Car Longevity Debate

It's like buying a used car: it's not the years, it's the miles.

The average age of cars on the road is itself a good measure of when "you're SOL". Cars had a much shorter lifespan in past decades because they'd rust and break down much sooner, to the degree that it was more economical to buy a new car than to repair.I wonder if it's hard for younger HN readers to appreciate the progress here? Having a car last 200,000 miles used to be a stroke of insane luck, like living to 90 years old - for most car models in the last 10 years

People drive 70 year old cars today. Just buy a sensible car from sometime before the 2020s, keep up with it and put on 400k miles on it.

My present car is 18 years (and, other than 2 non functioning buttons that I decided I didn’t want to pay to replace), working perfectly fine.And, I should say, I’m a terrible owner. This car had (at most) 10 maintenance checks (and oil changes) in its life. Emphasis in “at most”.I intend to buy a new one in about 3 years and there’s no chance in hell I’m going for something shiny that breaks after 5 years like this fully made in China stuff (even Teslas are cumbersome to maintain accordin

Yes. Until a week ago I used to drive a car built in 2000 and the average age of cars in my country is 14 years, so cars of 20 or more years are not exceptions.The sad thing is I can barely find some parts for that 21 year old car that is mostly in perfect running order, but several small buttons don't work anymore, most of the display (showing basic info like outside temperature, fuel consumption etc), rear windshield blade, so at some point good running cars are abandoned because of la

Don't the maintenance costs go up after a while. Otherwise people would only buy 10 year old cars as they'd be like 20-30k cheaper :D

Cars last a lot longer than they used to, so your entire premise is flawed.

yep! my car is 15 years old, has ~80k miles and I was hoping it would last pass 200k+ miles

Nonsense, most of my family and the people in the town I grew up in kept cars for 10+ years or 200-300k miles if they could. Some of my wealthier relatives drove 25-30 year old pickup trucks. If you don't think cars need to last 10+ years you're completely out of touch with regular people. Even if you're a rich person that buys a new car every few years reliability should matter to you, because lack of it costs you money. Reliability and maintenance costs over time are the reason

Cars last a long time now. My car is 20 years old and it’s still far cheaper to maintain that car than to buy a new car.