I mean maybe I'm just lucky, but this hasn't at all been true for me. 17 years and I just got my third used car last March. All three together cost $8k (probably 12k with prices today).
For sure I've had to do a bunch of repairs but even with 2 transmissions, a head, a few clutches/TC, and 3 sets of transaxeles. That's like 30k so maybe break even if you buy one car and drive it for that long and don't have any major repairs along the way. In my experience, friends will lease a car and pay that in a few years, or buy a new car and have maybe five years trouble free, then have to do a major repair and/or sell and pay another 20k in debt.
The extra stress and maintenance isn't free by any means, but is it worth and extra 5k per year? Not for me, and I think that's best case. Dealerships are really good at draining money from most people.
It's kind of scary how much it already applies. It does make sense, as our systems mostly came from the same places.