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> Also, in comparison, most vehicles don't last longer than 8 years. Most people will have put over 100 thousand miles on their vehicle at that point, most vehi

> Also, in comparison, most vehicles don't last longer than 8 years. Most people will have put over 100 thousand miles on their vehicle at that point, most vehicles start falling apart just over the 125 thousand miles line, unless you've been very meticulous about babying your vehicle. That's sounds crazy. Where I live (Europe), a car with 100k miles is maybe at 40% of it's lifetime. My car has almost 100k in it, and it is completely fine (it's a French (!) car), it has two small scratches on it and everything works as expected (no, it's not babied if you don't consider a 2 yo baby sitting in it). This is anecdata of course, but really, 100k miles is nothing. My father drives a Skoda with 420k miles in it at the moment -- it definitely doesn't look like new but it works.

DiabloD3 10y ago
European traffic patterns seem to be much different than American ones. Driving culture in Europe is radically different. Chronic stop and go traffic, and also the obsession of over-salting roads in the north, and the insanely hot conditions down south, eat cars. In addition, most Europeans rely on public transportation for a lot of what we'd use cars for. Not only that, European models of cars seem to be much higher quality than typical US ones, partly due to the tastes of European culture, partly due to EU regulation. Top Gear over the years has had at least one segment about this from a British/European point of view, but I quick Google isn't telling me which episode.
ansible 10y ago
> > Also, in comparison, most vehicles don't last longer than 8 years. Most people will have put over 100 thousand miles on their vehicle at that point, most vehicles start falling apart just over the 125 thousand miles line, unless you've been very meticulous about babying your vehicle. > That's sounds crazy. That is crazy. Unless you like having car payments, or that "new car" smell, you can get 200k miles from most cars without a lot of "babying". This means regular oil changes and such. And you need to pay attention. Noises, loss of oil, and such indicate problems that don't just fix themselves. What really harms a car's lifetime is the willingness of the owner to take care of it. And rust (at least in the parts of the world that get snow).
- ghaff 10y ago
  In the northeast US almost every car I've owned has ultimately been retired predominantly due to rust. The car I now own with 160K miles I haven't driven in the winter for a number of years and the mechanics at the dealer are always surprised that I have this model (which I bought in its final model year) on the road and that it hasn't rusted out. It is 20 years old and things are still improving but rust as a limiting factor on lifetimes in the winter.

DiabloD3 10y ago

European traffic patterns seem to be much different than American ones. Driving culture in Europe is radically different. Chronic stop and go traffic, and also the obsession of over-salting roads in the north, and the insanely hot conditions down south, eat cars. In addition, most Europeans rely on public transportation for a lot of what we'd use cars for. Not only that, European models of cars seem to be much higher quality than typical US ones, partly due to the tastes of European culture, partly due to EU regulation. Top Gear over the years has had at least one segment about this from a British/European point of view, but I quick Google isn't telling me which episode.

ansible 10y ago

> > Also, in comparison, most vehicles don't last longer than 8 years. Most people will have put over 100 thousand miles on their vehicle at that point, most vehicles start falling apart just over the 125 thousand miles line, unless you've been very meticulous about babying your vehicle. > That's sounds crazy. That is crazy. Unless you like having car payments, or that "new car" smell, you can get 200k miles from most cars without a lot of "babying". This means regular oil changes and such. And you need to pay attention. Noises, loss of oil, and such indicate problems that don't just fix themselves. What really harms a car's lifetime is the willingness of the owner to take care of it. And rust (at least in the parts of the world that get snow).

ghaff 10y ago
In the northeast US almost every car I've owned has ultimately been retired predominantly due to rust. The car I now own with 160K miles I haven't driven in the winter for a number of years and the mechanics at the dealer are always surprised that I have this model (which I bought in its final model year) on the road and that it hasn't rusted out. It is 20 years old and things are still improving but rust as a limiting factor on lifetimes in the winter.