The market is rather efficient in these vehicles, so depreciation isn't a way to save money. Dealers beg 3-yr-old car owners to sell their cars back so they can flip them. Like real estate, cars are cheap to buy. The expense comes when you sell them, losingthe residual becase you won't get a good price. The most important factor in auto afforidability is how long you own the car, not how good a deal you get at purchase time. And buying a "reliable" used car is a risk, because you don't know what damage this particular used car has suffered. Unless you have good intel on why the previous owner gave it up, and how they treated it, you're taking a gamble.
With the rate at which electronic safety features are advancing, I think the advantages of buying used have fallen a bit. A new base-model Corolla currently has more electronic safety features than a high-trim 3-4 year old Avalon or Lexus. That's a recent phenomenon, though, and it might be a temporary condition if the rate of improvement of those systems slows down.
How did everybody manage to convince themselves that they need these expensive add-ons? You need seatbelts, airbags, and impact absorption. That was perfected 20 years ago. Everything else is a luxury not needed for driving.
I’ll take the other side and say some of the newer (literal) bells and whistles are more a distraction than a life saver. Properly adjusted mirrors should have no blind spots - I don’t need lights on the mirrors constantly flashing on the highway. My last rental would beep whenever it thought I was drifting out of my lane but suffered from so many false positives it was infuriating.
