I see your point--but I'll disagree with it. Once a vehicle is paid off, they can easily continue making "payments" in a car repair fund. Heck they should have been doing that when they first purchased the vehicle, if not for repairs (if new) then at least for maintenance. Most I've paid for a car payment was about $300 so inside of six months I'd have enough to cover the sudden unexpected $2k repair.

Personally I think it's a bad metric to sell a car when the repair exceeds the car value. A better metric is, does the repair exceed the cost to replace the car? If a car needs $500 of work but I can get a perfectly good one for $400 then I'll mine for $100 and be ahead of the game. [Totally bogus numbers but you get the idea.]

Anyhow... once a car is paid off the owner can try to get ahead of the game. If they decide to replace after say 10yr/150k... hopefully they saved for 5 years and could just pay cash. Or financed with a low APR and now are sitting on a pile of emergency cash. Always paying or saving the same amount--but ahead of the game.

Sorry, I sometimes let my gearhead side come out. [Not really a gearhead, I drive Toyota's.]