I would ask him what his bank account looks like personally if he's giving out that kind of advice. By that logic, does he only pay cash for assets that increase in value, or are those ones you should leverage too?
Just to be clear, EVERYTHING you own is going down in value to some extent unless you have a limited edition collection, or own real estate.
In this debate, there's clearly 2 camps. Those who think you should buy and hold a vehicle until it's actually not usable, and those who want to lease/finance a car because they think something older than 3-5 years isn't good quality anymore. One is justifying their argument with math and the other by emotion/safety. Either way, it's hard to bridge the gap between two parties with diametrically opposed views.