The article needs a new title. "You gotta be rich to own a car with almost a million miles on it" would be much better. Of course, this is a pretty obvious thing to say, so it probably wouldn't get as many clicks. But at least it would be honest.
It makes no sense to talk about costs of "owning a used car." The costs involved in owning a two-year-old midrange Toyota with 20,000 miles on it are completely different from the costs involved in owning an ancient luxury car that's driven the equivalent of to the Moon and back twice.
Buying a Lexus with 900,000 miles on it is so unusual that there's no way to generalize the story beyond it.
I'm not sure what it read when you wrote this comment, but it currently reads "to own a cheap car." Used is implied, certainly, but I don't think "barely used" is part of it.
Basically, a two-year-old Toyota with 20k miles doesn't qualify.
Which "it"? The comment I'm replying to says, "Just that there are certain costs to owning a used car that you don't usually incur when owning a new one."
In any case, there's a wide universe of cheap cars (and what exactly is the threshold for "cheap" anyway?) just as there is a wide universe of used cars.
It makes no sense to talk about costs of "owning a used car." The costs involved in owning a two-year-old midrange Toyota with 20,000 miles on it are completely different from the costs involved in owning an ancient luxury car that's driven the equivalent of to the Moon and back twice.
Buying a Lexus with 900,000 miles on it is so unusual that there's no way to generalize the story beyond it.