You can tell by the amount of miles we have racked up, that we are always on the move and my main concern here is my kids missing a game because one car is down and I need to go out of town for a work trip.

Im thinking it may be useful to add a 3rd car. I only need a pickup with my work maybe 20% of the time and I pay for a ton of gas. Adding something that gets over 30mpg would save me $180-225 a month in gas. That means the payments for a $15k civic would be mostly paid for in gas savings. I also have two sons who will be driving in the next 4-6 years so having a couple paid off beaters to throw at them is a bonus.

Posted Oct 30, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

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