So, I used my algorithm to find two things this week:

  1. The cheapest car to own in America for over five years.
  2. The most reliable car in America.

Both turned out to be the Toyota Land Cruiser. Giving just about any Toyota a reliability award is cliche… So that one was not a surprise. But I was sort of amazed to see that 16.3% of all Land Cruisers made reached over 300,000 miles. That’s nuts.

What did surprise me, however, was the price of ownership. These SUVs are irrationally expensive. A 2021 Land Cruiser (based on an old platform and archaic technology) can run close to $100k new. The trick though is this:

A 2016 Land Cruiser with 75,000 miles can sell for as much as $65k. These things don’t breakdown, need very little as far as servicing, and the resale vale is almost as insane as the purchase price.


Editor’s Note: My algorithm is a work in progress, but after double checking some parameters, I think I’m getting fairly accurate results.