The economics of fixing cars must be quite different in the US maybe parts are a lot cheaper but new cars are more expensive? I had a 10 year old Toyota estate

The economics of fixing cars must be quite different in the US maybe parts are a lot cheaper but new cars are more expensive? I had a 10 year old Toyota estate car that was basically worth the scrap value of the metal but it ran ok. In year 11 it failed its yearly safety inspection, the part I needed to fix this was £700 on ebay I would have needed ramps to get under it and probably an oxy cutter to cut the old parts out as the bolts were all seized up. It would have cost me about £1400 for the local garage to do this work. I don’t have anywhere covered to do this work and it would have taken me days to do it in the rain with a significant chance of screwing it up. The garage that inspected the car told me to scrap it as it was not worth fixing. There’s no scrap dealer near me and it’s illegal to drive it so I phone the scrap dealer and the best I can get is to get it taken away for free. I looked online and found to my surprise that a new car that would suit us fine was ~£2300 per year in payments. I looked at what I had spent on repairs on the old Toyota and some other old cars I had and how much the depreciation had cost me and the figures are within £30/month. Which is why most people around here are driving quite new cars even though I know they are not making a much money.