Why is car upkeep so expensive?

>Just how hard is it to learn about cars? I have had a interest but it feels like it's a hard thing to practice when you have no car.

Find a junkyard and apply as an "apprentice" to get around the minimum wage laws. Thus they don't hardly pay you much or only pay you with parts. In return, you help them take apart the best parts of cars for their parts bins or for special orders that come in. They typically junk most of the cars for scrap after the most likely parts that body shops want are stripped off.

By taking apart lots of dashes, you will certainly learn a lot about how to reassemble them too. And all your mistakes were done to junkers so no loss to you. That is the kind of knowledge that is precious because many other small shops have a "damage customers' cars as you learn" process when repairing cars. That's a big source of complaints about botched repair jobs because those employees were learning on the job on good cars. But you learned on bad junked cars and also have a large quantity to practice upon.

Business has learned that statistics are a useful thing, while the average sjw rejects them.

>My theory is that NO ONE sells a car that isn't broken.
I've sold plenty or cars that weren't broken, I just didn't want them anymore

>Why is the insurance company allowed to charge dudes more anyway? Is t that discrimination?
Because statistically, you are the most likely to get into a major accident that totals the car and/or seriously injuries yourself or someone else. Rates reflect risk user

>Also, repairs and predatory salesmen. I don't know shit about cars so these salesman eye me up like a shark eye balls seals! I am a guy just trying to live.
As one of those salesmen, i can tell you the only uninformed consumer is someone who chooses to be. The internet is a thing now user, educate yourself

>You drop 5k on some used piece of shit but it still needs like 2k worth of work to not shit the bed in a month.
If you can buy a car for 5K, and spend 2K to make it completely reliable, then your budget is 7K. You should always factor in initial service/refit cost when you buy a cheap used car

It's not wallet rape lol. Im 21, my car insurance is like $70 a month, and I have so far spent about $200 on maintenance/repairs since I bought the car a year ago. Cars aren't cheap but they aren't really expensive either (disclaimer I've only owned Japanese cars)

So far maintenance wise I've done a power steering flush, 2 oil changes, an axle seal, differential and transmission fluid, and output shaft seal.

Oh yeah and my car cost $5200. Idk where you're getting the idea that cheap used cars need 2k in repairs right off the bat

>Also, how do scrap yards even work? I never been to one?

You have to even find one. Most of them have disappeared just like drive-ins. Cities grow up around them and the land is too valuable to be used to store junk cars. Competing land developers bribe city and county officials to inspect the hell out of those businesses to drive them out of business. Etc. It's pretty difficult to run a pick and pull in my county now due to environmental regulations. There used to be four junkyards in the greater metro area and now there are only two and both have shrunk to be tiny spots of land now. Their only purpose in having land is to be a holding zone for cars before they cut them up for parts. A lot of the land is cheap storage barns to keep parts out of the rain (no A/C or heat). The outdoor spaces are mostly temp spaces for junk cars awaiting stripping.

It's very different from the old days where you could go in and find a car, go inside, and leisurely take apart a dash to get the parts you wanted. Those days don't exist anymore in those two places. Since our metro area is about 100 miles long and XX miles wide, it would be hard to imagine any other part in our state having more junk yard volume. Our two yards are small, but they strip a lot of cars fast for the most often bought parts by body shops.

All I want to do is ride eternal.... Shiny and chrome bros...

>You drop 5k on some used piece of shit but it still needs like 2k worth of work to not shit the bed in a month.

Got myself a shitty corolla with 130000km for 4000 euros yhree years ago and guess how mucho did I spent on keep it on the road?, probably less than 200€ in oil changes, brakes and shit. 170000km and going strong.

Get a common, no frills, car and you'll be fine, also these are the cars insurance companies love the most....

i bought my highly modified mitsubishi evolution mr back in december and have put around 1000 miles on it and the only issue thus far is a dead battery which required a $20 battery tender

even my work vehicle which i got in december has only had one issue since: the belt tensioner and it had around 148k miles on it

this shit isnt that expensive

Lease a cheap ass econobox if you don't want any "upkeep".

The whole "buy a 5k Honda or Toyota" thing is a meme. By now most of these cars are old, abused, rusted and clapped out. Unless you find a mint low milage car from a 80 year old couple you WILL be dumping money into it. The amount you drive in a year matters too, I bet most people with these "5k cars" drive 1000 miles a year so of course the upkeep is going to be low.

Yes and no. I drive a 14' Ford Focus Titanium (your textbook econobox) and so far under waranty they have replaced the following

- Both clutch packs, twice
- Drivers door seal
- Sunroof seal
- Brake light bulb 5 times (still no word on why it only lasts 4ish months)
-Drivers seat cushion twice
- Drivers seat heater (though I think he broke it changing the seat cushion)
- Front brake caliper
- Front pads and rotors (under warranty, tied to above repair)

Long story short, my econobox has cost Ford right around 7k in the last 2 years.

That said though, I drive right around 30k miles a year, so wear and tear really do play a big part in things.

I had a 94 Nissan Altima before this car, and while I only put about 600 into the car in 5 years. I also drove less than 10,000 miles in that car in 5 years.

Learn how to buy a car. Simple as that.

Check for recalls, research known issues, listen and identify rattles, squeaks and clunks on the test drive, etc etc.

If you don't know how to do that or you simply don't want to, buy a certified pre-owned car with a warranty.

Stops disgusting poorfags from shitting up our roads.