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My 1965 Volvo Amazon did 300 k miles before I scrapped it, in 1984, in favour of a 1976 Volvo 245. I only scrapped it because it wasn't worth anything, it was

My 1965 Volvo Amazon did 300 k miles before I scrapped it, in 1984, in favour of a 1976 Volvo 245. I only scrapped it because it wasn't worth anything, it was in perfect working order. The floor of 245 finally succumbed to Norwegian road salt in 1996 after 250 k miles but was otherwise in perfect order. I don't remember how far my 1965 Austin Mini van had done by the time I scrapped it in 1978 but I'm quite sure it was much more than 50 k miles.

eldaisfish 5y ago
this is survivorship bias, nothing more.
- hef19898 5y ago
  The bias is more that we go through cars faster, generally, then they die. And once a car isn't used anymore, it just rots away. Or it gets exported to some developing country to happily life for another couple of decades. How that would work with modern electronics, I don't know. Probably as long as electronics don't brick the car it should fine I guess.
  - WillPostForFood 5y ago
    The bias is more that we go through cars faster Is that true though? Average length of car ownership is at an all-time high of over 8 years. It was under 5 years just 20 years ago. Maybe length of ownership doesn't correlate to length of car life, but seems like a strong signal that car quality and lifespan is going up.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  No it isn't. Survivorship bias would have been me claiming that because my cars lasted more than 50 k miles that therefore all cars did. I merely added a small counter argument to the idea that cars of the period were necessarily short lived.
  - eldaisfish 5y ago
    But most were short lived. The lifespan of cars has been getting longer and pointing to the exception that bucked the trend is literally survivorship bias.
ghaff 5y ago
That was certainly not the norm however. I can clearly remember when 100K miles was considered exceptional and, as someone else noted, probably beyond what the odometer was designed for.

eldaisfish 5y ago

this is survivorship bias, nothing more.

hef19898 5y ago
The bias is more that we go through cars faster, generally, then they die. And once a car isn't used anymore, it just rots away. Or it gets exported to some developing country to happily life for another couple of decades. How that would work with modern electronics, I don't know. Probably as long as electronics don't brick the car it should fine I guess.
- WillPostForFood 5y ago
  The bias is more that we go through cars faster Is that true though? Average length of car ownership is at an all-time high of over 8 years. It was under 5 years just 20 years ago. Maybe length of ownership doesn't correlate to length of car life, but seems like a strong signal that car quality and lifespan is going up.
kwhitefoot 5y ago
No it isn't. Survivorship bias would have been me claiming that because my cars lasted more than 50 k miles that therefore all cars did. I merely added a small counter argument to the idea that cars of the period were necessarily short lived.
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  But most were short lived. The lifespan of cars has been getting longer and pointing to the exception that bucked the trend is literally survivorship bias.

ghaff 5y ago

That was certainly not the norm however. I can clearly remember when 100K miles was considered exceptional and, as someone else noted, probably beyond what the odometer was designed for.