It appears that car owners have been taking better care of their vehicles in recent years, which means the purchase of a used car is more reliable than it was in the past.

Especially as the economy has sagged, more people have put money into their cars to make improvements that they might have ignored in prior years.

Time Purcell, owner of Christie’s Service Station in Westport, Connecticut told the New Canaan News that he has seen an increase in people spending money on the maintenance of their vehicles instead of just buying a new car.

Purcell told the news provider that people have become used to having their cars services regularly when they were under warranty. When the warranty expires, drivers continue to use shops like his to get extensive checkups.

The rise in maintenance of these cars combined with increased reliability of new cars over the last decade has made used cars more attractive than they once were.

“[Consumers are] realizing that the used cars of today are not the used cars of a few years ago, and that realization is not positive for new car sales,” Jesse Toprak, an analyst at Edmunds told Dow Jones recently.

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