That’s not quite the right way to make the comparison. What you’re doing is trying to compare two 5-year holding periods — new to 5 years vs. 5 years to 10 years. If you were forced to replace your car every 5 years, this would be the right comparison, and you’d be right that the used car is less expensive.

The whole point of my article is that the better way to compare is to decide on a car age that’s a reasonable end-point beyond which it makes sense to replace it, then compare (1) buying new and driving the car until that age vs. (2) buying used and driving until it reaches that age.

You thus need to compare the average annual cost of the 10-year period with a new car vs. that of the 5-year period with a 5-year-old car. Another way of looking at the same thing is to look at what your 10-year cost would be if you buy new and drive the same car for a decade, vs. buying two 5-year-old cars 5 years apart, and driving each for 5 years.

For the Kia Soul in my article, that would work out to $56,226 for option (1) vs. $56,864 for option (2) (doubling the 5-year cost of buying a used 5-year old Kia Soul).

For the hybrid Camry there would be a cost advantage to option (2), but that advantage works out to $45/month. Some may consider that a large enough savings to prefer buying used. That’s a perfectly reasonable choice to make, but personally, I wouldn’t do that because of:

• The higher risk entailed in buying someone else’s problems
• The greater time commitment needed to find a good used vehicle
• The less choice you have about the specific trim and options you get in a used car

As I alluded to in my previous response, you don’t have to agree with my assumption that a car’s replacement age should be 10 years, but (a) I think that’s a plausible assumption, and (b) even if you chose 15 years, the gist of my argument would stand.