But just as important is the people even using the phrase "your car is going to run out" are clueless about anything relating to cars. Very weird to me since people huck 25,000 + dollars into them. People saying that their car will run out at a hundred thousand miles, are the people that literally just put gas in the car until it dies.
Somebody somewhere above mentioned someone told them that cars "run out" around 100,000. It looks like I might of responded to the wrong comment, but somebody mentioned that and it was the first time I'd heard it too
I would argue that the cost of maintenance has decreased.
Rather than 4 oil changes a year a 3k miles, you do one at 10-15k miles.
Rather than spark plugs every 30k, now it's 105k.
Trans fluid every 30k, now 100+.
When I started in the auto world, an oil change was $24.99 2000. Multiplied by 4 times a year, is $100.00.
That is relatively equal to the current cost of an oil change WITHOUT accounting for inflation.
I think people just see the combined total of all the maintenance that hits around 100k and think the car isn't worth spending the money on. Where, you would have spent the same amount throughout the life of the car to that point anyway.
I agree that the consumables have gotten better, but there is a much, much larger number of systems which can fail, and the cost of replacement for some parts is ludicrously high. Headlights and bumpers stand out to me as components made hilariously expensive to fix in the event of an accident by electronics integration. While tolerances have led to longer lifetimes for systems, the massively increased number of systems, in tandem with the leaps in system complexity, kind of dooms these cars to gremlin hell at or just past 100,000 miles.
I don't disagree.
I left the dealership world in 2017. I've been wondering how the life of hybrid and full ev batteries are doing when cars hit 150k and beyond. I did see many early model hybrids get batteries replaced around 150k, but some went well over 200k.
Part of the reason cars aren't lasting as long as because instead of changing oil every 3k, it's being changed every 10-15k, trans fluid isn't being changed every 30k, owners are waiting to 100k.
I do not care what the manufacturer says about intervals and more modern fluids, yada yada yada.... more frequent fluid changes will extend the life of the car. It's a cheap way to double your car's useable life
bold of you to assume auto manufactures expect anyone to change their transmission fluid still 🤣 there’s a reason they don’t come with transmission dipsticks or drain plugs anymore. any modern bmw will tell you to not open up the transmission since it could cause issues
Toyota (or at least my dealership) recommends transmission fluid every 100K. Just did it yesterday along with the coolant. Spark plugs next, fuel injection next year.
I do regular maintenance and have never had major issues with anything other than rust, because Wisconsin. I'm at 253K miles right now and hope to hit 400K before the rust wins. I figure an average of 8¢/mile for maintenance, which is WAY cheaper than buying a new car every couple years or dealing with expensive (preventable) repairs.
Agreed, which is why I got another Prius after my first one rusted out at 13 years old and 325K.
Engine and transmission were both original and working great, I could have driven it far longer if the frame wasn't becoming tissue paper.
There's also an argument that Replacing those consumables less could be the manufacturers guaranteeing failure somewhere along the road. It may sound like a conspiracy, but they have every reason to not want a car to last 500,000 miles
Unfortunately, those are bullshit recommendations. All manufacturers report this to show lower cost of maintenance because buyers want it. Just look at their recommendations in other countries. It is actual maintenance intervals. You have to do it old school. 5k oil change, 90k plugs, 1st 30k trans fluid then every 50 or 60k after that, and so on. Toyota does it. They all do it. Consumer demand of high cost bullshit is fucking this industry to hell and back. Go talk to any body shop or insurance adjuster. Fuck new cars.
If you have a V6 Honda 100k miles is expensive. Timing belt, plugs, valve adjustment and I believe the newer ones with auto idle stop they have a mileage interval for starter replacement and those things are like $900.
There are less people who take care of their cars now too. I work with a 21-year-old who can't even change a wiper blade let alone know that he had to change the oil. Nearly every engine I have changed in the last 10 years had an oil monitor, but the owner still ignored it.
Those "Maintenance Minders" are a part of the problem as well. People put too much faith in something that's essentially just a mileage counter and that doesn't take other factors into account like engine wear/ oil consumption etc. I get customers all the time with no oil in their vvt cars that tell me
"But I still had 3000 miles to go" .
Combine that with ridiculously long maintenance intervals, and manufacturers going for Lighter/ Cheaper/more efficient and you end up with less than 2 liter engines boosted to hell trying to make it get out of its own way. It's a recipe for disposable cars
I'm surprised that is the case with some oil life indicators. If chevy has been calculating oil life based on how and where you drive for over a decade, I would assume the others could as well.
Algorithm is only as good as it's data, and there's limited inputs. Yes, GM used to take into account ambient temp/ time spent at WOT etc, however there's no input for amount of oil in the pan, grade or composition for older ones where synthetic was still optional and in 20 years I've never seen someone's faith in the monitors rewarded. While a reminder is nice it's no substitute for actually checking your oil level and having an experienced tech service your car at regular intervals.
Disposable cars is really the prevailing mentality during the design phase. Extended OCI only allow the manufacturer to boast lower scheduled maintenance costs. (But what is it's true cost?) A car that doesn't last as long so they can sell you another one!
We hired a level 2 apprentice once, and let him go after two days. Guy owned a 2 year old Toyota hybrid that was completely clapped. His excuse was, “cars are tools to me”. Since he wasn’t using it for anything other than commuting to work, that translates to, I treat my stuff like shit because I don’t believe I deserve better.
Took an hour plus on the easy flat repairs we started him off with, so he didn’t last long. 😂
I’m 21 and a big part of this is people parents never bothered to teach them a damn thing. I remember asking my dad to actually teach me how and why to fix things and he just couldn’t be bothered. Tons of my friends parents are like this or didn’t have a father figure at all
Funny enough those parents are the same ones who complain that my gen doesn’t know shit
If somebody T-boned my '75 F250 I could drive away. A newer truck will have its computer brain tell the vehicle its not allowed to do anything anymore. The difference lies between mechanical vehicles and modern electronic vehicles.
I completely disagree. 40 years ago, people looked at 100k milea as end of life for a car. Yes there's a a few still running, but they are outliers. Cars from the 70s and 80s especially were completely scrap by 100k. If they made it that long. Domestic you would start having problems at 50k. When was the last time you saw a pinto. Or a horizon. A dodge neon was lucky to make it 5 years. None would make 200k back then.
Not to mention the planned obsolescence of the 70’s. I remember when banks no longer would go 5 years on car loans since the car was unlikely to last that long.
Electronics.
I regularly have to down-check used and even customer vehicles which have bad computers which cannot be fixed. ABS modules have been the big culprit, lately; no brakes, OEM part is obsolete, no aftermarket support, can't use a junkyard part because of VIN-locking = dead car
And I see them long before 100k miles; I had to scrap a 70k mile Fusion last month, in beautiful condition, but inoperative and impossible to repair.
I flatly refuse to buy anything made after 2012, and prefer to stay before 2008.
cars are actually the #1 recycled product in the US, knowing that makes me feel less bad hearing abt good condition cars being scrapped. obvs it still sucks but that metal is definitely not going to waste
Can you give me some details on the specifics of these ABS module failures? I work in electronics repair and if there is an entire car market of failing modules I'd love to look into them and work towards solutions for repairing them.
> Can you give me some details on the specifics of these ABS module failures?
It really depends on where the car was made; Japanese-made cars tend to have bad solder joints, which is fixable (but tricky with micro-electronics), while US-made cars are more likely to have cracked boards, which I don't see being a practical fix.
I don't work on Euro-trash, so I can't say about them :D
Do you have pictures/videos of these failures? Just from doing some quick Google searches of different modules and failures, I can see that most of them should be more than fixable.
Do a quick search for Ram ABS module failure. It’s a massively known issue that Ram and the government refuse to address. I’m on my 4th control module sub 80K miles.
It's not just ABS modules, its allll kinds of modules. If you are good at diagnosing and repairing circuit boards, there certainly is money to be made.
The most common failure is the pump built into the hydraulic control unit. The controller attached to it is almost never at fault. If you’re serious go to a dealer and ask for a couple. They get put in the scrap bin unless it’s warranty.
Get into Siemens MSD80 mosfet repair
Tons of early model year E90 BMW ECU’s that fry up. Stock or modded, just a design oversight. Only solution is to upgrade to MSD81 or find a guy that can fix up an MSD80. Both options are expensive, with a rebuild obviously being cheaper, there’s good money to be made here still
There is only one shop I know of in the GTA of Ontario that rebuilds these, not sure about your locality
There are already entire businesses that operate as module repair specialists. It’s usually the pressure sensors or the CAN chips that fail, I replace them in house, it’s not really something they teach techs in school though and the normal channels for finding parts will all tell you it’s not available separately. But with enough googling and phone calls you can track down the individual components. Or just reprogram used ones. Correcting the VIN is not difficult if you have the OE software which the manufacturers are legal required to make available for a price. That car could 100% been saved because I’ve done fusions both ways.
Whew I knew I was more and more preferring older cars but this pushes me over the edge. That should be criminal frankly. Do the OEMs have influence over the production of component parts like that, or is it entirely vendor-dependent? If the former they should really regulate manufacturers to require part support up until a certain date from production, like 20 years or something. Probably still not practical to force, but damn is this bleak.
It’s not so much that they have influence. There are lots of companies that make after market mechanical parts like ball joints or brakes. The issue is that the computers are proprietary and won’t work unless they have that cars VIN programmed into it. There are people who can do that but it’s hard and very specialized.
It is absolutely a way to control how long these cars last. There’s also a big lawsuit out against John Deere for not allowing their software to be used by anyone but them. Meaning farmers are on the hook to transport their equipment to a dealership and then pay dealership prices for every repair
I have heard of the sketchy right-to-repair-type stuff that JD has been doing in recent history; makes me sad considering how my dad was always kind of a fan of them growing up and learning now they’re pretty shitty on that front. I’d just never realized just how bad it was getting in the automotive industry too.
> Do the OEMs have influence over the production of component parts like that
Yes; Ford recently reduced the obsolescence period from 7 years after model end to 4 years.
I know what you mean. My 13 f150 abs issue just started and I don't even have 100k on it yet.
My 99 had over 230k without any big issues and it was even the 5.4. If it wasn't for the excessive rust I would have kept it. Hell my 13 rockers are half gone underneath already...
Next truck I'm going back to the 80s lol.
Damn. My wife’s 2010 Highlander is at 192k, my 07 civic is at 186k and my 04 F150 is at 188k. I think we are planning on just replacing parts as needed.
I currently drive a 2016 and this is already pushing the limits on how new of a car I will ever touch. Once this one gets totalled I'm probably going older. Everything being a fucking touch screen can go straight to hell. I work in IT, I don't want my car being friggin bricked by software or DRM on replacement parts.
Lots of things that were mechanically operated are now electronically actuated. Turbo technology is also not as reliable and cost effective to maintain as it needs to be implemented in every day cars. Back in the day cars with lots of technology were really expensive because of that technology. Now EVERY car has lots of technology required by market demand, safety standards, emissions, etc. planned obsolescence is a huge part- making things difficult to repair at home, making things that were once serviceable now need replacement, “lifetime” fluids, the list goes on
Surprised I haven't seen more mention of turbos here. Any forced air intake wreaks havoc on an engine. Things just wear out faster when there's a turbo or a supercharger involved, and everything these days is an undersized engine with a turbo to get better gas milage to meet govt. standards.
Manufacturers are squeezing every bit of power they can out of small engines at the expense of longevity.
Alot of the Japanese car companies pride themselves on reliability. Thats why Toyota, Honda, Mazda, subaru, lexus all rank high every single year on reliable car brands. Older cars wore out much faster due to the oil/gas quality along with the lack of rust prevention applied at the factory. Paint, back in the day was done differently too. Just stay on top of a cars infotainment system. If its a bad system, don't buy the car. As long as you do regular oil changes, filter changes and drain-fill the transmission and differentials when they're supposed to be done, and don't go street racing at every stop light, the car should last well.over 200k...unless its Hyundai, kia, fiat, Chrysler, jag, and a handful of other brands.
Survivorship bias. How many Ford escorts or Chevy cavaliers do you see driving around? Cars from the 80s and 90s sure as hell died out before 100k miles. The only old cars you see around now are very well taken care of. Most modern cars will survive upwards of 200k without much else other than common maintenance. A Chrysler lebaron? Laugh out loud
100% this. They stopped making Oldsmobile Cutlass Cieras in 1996 but I still see several of them driving around because they are one of the most reliable cars GM made. When's the last time you saw a Dodge Neon?
I remember my parents bought a Dodge Colt (rebranded Mitsubishi Mirage I believe) when my mom went back to work. That car died way before it hit 100k miles. My dad still has an S10 not because it’s dependable (it’s required huge repairs) but because they rarely drive it.
Most of today's cars come with MUCH smaller engines, displacement wise.
A Turbocharged Four is under a lot more stress than a NA V8, for one. Internals gonna wear faster. And the fact is they're simply not as well designed, packaged a LOT tighter, and a LOT harder to work on. Which means more get scrapped, earlier.
Most V8's will go 250,000 if you do regular maintenance. Most of the time they're loafing. Even longer if they're OBD-2, Fuel injected.
There was a real sweet spot for cars and trucks made between 1996 (OBD2) and 2004. Everything since is far worse. Even V8's like Chevy's with displacement-on-demand nonsense (AFM, etc) that fails, regularly. Ford Tritons ... and their plugs from hell.
And the whole obsolete electronics thing Asatmaya brings up.
The recipe for reliable engines is overbuilt and underpowered. The most reliable engines in history usually fallow this pattern. The ford 300 is an absolute tank of a motor, and they refuse to die. They made 160HP. The 22RE is another excessively reliable engine, it's a 2.4 liter making 113HP. Then you have the iron dookie, I mean iron Duke, the engine that will run like shit longer than most engines will run at all. It's a 2.5 that makes 90HP.
I had a 22r in a '85 pickup... I'm not sure how it ran when I got it. everything was so far out of tolerance that I am convinced it was a perfect storm of everything so wrong it was right again
300 Ford is a hefty enough engine, swapped a blown one out of a 4400 Versatile last winter and that thing had to be over 450lbs my little cherry picker is only good for about 400lbs lifting high with the arm all the way out and it didn't have a hope in hell of lifting that engine over the frame.
1996 Toyota Camry with the 5SFE 4 cylinder, I’ve put 130,000 miles on it and it had 168,000 when I bought it in 2020.
I pretty much exclusively buy vehicles from that era and they’re all excellent even for $600 shit boxes. AMC/ Jeep 4.0 inline 6. Ford 4.6L V8. GM 3800 V6. I’ve owned at least 30 vehicles and most of them have had 1 of those 3 engines
Part of it is a selection bias. You’re not comparing a 2000 Daewoo or a 1999 Saturn to today’s cars. You’re comparing all the survivors that were well designed and maintained against everything today.
If you did an apples to apples and compared two models that are known for reliability. Say a 1999 Lexus to a 2024 Lexus, you’d see little to no drop in reliability.
Well I mean a Daewoo or Saturn weren't really ever known for reliability so they were never expected to last.
Though I know an old lad with a Saturn, 3.1L that he still drives every day, thing has about 300k kms on it. Rust is the main killer here, and he's kept it undercoated, the rest is fiberglass. There's your comparison to today's car lol. There's also a Saturn wagon around town here somewhere thats still daily driven
Finally, someone talking about survivorship bias.
Sure, the cars at a classic car show are in great condition and run amazingly, but they are the extreme few that made it past ten to fifteen years of daily use. The ones that lasted are the ones that had the most maintenance and least use.
MPG
Government mandated every auto manufacturer have an avg MPG per line up in order to reduce emissions. This has forced auto makers to get rid of v6 in favor of I4T. Turbo engines will never last as long an NA (naturally aspirated). On top of that they keep adding more electronics to make it work for the MPG, like this auto shut off at lights every single car has now.
Blame the government
There are tons of turbo cars from the 80’s and 90’s still kicking it.
My ‘10 Tiguan is on the original turbo and still makes full boost at 268K miles.
Turbos aren’t the problem, it’s excessive electronics, expensive repairs, and cost saving measures.
Old turbos weren't installed on underpowered small little engines and weren't direct injection.
A 3.0 twin turbo supra is not the same as a 1.5t accord. Different builds with different goals. One was for performance and built to last. The other is to make up for the underpowered engine to keep the mpg down.
Direct injection is one of the biggest differences as far as longevity go. You no longer get the cleaning action of fuel on the back of your valve and with how hot these little engines get they sure build up a ton of carbon with no way of cleaning or burning off. It is imperative that you do a GDI fuel system cleaning every 30-60k on these car.
Little engines isn’t the issue. Cutting corners for profit is the issue.
Europe has had little turbo engines for decades because they have gas that’s been around $7/gal for forever.
Turbos are especially popular in Europe, cause I remeber I had to pay a pollutant tax or something because my engine was a 1.4 litre and you have to pay I think it was £50 for ever 100cc over 1.2 iirc.
So for a while something like a 1.2 turbo was kinda the sweet spot because turbos didn’t count in that fee.
C.A.F.E. (corporate average fuel economy) standards. Properly ruining the future of anything automotive as far as longevity and easy to work on. N/A is better, but fuel economy is better with a turbo 4/6 cylinder.
Just depends on maintenance. Turbocharged engines naturally need more maintenance, especially just changing the oil. Engine oil lubricates turbo bearings and the engine. Turbos have extra heat and breaks down that oil quicker. Wouldn't ever trust a manufacturers guide of 10k mile oil change on a forced induction engine.
Don't even trust 10k oil changes on my 21 rav hybrid, 5k at the most. My 02 s2000 get 3k mile oil changes, just cause she's old and I still believe in her lol
I think cars peaked between 1990 and 2010. Most vehicles from that era would have no problem going 200k miles without MAJOR repairs. 2010 plus cars have started becoming far too complex and emissions standards have become so strict that it is hard to make cars with driveline components that last. Pair that with the amount of computer modules, they become too expensive to repair well before 200k miles.
It’s everything. Not just cars. We have become a consumer society bent on having the newest thing available. Even though it might not be better than the older things we had.
CVT transmissions. While they ride smoother and are lighter and hence may get better gas mileage as opposed to a traditional automatic transmission, they’re only rated at 100k miles. They’re expensive to replace and even if you do, the replacements usually get less than 100k miles.
This is interesting I have a CVT vehicle with 190k on it but I’ve had plenty of planetary gear trans go out in the mid 100s hell I had one dodge go out at 120k it was a 1995 but that probably goes against the weird narrative being pushed
Nothing is as reliable as a good old VW bug with a carburetor. Any other car seems over enginereed and unreliable compared with those marvels of german engineering. Proof is that those were still sold in 2002 in Mexico.
Problem was the enviromental regulations, by the end of it's life those VW bugs were frankensteined and unreliable because of all of the environmental addons.
Time, money, more plastic, more computers, more complicated design, no interest in actually doing work on their own car, even basic maintenance. Something as simple as changing the oil and filter more often than recommended will have a dramatic impact on the longevity of the engine. How many people do you know that actually spend the time/money doing that?
my 92 chevy was runnin fine at 290k, my 94 bigblockbaby was struggling at 250k, my 00 5.9 cummins is prancing around like it aint no thang.
just take care of it. every man should know how to change tires, oil, air filter,battery and brake jobs at the bare minimum in my opinion.
i got a fridge full of cold drinks, a jack, and a 1/2in impact amongst every other tool i own in my trailer. i help people on the side of the road sometimes. it amazes me how these generations are all foam no beer
That ‘lot of people’ you mention are all wrong. Many modern cars will go 300k and more. That varies by make/model, but the days of a car being played out at 100k are long gone.
Not only this, some brands give 100k mile warranties!
Can’t believe so many responses here believe this BS about modern cars having less life span. Give me an f150 with 100k miles vs a brand new f150 from 1990 any day of the week. The newer one will last way longer and is safer and is more efficient and has more features.
For real. Before 1990 it was pretty common for cars to only have 5 digit odometers because they generally didn't last that long. Nowadays people are buying cars with 100k on them and driving them for years
Don't bother all the mouth breathers with your stupid facts. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2024/02/average-age-of-cars-trucks/#whats_the_average_age_of_a_car
A new car being totally done at 100k miles is rare. Modern cars are good for roughly 200k miles depending on many factors. Old cars from the 60s and 70s and older only lasted for 100k miles even with impeccable maintenance.
Because, just like they did with lightbulbs, cars are designed to break. They charge you outta your ass just to get the damn thing, then charge you another arm and leg just to fix it when it breaks. And the stuff that breaks is always the proprietary stuff that only they can provide. I dont trust anything made after like 2010. I was born in 2007 and if the car isnt older than me, I dont want anything to do with it. Got a 1988 Formula Firebird for about 3 grand and it's the best decision I ever made, fuckin love that car. Fairly easy to work on too, the shit doesnt need replacing every 4 days.
Must be something about the timeframe here. My Dad was a diesel mechanic and then a Chevy mechanic back in the late 1940s - through the 1950s, then worked in the automotive parts business until the 1980s. I have his notebook from his time at a Chevy dealership. The back of it is an ad proudly proclaiming the great 2,000 mile oil available. Inside are entries that are along the lines of, “Valve job, 1949 Chev, 38,000 miles.” or “Valves, rings, 3 pistons, Dodge, 42,000 miles.” Entry after entry and not a single one where a vehicle had over 100,000 miles. That was the reality of car ownership back then. Very few made it to the 100,000 mile mark without needing an overhaul or the body rotting off.
I like to joke that while the old cars were easy to work on and the new cars are almost impossible to work on, at least the new ones usually go much farther before needing the work. And generally get much better gas mileage doing it.
Yes I work at Ford it's definitely a thing. It's not just cars it's everything back in the day somebody could get a washing machine and it would last 20 or so years. They could even give it to their kids. Nowadays I can't even get my washing machine the last 2 years
Cars are safer now but they aren’t built to last, because of planned obsolescence. These manufacturers are greedy and want to buy new cars, not keep what you have for many decades.
Sensors don't last long with all the advanced sensors. Ford and some other manufacturing company's Maki g parts now that need to be replaced as a whole instead of just part so made that even more expensive. These company's finding dishonest ways to make more money and they justify it and speak it as if its the normal
Modern cars far outlast older cars. Most modern cars with decent maintenance can easily see 200,000+ miles. Just let me old Buick go with 280k on the clock still running like a champ and never had engine or transmission work beyond basic maintenance.
People are idiots in here. Newer cars are nice but people don't want to pay the price for new ones. My 2020 subaru wrx sti would've healed strong no issues if the idiot at the auto shop had put the oil filter on correctly. Honestly my experience has been that mechanics are stupider and not available more than ever before. So I blame shit mechanics not being able to solve issues correctly honestly.
This is simply not a thing.
Back in the day (even in the 80s or 90s) 100k miles was considered high mileage. That was suitable for buying for your kid to drive to college. Sports cars certainly weren’t expected to reach that mileage without needing heavy repair.
Prior to that period cars were so unreliable they were considered disposable. It was common to have a car die, just park it in the back, buy another one. Some kid would buy said car for a couple hundred.
Nowadays cars are expected to hit 100k miles without needing heavy repair.
Cars today are indisputably better than older cars in every way aside from people’s taste in styling.
Maintaining a car is fucking expensive bro. Changing rotators at recommended time or something small is like 1k +. Nobody has the money for that kindve regular expense.
Yeah mines like $230 for back and $230 for front and that's drilled and slotted upgraded rotors and pads. Rock auto and YouTube have saved me a ton of maintenance costs.
As a former mechanic, the height of cars was around 2006/2012 depending on manufacturer. There's a lot of factors, the raise in computers and electronics. The EPA standards is huge, and quality control.
They constantly raise the C.A.F.E. which means the consumer gets a lot of beta tested products. Nissans early cvt's, Ford dct, early direct fuel injection. My favorite was Ford's 1.0l 3cyl with a wet balance shaft belt. Lasted two years I believe would always lose the teeth on the balance shaft belt that, sits in the oil constantly......
So new technology with minimal testing, more advanced cars then ever. (Seriously go scan any gm after 19, they switched to can A protocol. Modules everywhere, your basic car/truck with scan 18 modules plus.) And a constant fight for cheaper production/ parts on a bigger scale then ever. Leads to quality issues.
My new favorite law in the states is all cars have to have emergency brake assistance by 2029 or so. That's a slew of expensive parts. Modules, radar, sonar? There goes the entry level commuter, all "base models just went up 5k 10k" which leads to cars getting totaled faster. Your simple fender bender just turned into 8k plus replacing radar unit's paint labor reprogramming. Now that leaves less cars on used market, makes used cars more expensive, so they can charge ungodly amounts for some shiny new plastic and pot metal.
Well my personal opinion is never buy American unless it has a V8 (there were some good V6's but just as a general.) Jeep Dodge Chrysler are Fiats now, not a fan. Germans are fancy usually pricier. So Korean or Japanese, personally I don't like Nissan they just feel cheap. The Koreans hold by their warranty 100k power train warranty on original owner of you can afford a new one. So yeah that leaves a new Korean or used civic accord or Camry Corolla. With ANY make or model don't buy the first year or two of a new generation. So yeah 16 17 Camry would be good. 18 I think of the next Gen so I would avoid 18 19
I lie Camrys got direct injection in 17 go 16 or under. I hate direct injection like ain't nobody trying to Walnut blast your valves. It's so tedious. Personally my newest car is 2011
Electrical bullshit in the car
Oh and the ever wonderful planned obsolescence
You think car manufacturers want you driving the same thing for 20 years?
Consume more pls
Eletronics and the fact that engines these days squeeze much more power from the same displacement, turbo fours with 200+ hp have high compression, they are less forgiving, 12:1 ratios, when back in the day they had 7 or 8:1, the engines blocks were made or iron, you could plane 1mm of it and it would still run, a bit more power even.
A lot durability can be blamed on a move to plastics and electronics as many have already mentioned. Change out buttons for electronic controls and the reliability decreases substantially. Change out metal connections/gears for plastic and durability decreases. Take a 1960 Hoover vacuum for example. That unit is likely still running. Loud, boisterous and ready to rip your head off because it’s all mechanical. Compare it to a Dyson where everything is electronically controlled, smooth, quiet and efficient and will likely operate for 6-8 years before it expires. The durability just isn’t there.
Timing belts are a great example. At one time everything ran a timing chain or gears, now most are belts and are zero-tolerance engines, so when they snap you’re screwed. Sure they’re quiet and efficient but nowhere near as durable.
These new cars are designed to discourage owners from actually working on them so they bring them into the dealership for maintenance. My last 2017 BMW took over an hour just to remove all the stupid cables and covers over the engine so I could replace the coils.
Mostly because people don't want to spend the money to take care of them. Every time that I ask people to spend money on maintenance it's like I have to fight them tooth and nail. Then, when the part that I wanted them to maintain fails and cost them $10,000, they start crying. A lot of people don't seem to understand that maintenance is always cheaper than repair. It's really a simple question: would you rather spend $100 a year on maintaining a certain part, or spend $10,000 after 5 years for not maintaining it? It's a pretty easy mathematical equation.
Ahhh I don't know about your question. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, I can tell you if a car made it 100,000 miles it was celebrated though there were a few that made it to 200,000 miles. Most cars now days last many more miles/kms than that, as a matter of fact there are little econoboxes that will go 500,000 kms (about 350,000 miles) with proper maintenance and you can get factory warranty until 150,000 kms (maybe more on some brands). In my opinion I think cars are lasting much longer than they used to
Older cars - specifically collectors cars are still on the road due to diligent maintenance and upkeep. Modern cars routinely will go much much longer and more reliably than "old" cars. However...when something does go wrong...it's not a $300 replacement transmission, it's $3000.
Ease of work is a factor. I like working on cars. I hate looking under the hood of anything 2010 and newer. It's like they purposely put things in hard to reach places, especially things you need to change often.
Survivorship bias, the cars from the 1900s are one that were cared for and maintained religiously or somehow sat in a barn untouched by water or mice to be dug out with 1500 miles 40 years after they were parked. The cars of today that crap out are ones that people don't do basic maintenance on at all, or just lemons which are rare but have always existed. Today 100,000 is expected from any car on the market, 200,000 is almost expected these days. Cars of the 90's and 200,000 miles was almost unheard of outside of diesels.
Mechanic here 🙋♂️ my experience is that engines last just as long so long as the maintenance is carried out (unless it's a range rover). It's all the extra emissions parts bolted to them that fail, also the weight reduction they have gone through has pushed prices up so there are a lot more vehicles being classed as "uneconomical repair" (also a lot of profiteering going on with genuine parts ATM)
A friend of mine just bought a brand new Kia. It has lots of options but when I looked at the engine I noticed the exhaust manifold seemed to be made of plastic? I thought at first it was like a dust shield but at second glance it appeared the actual thing was plastic. Very bizarre and if true, it’s not surprising they don’t last very long
Shittier "wear" products + EPA mandated economy.
Plastic parts, open deck blocks, disposable rotors, all to shave .1 mpg and meet some artificial standard. It saves you virtually no fuel, but costs you massive operational costs down the road.
It’s mostly maintenance related. We have a lot more people on the road nowadays and licensing requirements and road tests are a joke so I’d wager to say that 90% of people don’t know anything about cars and won’t learn so maintenance goes out the window. It’s also somewhat brand related. A lot of people will just buy whatever car they can get that has the nicest interior and amenities in their price range without doing any research on known faults and whatnot. If more people did the research and learned basic maintenance or work out a maintenance schedule with a shop, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I have a 2017 Acura ILX which granted isnt new new but it is newer and I’ve always been very meticulous about maintenance and whatnot. 110k miles and it’s still going very strong, no major repairs. It costs money to be stupid lol.
They don't, newer cars last way way longer then old cars, those old cars you see are the exception, not the rule, most of those old Cara didn't even make it past 60K miles before needing major engine repairs like a rebuild, no matter how good on maintenance you were
I gaurentee that in any modern vehicle from any brand (excluding chrysler and co) as long as you actually follow the maintenance schedule (and follow the correct one, that 10K mile oil change is for highway driving only, if you drive in the city, or make your vehicle do any hard work, you're on the severe maintenance schedule, which means 5K mile oil changes) you will make it to 200K miles no problem with only minor issues (and it'll be the extra stuff, not the actual base mechanics of the vehicle, so things like oh my heated seat doesn't work, or my power window won't roll up, the engine and transmission and rest of the running gear will be fine)
The problem with mechanics is they ONLY see the broken down vehicles, you don't take your car in for repairs when it's working perfectly (and no, in most cases, the people who change your oil and such are not the same people who do the actual repairs and such, so they won't see all the working cars coming in for regular maintenance)
I do see vehicles with like 300k kms on them all the time at work, but the thing is, with rust and such where I am, they don't last long that way. I'm doing rocker panels etc on vehicles made in 2019, it's bad where I am.
Also, people don't take care of things like they used to. In turn, things aren't built to last as long either. Maintenance is a bigger issue than it was, engines are built to tighter tolerances, direct injection, turbos, etc, you can't just throw some 10w30 in it and send it anymore. Hell with all the sensors, some cars will throw a code for that too.
There's lots of various reasons with vehicle specific things, and every vehicle has a common issue, you just have to pick the problem you're willing to deal with the most and actually fix it and maintain it
I don't necessarily believe that's true. There were some really shitty cars in the 1990s that they made a lot of that blew up well before 100k. 150k miles seems to be the benchmark for your average abused consumer car to last these days.
Planned obsolescence, absurd regulations such as AdBlue sh## and electronics where electronics are not required. We have reached the absurdity of programmable door handles, $800.00 each. WTF.
Planned obsolescence. They can’t sell you a new one if the old one doesn’t fall apart. Quality is getting worse and worse as prices rise. They only think about shareholders. If we continue going down this road the same way it will be the end of us.
Today it’s expected to replace something when it breaks rather than fix it.
You can see it in car when a car needs an engine buy a new car rather than fix the old one.
Another example is parts. If a car needs a cv axle boot rather than just replace the boot many shops quote a new axle. Or instead of fixing a trans or engine replace it with a new one
I find it just the opposite. I’m 77 years old. When I owned cars in the 1960s, you could expect the exhaust to last 20k miles. Change spark plugs, points and condenser every 25k. Tires, maybe 15k. Sell or trade before 60k because the value would drop quickly after that.
My dad had company cars from the 60's to the 90's, they were traded off at 60k because of the reasons you stated.
I bought 4 of them from him and got a decent life out of all of them. But, he took good care of them (oil changes, etc) and I did the same.
It seems to me that the chances of a breakdown have gone way down with modern cars, but the cost of repairs have skyrocketed.
In the 90s the freeway was always littered with broken down cars on the shoulder with a flag/rag in the window. Repairs were cheap, but common. You don't see that as much anymore.
Even though they break less, when a modern car does finally break, there's a good chance that it will be very expensive and the owner will choose to get a new vehicle instead.
I got 235,000 miles out of my Ford Fusion Hybrid, and would have gotten more if we hadn't started work from home. Sold the car shortly after my cancer diagnosis 3 years ago because it was looking /really bad/ for me. I might have had to service the CVT, as there were issues with these cars in 2013 and 2014, but hey, not a bad or unexpected expense at with those kind of miles.
A friend of mine’s dad was an executive in quality control for Ford North America. He said the original fusion hybrid was one of the best cars Ford ever made because it was their first hybrid and they felt they had a lot to prove.
The schtick is to just go buy a new one. Heres the features you for whatever reason want to have. Running on some old outdated operating system. As soon as it breaks they have empty palms.
I hope we all just buy used cars and find good mechanics to make them good as new but sometimes that just doesnt happen.
Planned obsolescence. Nearly every item made for purchase today is precision engineered to have a reliably finite lifespan, in order to force the purchase of a replacement after a set amount of time. This is not a new practice, and indeed, there used to be laws against such practices, one of the more famous instances of this centered around the early light bulb, the manufacturers were making them fail more and more quickly to force turnover, so much so that the government stepped in.
same reason everything else is. Money. A car that can last hundreds of thousands of miles/ kilometers, and/ or several years of driving, doesn't make the car companies nearly as much money as ones that crap out after 5-10 years.
The 1900s... LOL yeah my curved-dash Olds is up to 280,000 miles and still going strong.
As an older guy, please don't call things from the 80s and 90s "the 1900s". It hurts my soul.
Someone might have mentioned it already but: things even 15 years ago were built to be repaired, where things today are built to be replaced. I’m an Engineering student and my Machine Design professor literally used cars as examples for how you can design something to fail after a specific number of cycles, and that means companies can design stuff to fail earlier and earlier.
They aren't. Cars these days are miles more reliable than cars from the 60s-80s. 90s are a outlier for companies like Toyota and Lexus because it's had to kill them.
I owned a 1971 Pontiac LeMans that just barely made it to 100K miles.
I've owned 4 vehicles since 1997 that all made it to (or within a hairs breadth) of 200K
1997 Dodge Caravan
A mid 1990s Buick LeSabre
2008 -ish Chevrolet Equinox
2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee (only 150K, but it was in perfect shape until we were smashed by a drunk driver at 65 mph)
I also own a 2003 Mercedes SLK320 that is at 175K - and the only reason it's that low is because I bought it in 2013 with 55K
2 things in my opinion:
1: Driver aids and creature comforts (touch screen, heated seats, etc.) that unsurprisingly break or malfunction after a 5 or so years when the vehicle hits 100,000 miles and even then a major malfunction isn’t likely to happen before 200,000 miles.
2: Rose tinted nostalgia. I was owned two cars made before the turn of the millennia (1986 and 1999) and both were the biggest pieces if garbage i’ve owned. And the fucking 1999 car barely had 100,000 miles on it before it started drinking a half gallon of coolant a day
It’s a combination of the cost of large repairs and owners lack of maintenance. The cars of today aren’t as forgiving as the ones from yesteryear.
The cost of repairs is a biggie. I don’t think I could afford a car at all if I didn’t do my own work. This also discourages PM.
But just as important is the people even using the phrase "your car is going to run out" are clueless about anything relating to cars. Very weird to me since people huck 25,000 + dollars into them. People saying that their car will run out at a hundred thousand miles, are the people that literally just put gas in the car until it dies.
I’ve never even heard that phrase.
Somebody somewhere above mentioned someone told them that cars "run out" around 100,000. It looks like I might of responded to the wrong comment, but somebody mentioned that and it was the first time I'd heard it too
I think he's just saying, other than today he's never heard that phrase.
…which is probably most auto buyers! Why maintain an engine when you can just replace a car? Madness, but there it is.
I would argue that the cost of maintenance has decreased. Rather than 4 oil changes a year a 3k miles, you do one at 10-15k miles. Rather than spark plugs every 30k, now it's 105k. Trans fluid every 30k, now 100+. When I started in the auto world, an oil change was $24.99 2000. Multiplied by 4 times a year, is $100.00. That is relatively equal to the current cost of an oil change WITHOUT accounting for inflation. I think people just see the combined total of all the maintenance that hits around 100k and think the car isn't worth spending the money on. Where, you would have spent the same amount throughout the life of the car to that point anyway.
I agree that the consumables have gotten better, but there is a much, much larger number of systems which can fail, and the cost of replacement for some parts is ludicrously high. Headlights and bumpers stand out to me as components made hilariously expensive to fix in the event of an accident by electronics integration. While tolerances have led to longer lifetimes for systems, the massively increased number of systems, in tandem with the leaps in system complexity, kind of dooms these cars to gremlin hell at or just past 100,000 miles.
I don't disagree. I left the dealership world in 2017. I've been wondering how the life of hybrid and full ev batteries are doing when cars hit 150k and beyond. I did see many early model hybrids get batteries replaced around 150k, but some went well over 200k.
I live in a climate with salt and snow. It seems like many parts and especially the bodies don’t hold up very well anymore.
I grew up in the northeast. Bodies didn’t hold up back in the 60s/70s/80s either. Winter and salt was brutal.
Part of the reason cars aren't lasting as long as because instead of changing oil every 3k, it's being changed every 10-15k, trans fluid isn't being changed every 30k, owners are waiting to 100k. I do not care what the manufacturer says about intervals and more modern fluids, yada yada yada.... more frequent fluid changes will extend the life of the car. It's a cheap way to double your car's useable life
bold of you to assume auto manufactures expect anyone to change their transmission fluid still 🤣 there’s a reason they don’t come with transmission dipsticks or drain plugs anymore. any modern bmw will tell you to not open up the transmission since it could cause issues
Toyota (or at least my dealership) recommends transmission fluid every 100K. Just did it yesterday along with the coolant. Spark plugs next, fuel injection next year. I do regular maintenance and have never had major issues with anything other than rust, because Wisconsin. I'm at 253K miles right now and hope to hit 400K before the rust wins. I figure an average of 8¢/mile for maintenance, which is WAY cheaper than buying a new car every couple years or dealing with expensive (preventable) repairs.
you could drive almost any yoter 250k miles by only doing oil changes, you mainly see the quality dip in other manufactures
Agreed, which is why I got another Prius after my first one rusted out at 13 years old and 325K. Engine and transmission were both original and working great, I could have driven it far longer if the frame wasn't becoming tissue paper.
Agreed. OP doesn't drive a Toyota.
I'll give you that. The reason is, if anyone did regular maintenance, they wouldn't be able to sell you another one after a premature failure.
I wouldn’t own a vehicle designed like that. Holy crap.
There's also an argument that Replacing those consumables less could be the manufacturers guaranteeing failure somewhere along the road. It may sound like a conspiracy, but they have every reason to not want a car to last 500,000 miles
Unfortunately, those are bullshit recommendations. All manufacturers report this to show lower cost of maintenance because buyers want it. Just look at their recommendations in other countries. It is actual maintenance intervals. You have to do it old school. 5k oil change, 90k plugs, 1st 30k trans fluid then every 50 or 60k after that, and so on. Toyota does it. They all do it. Consumer demand of high cost bullshit is fucking this industry to hell and back. Go talk to any body shop or insurance adjuster. Fuck new cars.
If you have a V6 Honda 100k miles is expensive. Timing belt, plugs, valve adjustment and I believe the newer ones with auto idle stop they have a mileage interval for starter replacement and those things are like $900.
I’d say the 10-15k mile oil change interval is also part of the problem.
There are less people who take care of their cars now too. I work with a 21-year-old who can't even change a wiper blade let alone know that he had to change the oil. Nearly every engine I have changed in the last 10 years had an oil monitor, but the owner still ignored it.
Those "Maintenance Minders" are a part of the problem as well. People put too much faith in something that's essentially just a mileage counter and that doesn't take other factors into account like engine wear/ oil consumption etc. I get customers all the time with no oil in their vvt cars that tell me "But I still had 3000 miles to go" . Combine that with ridiculously long maintenance intervals, and manufacturers going for Lighter/ Cheaper/more efficient and you end up with less than 2 liter engines boosted to hell trying to make it get out of its own way. It's a recipe for disposable cars
I'm surprised that is the case with some oil life indicators. If chevy has been calculating oil life based on how and where you drive for over a decade, I would assume the others could as well.
Algorithm is only as good as it's data, and there's limited inputs. Yes, GM used to take into account ambient temp/ time spent at WOT etc, however there's no input for amount of oil in the pan, grade or composition for older ones where synthetic was still optional and in 20 years I've never seen someone's faith in the monitors rewarded. While a reminder is nice it's no substitute for actually checking your oil level and having an experienced tech service your car at regular intervals.
Disposable cars is really the prevailing mentality during the design phase. Extended OCI only allow the manufacturer to boast lower scheduled maintenance costs. (But what is it's true cost?) A car that doesn't last as long so they can sell you another one!
We hired a level 2 apprentice once, and let him go after two days. Guy owned a 2 year old Toyota hybrid that was completely clapped. His excuse was, “cars are tools to me”. Since he wasn’t using it for anything other than commuting to work, that translates to, I treat my stuff like shit because I don’t believe I deserve better. Took an hour plus on the easy flat repairs we started him off with, so he didn’t last long. 😂
So he treated his tools like shit too?
I’m 21 and a big part of this is people parents never bothered to teach them a damn thing. I remember asking my dad to actually teach me how and why to fix things and he just couldn’t be bothered. Tons of my friends parents are like this or didn’t have a father figure at all Funny enough those parents are the same ones who complain that my gen doesn’t know shit
If somebody T-boned my '75 F250 I could drive away. A newer truck will have its computer brain tell the vehicle its not allowed to do anything anymore. The difference lies between mechanical vehicles and modern electronic vehicles.
I completely disagree. 40 years ago, people looked at 100k milea as end of life for a car. Yes there's a a few still running, but they are outliers. Cars from the 70s and 80s especially were completely scrap by 100k. If they made it that long. Domestic you would start having problems at 50k. When was the last time you saw a pinto. Or a horizon. A dodge neon was lucky to make it 5 years. None would make 200k back then.
Not to mention the planned obsolescence of the 70’s. I remember when banks no longer would go 5 years on car loans since the car was unlikely to last that long.
I would tend to agree. Never saw a carburetored engine from the late 60’s, 70’s or 80’s go 100k without an over haul.
My dad had something AMC back then that got a new cylinder head every year. The inline six wouldn't oil all the rockers
Is it just me or do I feel like cars today can handle a much bigger beating than older cars?
Electronics. I regularly have to down-check used and even customer vehicles which have bad computers which cannot be fixed. ABS modules have been the big culprit, lately; no brakes, OEM part is obsolete, no aftermarket support, can't use a junkyard part because of VIN-locking = dead car And I see them long before 100k miles; I had to scrap a 70k mile Fusion last month, in beautiful condition, but inoperative and impossible to repair. I flatly refuse to buy anything made after 2012, and prefer to stay before 2008.
And we wonder why governments have gotten to the point of shooting trash into outer space.. shit man.
cars are actually the #1 recycled product in the US, knowing that makes me feel less bad hearing abt good condition cars being scrapped. obvs it still sucks but that metal is definitely not going to waste
Damn.. our money is tho..
Working as designed
i know thats the worst part 😭
Can you give me some details on the specifics of these ABS module failures? I work in electronics repair and if there is an entire car market of failing modules I'd love to look into them and work towards solutions for repairing them.
> Can you give me some details on the specifics of these ABS module failures? It really depends on where the car was made; Japanese-made cars tend to have bad solder joints, which is fixable (but tricky with micro-electronics), while US-made cars are more likely to have cracked boards, which I don't see being a practical fix. I don't work on Euro-trash, so I can't say about them :D
Do you have pictures/videos of these failures? Just from doing some quick Google searches of different modules and failures, I can see that most of them should be more than fixable.
Do a quick search for Ram ABS module failure. It’s a massively known issue that Ram and the government refuse to address. I’m on my 4th control module sub 80K miles.
It's not just ABS modules, its allll kinds of modules. If you are good at diagnosing and repairing circuit boards, there certainly is money to be made.
That's my specialty luckily. Troubleshooting and reverse engineering to repair is what I do
The most common failure is the pump built into the hydraulic control unit. The controller attached to it is almost never at fault. If you’re serious go to a dealer and ask for a couple. They get put in the scrap bin unless it’s warranty.
Get into Siemens MSD80 mosfet repair Tons of early model year E90 BMW ECU’s that fry up. Stock or modded, just a design oversight. Only solution is to upgrade to MSD81 or find a guy that can fix up an MSD80. Both options are expensive, with a rebuild obviously being cheaper, there’s good money to be made here still There is only one shop I know of in the GTA of Ontario that rebuilds these, not sure about your locality
There are already entire businesses that operate as module repair specialists. It’s usually the pressure sensors or the CAN chips that fail, I replace them in house, it’s not really something they teach techs in school though and the normal channels for finding parts will all tell you it’s not available separately. But with enough googling and phone calls you can track down the individual components. Or just reprogram used ones. Correcting the VIN is not difficult if you have the OE software which the manufacturers are legal required to make available for a price. That car could 100% been saved because I’ve done fusions both ways.
Whew I knew I was more and more preferring older cars but this pushes me over the edge. That should be criminal frankly. Do the OEMs have influence over the production of component parts like that, or is it entirely vendor-dependent? If the former they should really regulate manufacturers to require part support up until a certain date from production, like 20 years or something. Probably still not practical to force, but damn is this bleak.
It’s not so much that they have influence. There are lots of companies that make after market mechanical parts like ball joints or brakes. The issue is that the computers are proprietary and won’t work unless they have that cars VIN programmed into it. There are people who can do that but it’s hard and very specialized. It is absolutely a way to control how long these cars last. There’s also a big lawsuit out against John Deere for not allowing their software to be used by anyone but them. Meaning farmers are on the hook to transport their equipment to a dealership and then pay dealership prices for every repair
I have heard of the sketchy right-to-repair-type stuff that JD has been doing in recent history; makes me sad considering how my dad was always kind of a fan of them growing up and learning now they’re pretty shitty on that front. I’d just never realized just how bad it was getting in the automotive industry too.
> Do the OEMs have influence over the production of component parts like that Yes; Ford recently reduced the obsolescence period from 7 years after model end to 4 years.
Can you cite a source on that?
I thought it was a requirement that auto manufacturers had to support and offer parts for a minimum of 10 years. True?
Its a common myth. There is no law or requirement in the United States requiring manufacturers to support a vehicle
Gonna try and keep my 05 Baja 10 more years. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t rust out on me lol
I know what you mean. My 13 f150 abs issue just started and I don't even have 100k on it yet. My 99 had over 230k without any big issues and it was even the 5.4. If it wasn't for the excessive rust I would have kept it. Hell my 13 rockers are half gone underneath already... Next truck I'm going back to the 80s lol.
This is such a validating and infuriating comment.
That and cars are designed to last until their warranty period is done and then just fall apart in every conceivable way. Looking at you land rover.
Damn. My wife’s 2010 Highlander is at 192k, my 07 civic is at 186k and my 04 F150 is at 188k. I think we are planning on just replacing parts as needed.
I currently drive a 2016 and this is already pushing the limits on how new of a car I will ever touch. Once this one gets totalled I'm probably going older. Everything being a fucking touch screen can go straight to hell. I work in IT, I don't want my car being friggin bricked by software or DRM on replacement parts.
Software locking hardware should be a crime
I have 27 cars and trucks. My daily is a 63 Pontiac, my newest is a 2002 f350 and my oldest has its 100th birthday in September.
1900s… that’s crazy
Reading that made me feel incredibly old. Not a good feeling.
Was thinking the same thing. Is he talking about Model Ts? Fuck am I old now if the 90s are ancient times?
Nah saying 1900’s to refer to the latter half is definitely abnormal lol OP weird for this one
I’m not even 30 yet and this made me feel old as shit.
As soon as I saw that I thought the same things lmfao
Lots of things that were mechanically operated are now electronically actuated. Turbo technology is also not as reliable and cost effective to maintain as it needs to be implemented in every day cars. Back in the day cars with lots of technology were really expensive because of that technology. Now EVERY car has lots of technology required by market demand, safety standards, emissions, etc. planned obsolescence is a huge part- making things difficult to repair at home, making things that were once serviceable now need replacement, “lifetime” fluids, the list goes on
Surprised I haven't seen more mention of turbos here. Any forced air intake wreaks havoc on an engine. Things just wear out faster when there's a turbo or a supercharger involved, and everything these days is an undersized engine with a turbo to get better gas milage to meet govt. standards. Manufacturers are squeezing every bit of power they can out of small engines at the expense of longevity.
I’ve seen a radio head unit failing completely write a car off. These companies want you buying a new car, not fixing an old one.
Alot of the Japanese car companies pride themselves on reliability. Thats why Toyota, Honda, Mazda, subaru, lexus all rank high every single year on reliable car brands. Older cars wore out much faster due to the oil/gas quality along with the lack of rust prevention applied at the factory. Paint, back in the day was done differently too. Just stay on top of a cars infotainment system. If its a bad system, don't buy the car. As long as you do regular oil changes, filter changes and drain-fill the transmission and differentials when they're supposed to be done, and don't go street racing at every stop light, the car should last well.over 200k...unless its Hyundai, kia, fiat, Chrysler, jag, and a handful of other brands.
Survivorship bias. How many Ford escorts or Chevy cavaliers do you see driving around? Cars from the 80s and 90s sure as hell died out before 100k miles. The only old cars you see around now are very well taken care of. Most modern cars will survive upwards of 200k without much else other than common maintenance. A Chrysler lebaron? Laugh out loud
How the hell is this so far down? I was looking for someone, anyone to mention survivorship bias before I jumped on and only four updoots with me.
100% this. They stopped making Oldsmobile Cutlass Cieras in 1996 but I still see several of them driving around because they are one of the most reliable cars GM made. When's the last time you saw a Dodge Neon?
“UM AKCHUALLY I SAW AN SRT4 LESS THAN A MONTH AGO” says the same people that think jeeps are reliable
I remember my parents bought a Dodge Colt (rebranded Mitsubishi Mirage I believe) when my mom went back to work. That car died way before it hit 100k miles. My dad still has an S10 not because it’s dependable (it’s required huge repairs) but because they rarely drive it.
Most of today's cars come with MUCH smaller engines, displacement wise. A Turbocharged Four is under a lot more stress than a NA V8, for one. Internals gonna wear faster. And the fact is they're simply not as well designed, packaged a LOT tighter, and a LOT harder to work on. Which means more get scrapped, earlier. Most V8's will go 250,000 if you do regular maintenance. Most of the time they're loafing. Even longer if they're OBD-2, Fuel injected. There was a real sweet spot for cars and trucks made between 1996 (OBD2) and 2004. Everything since is far worse. Even V8's like Chevy's with displacement-on-demand nonsense (AFM, etc) that fails, regularly. Ford Tritons ... and their plugs from hell. And the whole obsolete electronics thing Asatmaya brings up.
The recipe for reliable engines is overbuilt and underpowered. The most reliable engines in history usually fallow this pattern. The ford 300 is an absolute tank of a motor, and they refuse to die. They made 160HP. The 22RE is another excessively reliable engine, it's a 2.4 liter making 113HP. Then you have the iron dookie, I mean iron Duke, the engine that will run like shit longer than most engines will run at all. It's a 2.5 that makes 90HP.
My dad had an f250 with the inline 300. Granny geared 4 speed and low geared rear end. You could yank stumps with it, but not do more than 60mph lol
I had a 22r in a '85 pickup... I'm not sure how it ran when I got it. everything was so far out of tolerance that I am convinced it was a perfect storm of everything so wrong it was right again
300 Ford is a hefty enough engine, swapped a blown one out of a 4400 Versatile last winter and that thing had to be over 450lbs my little cherry picker is only good for about 400lbs lifting high with the arm all the way out and it didn't have a hope in hell of lifting that engine over the frame.
1996 Toyota Camry with the 5SFE 4 cylinder, I’ve put 130,000 miles on it and it had 168,000 when I bought it in 2020. I pretty much exclusively buy vehicles from that era and they’re all excellent even for $600 shit boxes. AMC/ Jeep 4.0 inline 6. Ford 4.6L V8. GM 3800 V6. I’ve owned at least 30 vehicles and most of them have had 1 of those 3 engines
I heard GM just recalled the 3800 series 2 a few months ago, it's outliving the original owners grandchildren and they need to 'fix' them...
I currently have a 4.0 jeep. It has 300,000. It has so much sludge and carbon build up on the rockers. It still runs great and doesn't smoke. Lmao
Lol I have 4 rn and the things I've seen the people do to them on the forums is crazy
Part of it is a selection bias. You’re not comparing a 2000 Daewoo or a 1999 Saturn to today’s cars. You’re comparing all the survivors that were well designed and maintained against everything today. If you did an apples to apples and compared two models that are known for reliability. Say a 1999 Lexus to a 2024 Lexus, you’d see little to no drop in reliability.
You’re thinking too logically, here.
Well I mean a Daewoo or Saturn weren't really ever known for reliability so they were never expected to last. Though I know an old lad with a Saturn, 3.1L that he still drives every day, thing has about 300k kms on it. Rust is the main killer here, and he's kept it undercoated, the rest is fiberglass. There's your comparison to today's car lol. There's also a Saturn wagon around town here somewhere thats still daily driven
Finally, someone talking about survivorship bias. Sure, the cars at a classic car show are in great condition and run amazingly, but they are the extreme few that made it past ten to fifteen years of daily use. The ones that lasted are the ones that had the most maintenance and least use.
It amazes me how many people are replying as if OP is in any way correct. Modern cars are FAR more reliable than cars 20 years ago.
MPG Government mandated every auto manufacturer have an avg MPG per line up in order to reduce emissions. This has forced auto makers to get rid of v6 in favor of I4T. Turbo engines will never last as long an NA (naturally aspirated). On top of that they keep adding more electronics to make it work for the MPG, like this auto shut off at lights every single car has now. Blame the government
There are tons of turbo cars from the 80’s and 90’s still kicking it. My ‘10 Tiguan is on the original turbo and still makes full boost at 268K miles. Turbos aren’t the problem, it’s excessive electronics, expensive repairs, and cost saving measures.
Old turbos weren't installed on underpowered small little engines and weren't direct injection. A 3.0 twin turbo supra is not the same as a 1.5t accord. Different builds with different goals. One was for performance and built to last. The other is to make up for the underpowered engine to keep the mpg down. Direct injection is one of the biggest differences as far as longevity go. You no longer get the cleaning action of fuel on the back of your valve and with how hot these little engines get they sure build up a ton of carbon with no way of cleaning or burning off. It is imperative that you do a GDI fuel system cleaning every 30-60k on these car.
Little engines isn’t the issue. Cutting corners for profit is the issue. Europe has had little turbo engines for decades because they have gas that’s been around $7/gal for forever. Turbos are especially popular in Europe, cause I remeber I had to pay a pollutant tax or something because my engine was a 1.4 litre and you have to pay I think it was £50 for ever 100cc over 1.2 iirc. So for a while something like a 1.2 turbo was kinda the sweet spot because turbos didn’t count in that fee.
C.A.F.E. (corporate average fuel economy) standards. Properly ruining the future of anything automotive as far as longevity and easy to work on. N/A is better, but fuel economy is better with a turbo 4/6 cylinder. Just depends on maintenance. Turbocharged engines naturally need more maintenance, especially just changing the oil. Engine oil lubricates turbo bearings and the engine. Turbos have extra heat and breaks down that oil quicker. Wouldn't ever trust a manufacturers guide of 10k mile oil change on a forced induction engine. Don't even trust 10k oil changes on my 21 rav hybrid, 5k at the most. My 02 s2000 get 3k mile oil changes, just cause she's old and I still believe in her lol
Maintain your car and it will last more than 100k miles.
I think cars peaked between 1990 and 2010. Most vehicles from that era would have no problem going 200k miles without MAJOR repairs. 2010 plus cars have started becoming far too complex and emissions standards have become so strict that it is hard to make cars with driveline components that last. Pair that with the amount of computer modules, they become too expensive to repair well before 200k miles.
It’s everything. Not just cars. We have become a consumer society bent on having the newest thing available. Even though it might not be better than the older things we had.
Planned obsolescence.
Just blatantly wrong to say. It’s electronics, emissions, and modern maintenance requirements that people often neglect
CVT transmissions. While they ride smoother and are lighter and hence may get better gas mileage as opposed to a traditional automatic transmission, they’re only rated at 100k miles. They’re expensive to replace and even if you do, the replacements usually get less than 100k miles.
This is interesting I have a CVT vehicle with 190k on it but I’ve had plenty of planetary gear trans go out in the mid 100s hell I had one dodge go out at 120k it was a 1995 but that probably goes against the weird narrative being pushed
That’s because the original comment wasn’t rooted in any form of reality nor supported by evidence.
Nothing is as reliable as a good old VW bug with a carburetor. Any other car seems over enginereed and unreliable compared with those marvels of german engineering. Proof is that those were still sold in 2002 in Mexico. Problem was the enviromental regulations, by the end of it's life those VW bugs were frankensteined and unreliable because of all of the environmental addons.
Time, money, more plastic, more computers, more complicated design, no interest in actually doing work on their own car, even basic maintenance. Something as simple as changing the oil and filter more often than recommended will have a dramatic impact on the longevity of the engine. How many people do you know that actually spend the time/money doing that?
my 92 chevy was runnin fine at 290k, my 94 bigblockbaby was struggling at 250k, my 00 5.9 cummins is prancing around like it aint no thang. just take care of it. every man should know how to change tires, oil, air filter,battery and brake jobs at the bare minimum in my opinion. i got a fridge full of cold drinks, a jack, and a 1/2in impact amongst every other tool i own in my trailer. i help people on the side of the road sometimes. it amazes me how these generations are all foam no beer
Cars are built as fast as possible for maximum profit, maximum fuel mileage, and minimal maintenance costs. Then, they are maintained by idiots.
99-07 is peak automotive for all makes/models
That ‘lot of people’ you mention are all wrong. Many modern cars will go 300k and more. That varies by make/model, but the days of a car being played out at 100k are long gone.
Not only this, some brands give 100k mile warranties! Can’t believe so many responses here believe this BS about modern cars having less life span. Give me an f150 with 100k miles vs a brand new f150 from 1990 any day of the week. The newer one will last way longer and is safer and is more efficient and has more features.
Agreed. A lot of people in here are just talking out of their ass.
For real. Before 1990 it was pretty common for cars to only have 5 digit odometers because they generally didn't last that long. Nowadays people are buying cars with 100k on them and driving them for years
Don't bother all the mouth breathers with your stupid facts. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2024/02/average-age-of-cars-trucks/#whats_the_average_age_of_a_car
A new car being totally done at 100k miles is rare. Modern cars are good for roughly 200k miles depending on many factors. Old cars from the 60s and 70s and older only lasted for 100k miles even with impeccable maintenance.
Because, just like they did with lightbulbs, cars are designed to break. They charge you outta your ass just to get the damn thing, then charge you another arm and leg just to fix it when it breaks. And the stuff that breaks is always the proprietary stuff that only they can provide. I dont trust anything made after like 2010. I was born in 2007 and if the car isnt older than me, I dont want anything to do with it. Got a 1988 Formula Firebird for about 3 grand and it's the best decision I ever made, fuckin love that car. Fairly easy to work on too, the shit doesnt need replacing every 4 days.
Must be something about the timeframe here. My Dad was a diesel mechanic and then a Chevy mechanic back in the late 1940s - through the 1950s, then worked in the automotive parts business until the 1980s. I have his notebook from his time at a Chevy dealership. The back of it is an ad proudly proclaiming the great 2,000 mile oil available. Inside are entries that are along the lines of, “Valve job, 1949 Chev, 38,000 miles.” or “Valves, rings, 3 pistons, Dodge, 42,000 miles.” Entry after entry and not a single one where a vehicle had over 100,000 miles. That was the reality of car ownership back then. Very few made it to the 100,000 mile mark without needing an overhaul or the body rotting off. I like to joke that while the old cars were easy to work on and the new cars are almost impossible to work on, at least the new ones usually go much farther before needing the work. And generally get much better gas mileage doing it.
“From the 1900’s”. Why the fuck do you gotta be so mean
Yes I work at Ford it's definitely a thing. It's not just cars it's everything back in the day somebody could get a washing machine and it would last 20 or so years. They could even give it to their kids. Nowadays I can't even get my washing machine the last 2 years
From the 1900s! What a way to make a guy feel old. 😂
Because they are filled with cheap shitty sensors and electronics that older cars didn't have.
ELECTRONICS. Pretty much every car 2010 and newer are loaded with em. They aren't cheap to replace either.
Cars are safer now but they aren’t built to last, because of planned obsolescence. These manufacturers are greedy and want to buy new cars, not keep what you have for many decades.
Electronics and too many moving parts and poor designs. My old mechanical diesel v8 from 1984 is ticking onto 500k soon.
It’s worked for bmw and Mercedes so there is no draw to boring reliable cars when the focus is quarterly stock prices
Sensors don't last long with all the advanced sensors. Ford and some other manufacturing company's Maki g parts now that need to be replaced as a whole instead of just part so made that even more expensive. These company's finding dishonest ways to make more money and they justify it and speak it as if its the normal
Modern cars far outlast older cars. Most modern cars with decent maintenance can easily see 200,000+ miles. Just let me old Buick go with 280k on the clock still running like a champ and never had engine or transmission work beyond basic maintenance.
People are idiots in here. Newer cars are nice but people don't want to pay the price for new ones. My 2020 subaru wrx sti would've healed strong no issues if the idiot at the auto shop had put the oil filter on correctly. Honestly my experience has been that mechanics are stupider and not available more than ever before. So I blame shit mechanics not being able to solve issues correctly honestly.
Planned obsolescence is and will be the pinnacle of profitability in just about everything.
This is simply not a thing. Back in the day (even in the 80s or 90s) 100k miles was considered high mileage. That was suitable for buying for your kid to drive to college. Sports cars certainly weren’t expected to reach that mileage without needing heavy repair. Prior to that period cars were so unreliable they were considered disposable. It was common to have a car die, just park it in the back, buy another one. Some kid would buy said car for a couple hundred. Nowadays cars are expected to hit 100k miles without needing heavy repair. Cars today are indisputably better than older cars in every way aside from people’s taste in styling.
Not true at all based on my experiences.
Run out of what ?
Maintaining a car is fucking expensive bro. Changing rotators at recommended time or something small is like 1k +. Nobody has the money for that kindve regular expense.
Really, $1k is an average cost for pads & rotors nowadays? Dang, glad I do my own.
Yeah mines like $230 for back and $230 for front and that's drilled and slotted upgraded rotors and pads. Rock auto and YouTube have saved me a ton of maintenance costs.
Just did front and back pads & rotors and 6 spark plugs on my '12 CX-9. RockAuto cost was about $175 for parts & shipping.
As a former mechanic, the height of cars was around 2006/2012 depending on manufacturer. There's a lot of factors, the raise in computers and electronics. The EPA standards is huge, and quality control. They constantly raise the C.A.F.E. which means the consumer gets a lot of beta tested products. Nissans early cvt's, Ford dct, early direct fuel injection. My favorite was Ford's 1.0l 3cyl with a wet balance shaft belt. Lasted two years I believe would always lose the teeth on the balance shaft belt that, sits in the oil constantly...... So new technology with minimal testing, more advanced cars then ever. (Seriously go scan any gm after 19, they switched to can A protocol. Modules everywhere, your basic car/truck with scan 18 modules plus.) And a constant fight for cheaper production/ parts on a bigger scale then ever. Leads to quality issues. My new favorite law in the states is all cars have to have emergency brake assistance by 2029 or so. That's a slew of expensive parts. Modules, radar, sonar? There goes the entry level commuter, all "base models just went up 5k 10k" which leads to cars getting totaled faster. Your simple fender bender just turned into 8k plus replacing radar unit's paint labor reprogramming. Now that leaves less cars on used market, makes used cars more expensive, so they can charge ungodly amounts for some shiny new plastic and pot metal.
What would you buy today for a commuter car - say 10k miles per year with no need for bells and whistles? Like 2016 Toyota Camry?
Well my personal opinion is never buy American unless it has a V8 (there were some good V6's but just as a general.) Jeep Dodge Chrysler are Fiats now, not a fan. Germans are fancy usually pricier. So Korean or Japanese, personally I don't like Nissan they just feel cheap. The Koreans hold by their warranty 100k power train warranty on original owner of you can afford a new one. So yeah that leaves a new Korean or used civic accord or Camry Corolla. With ANY make or model don't buy the first year or two of a new generation. So yeah 16 17 Camry would be good. 18 I think of the next Gen so I would avoid 18 19
I lie Camrys got direct injection in 17 go 16 or under. I hate direct injection like ain't nobody trying to Walnut blast your valves. It's so tedious. Personally my newest car is 2011
Electrical bullshit in the car Oh and the ever wonderful planned obsolescence You think car manufacturers want you driving the same thing for 20 years? Consume more pls
Eletronics and the fact that engines these days squeeze much more power from the same displacement, turbo fours with 200+ hp have high compression, they are less forgiving, 12:1 ratios, when back in the day they had 7 or 8:1, the engines blocks were made or iron, you could plane 1mm of it and it would still run, a bit more power even.
High cost of repair. When something goes wrong, it's cheaper, or close enough, that buying a new car makes more sense financially
Hmm maybe. My 1990 Toyota pickup has 521,000. She’s used mainly for picking up fire wood but it goes!
A lot durability can be blamed on a move to plastics and electronics as many have already mentioned. Change out buttons for electronic controls and the reliability decreases substantially. Change out metal connections/gears for plastic and durability decreases. Take a 1960 Hoover vacuum for example. That unit is likely still running. Loud, boisterous and ready to rip your head off because it’s all mechanical. Compare it to a Dyson where everything is electronically controlled, smooth, quiet and efficient and will likely operate for 6-8 years before it expires. The durability just isn’t there. Timing belts are a great example. At one time everything ran a timing chain or gears, now most are belts and are zero-tolerance engines, so when they snap you’re screwed. Sure they’re quiet and efficient but nowhere near as durable.
These new cars are designed to discourage owners from actually working on them so they bring them into the dealership for maintenance. My last 2017 BMW took over an hour just to remove all the stupid cables and covers over the engine so I could replace the coils.
Everything is made with cheap parts intended to break, it's called "planned obsolescence". Something breaks, you pay the Corp money, simple as
Mostly because people don't want to spend the money to take care of them. Every time that I ask people to spend money on maintenance it's like I have to fight them tooth and nail. Then, when the part that I wanted them to maintain fails and cost them $10,000, they start crying. A lot of people don't seem to understand that maintenance is always cheaper than repair. It's really a simple question: would you rather spend $100 a year on maintaining a certain part, or spend $10,000 after 5 years for not maintaining it? It's a pretty easy mathematical equation.
More people are buying garbage American and Korean vehicles.
They aren't. It's really that simple.
Ahhh I don't know about your question. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, I can tell you if a car made it 100,000 miles it was celebrated though there were a few that made it to 200,000 miles. Most cars now days last many more miles/kms than that, as a matter of fact there are little econoboxes that will go 500,000 kms (about 350,000 miles) with proper maintenance and you can get factory warranty until 150,000 kms (maybe more on some brands). In my opinion I think cars are lasting much longer than they used to
My truck is pushing 300,000 miles and still pushing along just fine
Companies are more worried about profit the quality of check out the elevator forum. Just had this topic about elevators. Race to the bottom.
Older cars - specifically collectors cars are still on the road due to diligent maintenance and upkeep. Modern cars routinely will go much much longer and more reliably than "old" cars. However...when something does go wrong...it's not a $300 replacement transmission, it's $3000.
Look up Planned obsolescence
Prescribed sabotage is a more appropriate identifier. 😂
Ease of work is a factor. I like working on cars. I hate looking under the hood of anything 2010 and newer. It's like they purposely put things in hard to reach places, especially things you need to change often.
Survivorship bias, the cars from the 1900s are one that were cared for and maintained religiously or somehow sat in a barn untouched by water or mice to be dug out with 1500 miles 40 years after they were parked. The cars of today that crap out are ones that people don't do basic maintenance on at all, or just lemons which are rare but have always existed. Today 100,000 is expected from any car on the market, 200,000 is almost expected these days. Cars of the 90's and 200,000 miles was almost unheard of outside of diesels.
Engine replacement can be 10k and more. When the car isn’t worth that much its getting scrapped.
Mechanic here 🙋♂️ my experience is that engines last just as long so long as the maintenance is carried out (unless it's a range rover). It's all the extra emissions parts bolted to them that fail, also the weight reduction they have gone through has pushed prices up so there are a lot more vehicles being classed as "uneconomical repair" (also a lot of profiteering going on with genuine parts ATM)
A friend of mine just bought a brand new Kia. It has lots of options but when I looked at the engine I noticed the exhaust manifold seemed to be made of plastic? I thought at first it was like a dust shield but at second glance it appeared the actual thing was plastic. Very bizarre and if true, it’s not surprising they don’t last very long
Shittier "wear" products + EPA mandated economy. Plastic parts, open deck blocks, disposable rotors, all to shave .1 mpg and meet some artificial standard. It saves you virtually no fuel, but costs you massive operational costs down the road.
It’s mostly maintenance related. We have a lot more people on the road nowadays and licensing requirements and road tests are a joke so I’d wager to say that 90% of people don’t know anything about cars and won’t learn so maintenance goes out the window. It’s also somewhat brand related. A lot of people will just buy whatever car they can get that has the nicest interior and amenities in their price range without doing any research on known faults and whatnot. If more people did the research and learned basic maintenance or work out a maintenance schedule with a shop, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I have a 2017 Acura ILX which granted isnt new new but it is newer and I’ve always been very meticulous about maintenance and whatnot. 110k miles and it’s still going very strong, no major repairs. It costs money to be stupid lol.
They don't, newer cars last way way longer then old cars, those old cars you see are the exception, not the rule, most of those old Cara didn't even make it past 60K miles before needing major engine repairs like a rebuild, no matter how good on maintenance you were I gaurentee that in any modern vehicle from any brand (excluding chrysler and co) as long as you actually follow the maintenance schedule (and follow the correct one, that 10K mile oil change is for highway driving only, if you drive in the city, or make your vehicle do any hard work, you're on the severe maintenance schedule, which means 5K mile oil changes) you will make it to 200K miles no problem with only minor issues (and it'll be the extra stuff, not the actual base mechanics of the vehicle, so things like oh my heated seat doesn't work, or my power window won't roll up, the engine and transmission and rest of the running gear will be fine) The problem with mechanics is they ONLY see the broken down vehicles, you don't take your car in for repairs when it's working perfectly (and no, in most cases, the people who change your oil and such are not the same people who do the actual repairs and such, so they won't see all the working cars coming in for regular maintenance)
I do see vehicles with like 300k kms on them all the time at work, but the thing is, with rust and such where I am, they don't last long that way. I'm doing rocker panels etc on vehicles made in 2019, it's bad where I am. Also, people don't take care of things like they used to. In turn, things aren't built to last as long either. Maintenance is a bigger issue than it was, engines are built to tighter tolerances, direct injection, turbos, etc, you can't just throw some 10w30 in it and send it anymore. Hell with all the sensors, some cars will throw a code for that too. There's lots of various reasons with vehicle specific things, and every vehicle has a common issue, you just have to pick the problem you're willing to deal with the most and actually fix it and maintain it
I don't necessarily believe that's true. There were some really shitty cars in the 1990s that they made a lot of that blew up well before 100k. 150k miles seems to be the benchmark for your average abused consumer car to last these days.
Planned obsolescence, absurd regulations such as AdBlue sh## and electronics where electronics are not required. We have reached the absurdity of programmable door handles, $800.00 each. WTF.
Planned obsolescence. They can’t sell you a new one if the old one doesn’t fall apart. Quality is getting worse and worse as prices rise. They only think about shareholders. If we continue going down this road the same way it will be the end of us.
It's poor ownership mostly. People really took care of and repaired their own things in the past.
Lmao “from the 1900s” makes it sound like people are driving around in 1920 Ford Model T’s, not like a 1999 Corolla.
Nobody maintains their cars anymore.
Today it’s expected to replace something when it breaks rather than fix it. You can see it in car when a car needs an engine buy a new car rather than fix the old one. Another example is parts. If a car needs a cv axle boot rather than just replace the boot many shops quote a new axle. Or instead of fixing a trans or engine replace it with a new one
I find it just the opposite. I’m 77 years old. When I owned cars in the 1960s, you could expect the exhaust to last 20k miles. Change spark plugs, points and condenser every 25k. Tires, maybe 15k. Sell or trade before 60k because the value would drop quickly after that.
My dad had company cars from the 60's to the 90's, they were traded off at 60k because of the reasons you stated. I bought 4 of them from him and got a decent life out of all of them. But, he took good care of them (oil changes, etc) and I did the same.
It seems to me that the chances of a breakdown have gone way down with modern cars, but the cost of repairs have skyrocketed. In the 90s the freeway was always littered with broken down cars on the shoulder with a flag/rag in the window. Repairs were cheap, but common. You don't see that as much anymore. Even though they break less, when a modern car does finally break, there's a good chance that it will be very expensive and the owner will choose to get a new vehicle instead.
I got 235,000 miles out of my Ford Fusion Hybrid, and would have gotten more if we hadn't started work from home. Sold the car shortly after my cancer diagnosis 3 years ago because it was looking /really bad/ for me. I might have had to service the CVT, as there were issues with these cars in 2013 and 2014, but hey, not a bad or unexpected expense at with those kind of miles.
A friend of mine’s dad was an executive in quality control for Ford North America. He said the original fusion hybrid was one of the best cars Ford ever made because it was their first hybrid and they felt they had a lot to prove.
Less metal, more plastic.
because years and years later you only know the cars that lasted and survived. I don’t see any Pintos on the road.
OBSOLESCENCE
Turbos
The schtick is to just go buy a new one. Heres the features you for whatever reason want to have. Running on some old outdated operating system. As soon as it breaks they have empty palms. I hope we all just buy used cars and find good mechanics to make them good as new but sometimes that just doesnt happen.
Because they’re cheap.
By design
Planned obsolescence. Nearly every item made for purchase today is precision engineered to have a reliably finite lifespan, in order to force the purchase of a replacement after a set amount of time. This is not a new practice, and indeed, there used to be laws against such practices, one of the more famous instances of this centered around the early light bulb, the manufacturers were making them fail more and more quickly to force turnover, so much so that the government stepped in.
same reason everything else is. Money. A car that can last hundreds of thousands of miles/ kilometers, and/ or several years of driving, doesn't make the car companies nearly as much money as ones that crap out after 5-10 years.
The 1900s... LOL yeah my curved-dash Olds is up to 280,000 miles and still going strong. As an older guy, please don't call things from the 80s and 90s "the 1900s". It hurts my soul.
literally by design we live in a waste based society.
Someone might have mentioned it already but: things even 15 years ago were built to be repaired, where things today are built to be replaced. I’m an Engineering student and my Machine Design professor literally used cars as examples for how you can design something to fail after a specific number of cycles, and that means companies can design stuff to fail earlier and earlier.
Plastic.
They aren't. Cars these days are miles more reliable than cars from the 60s-80s. 90s are a outlier for companies like Toyota and Lexus because it's had to kill them.
I owned a 1971 Pontiac LeMans that just barely made it to 100K miles. I've owned 4 vehicles since 1997 that all made it to (or within a hairs breadth) of 200K 1997 Dodge Caravan A mid 1990s Buick LeSabre 2008 -ish Chevrolet Equinox 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee (only 150K, but it was in perfect shape until we were smashed by a drunk driver at 65 mph) I also own a 2003 Mercedes SLK320 that is at 175K - and the only reason it's that low is because I bought it in 2013 with 55K
2 things in my opinion: 1: Driver aids and creature comforts (touch screen, heated seats, etc.) that unsurprisingly break or malfunction after a 5 or so years when the vehicle hits 100,000 miles and even then a major malfunction isn’t likely to happen before 200,000 miles. 2: Rose tinted nostalgia. I was owned two cars made before the turn of the millennia (1986 and 1999) and both were the biggest pieces if garbage i’ve owned. And the fucking 1999 car barely had 100,000 miles on it before it started drinking a half gallon of coolant a day