There is something exciting about purchasing a new car. Unless you can pay cash for the car, there is also something dreadful about buying a new car – years of hefty, monthly payments. At some point, however, it may be time to buy a new car. How do you know when that time has arrived?

One thing to consider is the age and condition of your existing vehicle. Some say that it is best to trade in your car before the odometer reads 50,000 miles. They say that you should trade it in when the odometer is between 30,000 and 40,000 miles. This, of course, usually leads to a life with perpetually high auto payments.

On average, according to the Federal Highway Authority, drivers in the U.S. add just under 13,500 miles to their car’s odometer each year. This would suggest that an American will drive their car for, at most, three years, if they want to trade it in while the odometer is at its sweet spot, as described above.

The longer you own and drive your car, the more resale value it will lose. However, new cars depreciate the fastest. We’ve all heard the old adage about how much value a car loses as soon as it is driven off the car lot. A new car can depreciate as much as 19% its first year. This often creates a situation where a car owner is upside down – they owe more on their car than it is worth.

While the miles you put on a car depend strictly on how much driving you do, the condition of your car is something you can do a lot to control, assuming you don’t have an accident.

Properly maintaining your car helps to keep the value in pace with its optimal resale value based on the miles it’s driven. In other words, a car may be worth a certain amount according to its age and miles driven. But, that value may drop in accordance with how it was maintained. In translation, this means that it is imperative to stay on top of maintaining your car to keep its value up.

Since the cost-per-mile of owning a car also takes into account what is spent maintaining and repairing a car, it’s also imperative to stay on top of maintenance to keep repairs to a minimum. Things may break on your car even if you do stay on top of its maintenance. But, the likelihood that needed repairs will get out of hand increases substantially if you don’t do a good job of maintaining your car.

So, is it time to trade in or sell your car? That’s a decision you’ll have to make yourself. You can follow the advice of those who suggest trading the car in before 50,000 miles or you may want to consider the cost of repairs and maintenance in comparison to the cost of a new vehicle. There is one nice thing to consider though – it feels very nice when you don’t have a monthly car payment.