General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If airplanes are built to last 30 to 20 years, why not cars? [View all]SheilaT
(23,156 posts)recall how terrible cars were in the past. Anyone who could possibly afford to bought a new car every two to three years in the 50's and 60's. You very rarely saw even a ten year old car on the road back then. It's a good thing they don't make them the way they used to.
In some cases the maintenance on those cars was simpler, but I'm under the impression that tires, just to name one component, rarely lasted more than 20,000 miles. Now we expect at least triple that, even on cheap tires.
My current car is a 2004 Honda Civic that I bought in 2007, and I only have 83,000 miles on it. It's a pretty good car, and just right for my needs. I'll be bored with it and decide I want something newer long before it's ready to be scrapped. I'm guessing it's the miles on the car matters more than how old it is. But no matter what, a thirty year old car is going to have a lot of thirty year old components, unless you've been steadily replacing and rebuilding.