I baby my vehicles. I garage them and do all the scheduled, preventative maintenance. And I try to keep them until the wheels fall off. I had a 2002 Dodge Durango that had 219K miles on it and looked like it came off the showroom floor when I rear-ended another driver at low speed on Dale Mabry while texting in December, 2015. Yup. Lesson learned. Even though the damage was pretty minor, Geico totaled her.
I look for preowned SUVs, 3 years old with 30K or so miles, clean CarFax that passes the inspection of my local mechanic. In addition to never having been hit, I'd prefer it not come from the north to avoid corrosive road salts and chemicals.
After I totaled the Durango, I bought a 2012 Grand Cherokee with the Hemi (man, does the mileage suck), the top tier, automatically adjustable, air 4WD suspension, neat leather with heated and cooled seats - all the goodies. It had 33K miles on it and was clean as a whistle. I paid $26K OTD for it. I think MSRP for it new was mid-$50s, if memory serves. I still have her and she has a little over 85K miles on her now. Terrible gas mileage aside, I've enjoyed her. She meets my needs, and those of my dog.
It's odd, as both vehicles are Chrysler products. Incredibly, especially given the pretty horrible reputation of Dodge, that Durango was bulletproof. The only major repair I had, and it was done around 190K miles, was an AC flap actuator, which required the mechanic to remove the dash to repair. And even that wasn't as expensive as I'd feared - like $750. Otherwise, not a thing wrong.
The Jeep, however, has been a mess. I've lost count of the recall repairs. Has to be half a dozen, including one literally today for a fuel pump relay. And recently I noticed a tiny oil leak. I took her to the mechanic two weeks ago and his best guess is it needs a new rear main seal. That's a huge job - likely around 18-19 hours and $2K. He said he'd recommend I take it to the dealer for that. The leak is so small, it didn't even need oil when he looked at it. I've poured in some Blue Devil Rear Main Sealer and that seems to have stopped it. And 2012 means my Jeep was redesigned during Chrysler's Daimler era. I guess in the end, between the two Chrysler products, things have sort of evened out.
I've begun nosing around for replacement for the Jeep. Based on everything, including a really spendy main seal repair at 85K miles, I don't get the sense she's going to last too much longer. I am planning on moving to Japanese quality and am looking at, in no particular order, (all per the criteria above) Lexus GX460, Lexus RX350, Acura RDX and Toyota 4Runner. Man, if the 4Runner had a more modern transmission and better mileage, that might be the one.