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A bit of a tangent but I don't think cars last any longer than a decade or two ago, certain models sure but 90s cars can hit 300K+ miles with normal maintenance

A bit of a tangent but I don't think cars last any longer than a decade or two ago, certain models sure but 90s cars can hit 300K+ miles with normal maintenance. A car from 2010 or newer isn't going to be any better off at 300K miles though and would likely be even more costly to maintain because of all the added and unnecessary features combined with penny pinching parts and materials until they are just barely adequate. Plus parts in general for newer vehicles are usually much more expensive for no good reason. A rack and pinion for my 25 year old truck is $250 and are still produced, a rack and pinion for 5 year old model of the same truck costs $1000, but there is no real difference on the mechanics on how it works and an old one could easily be adapted to fit the newer model in like 45 minutes.

slg 8y ago
You have to factor survivorship bias into that argument. There are obviously some well built cars from the 90s that are doing great at 300k+ miles, but those are the outliers. The poorly built cars from the 90s simply aren't on the road anymore to compare against. Therefore the 90s cars you still see all seem incredibly well built. Meanwhile a higher percentage of new cars are lasting to those higher mileage ranges. Here[1] is the first Google result on the issue from 2015 that says that average age of cars on the road is up despite new cars sales also being up. Those stats would also seem to dispute your last point about repair costs. For repair costs to really be up enough to counteract the savings from longer lifespans, the entire auto market would have to be functioning irrationally to keep cars on the road past the break even point. That is certainly possible, but it is unlikely that could sustain itself as long as this older car trend has been occurring. [1] - https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/07/29/new-car-sales-soaring-but-cars-getting-older-too/30821191/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/07/29/new-car-sale...

slg 8y ago

You have to factor survivorship bias into that argument. There are obviously some well built cars from the 90s that are doing great at 300k+ miles, but those are the outliers. The poorly built cars from the 90s simply aren't on the road anymore to compare against. Therefore the 90s cars you still see all seem incredibly well built. Meanwhile a higher percentage of new cars are lasting to those higher mileage ranges. Here[1] is the first Google result on the issue from 2015 that says that average age of cars on the road is up despite new cars sales also being up. Those stats would also seem to dispute your last point about repair costs. For repair costs to really be up enough to counteract the savings from longer lifespans, the entire auto market would have to be functioning irrationally to keep cars on the road past the break even point. That is certainly possible, but it is unlikely that could sustain itself as long as this older car trend has been occurring. [1] - https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/07/29/new-car-sales-soaring-but-cars-getting-older-too/30821191/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/07/29/new-car-sale...