3 ms·

So marginal incremental improvement in drive-train technology and electronic doodads? That's how I read that list you gave me. Cars these days don't age any b

So marginal incremental improvement in drive-train technology and electronic doodads? That's how I read that list you gave me. Cars these days don't age any better than cars from 20yr ago or the more modern cars of the 90s. I guess anti-corrosion has improved but it hasn't improved by that much. You still have plenty of vehicles that repeatedly rust out in some spot because the salt gets flung there and the surface coatings aren't adequate to stop it.

chrisco255 7y ago
Average age of cars on the road is 11 years vs 8 years in the 90s...which means cars are on average lasting 37.5% longer than 20 years ago. And that might be a lagging indicator.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  It also might be an indicator of how deep the 2008 recession was, and of how big the 90s stock boom was.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    No, the measure is average age, which is more indicative of used cars than any largess caused by various boom times. Cars don't get salvaged for spare parts and metal until they're no longer useful as vehicles. They otherwise get resold and traded in and put back out on the road.
- saltcured 7y ago
  Are you sure about how this metric is defined? The average age of cars in today's fleet is not the same thing as the expected lifespan of today's new car. In a growing fleet, new purchases expand the fleet and necessarily lower the average age. On the other hand, if production falls below replacement rates, the average age of the fleet will increase. Couldn't such a change reflect changes in demographics (number of new drivers added to population) or habits (amount of car-based travel) as much as car durability? Also, wouldn't such fleet metrics be influenced by the lumpy history of natural disasters like hurricanes flooding densely populated coastal regions?
CydeWeys 7y ago
There's a lot of very real safety improvements that have been added (or mandated) over the past decade. They are saving lives. It doesn't matter if you don't value these improvements for whatever reason; the rest of us will still benefit from your vehicle having them, so they are now required.

chrisco255 7y ago

Average age of cars on the road is 11 years vs 8 years in the 90s...which means cars are on average lasting 37.5% longer than 20 years ago. And that might be a lagging indicator.

pessimizer 7y ago
It also might be an indicator of how deep the 2008 recession was, and of how big the 90s stock boom was.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  No, the measure is average age, which is more indicative of used cars than any largess caused by various boom times. Cars don't get salvaged for spare parts and metal until they're no longer useful as vehicles. They otherwise get resold and traded in and put back out on the road.
saltcured 7y ago
Are you sure about how this metric is defined? The average age of cars in today's fleet is not the same thing as the expected lifespan of today's new car. In a growing fleet, new purchases expand the fleet and necessarily lower the average age. On the other hand, if production falls below replacement rates, the average age of the fleet will increase. Couldn't such a change reflect changes in demographics (number of new drivers added to population) or habits (amount of car-based travel) as much as car durability? Also, wouldn't such fleet metrics be influenced by the lumpy history of natural disasters like hurricanes flooding densely populated coastal regions?

CydeWeys 7y ago

There's a lot of very real safety improvements that have been added (or mandated) over the past decade. They are saving lives. It doesn't matter if you don't value these improvements for whatever reason; the rest of us will still benefit from your vehicle having them, so they are now required.