I am going to talk outside of the price variances everyone brings up. I do almost 100% of the work on my car but understand people don't, and will only go through someone they trust. On that note, never cheap out on maintenance if you trust someone as the only thing worse than paying a bunch of money to have someone else work on your car is having to pay a shop you don't trust at a discount to work on your car, only to have a bad experience and pay the shop you trust to look over everything and redo poor work.
It's really up to you. For me, I tend to sell my cars after 100,000-150,000 miles. I also have never had to have a long commute so that keeps the mileage down so I am ready for something new and can afford it at that point. I find that that is about the mileage where you end up with a bunch of random issues. It isn't usually a cost issue, it is more an issue of down time and unexpected issues. I know plenty of people who pay more than their car is worth in maintenance every 2-3 years when you start hitting the 200,000k mileage. That's fine if you love the car, I love cars and want something newer at that point.
I am probably an exception to the rule though. I rarely put more than 7,500 miles on my car per year. With this Honda, it's been even less than that for various reasons that are too "deep" for this thread. I haven't even hit 70,000 yet and I didn't buy my car new. I have not found my 02 to be nearly as reliable as other Honda's I have owned in the past, however, so I am not as fond of this one. I can't afford a better car but it would be gone if I was doing something different with my life lol.
