@atikovi
Nah! There were plenty of cars back in the day that could rack-up high miles, IF people bothered to maintain them. Thing was, cars were much cheaper back then in proportion to MIDDLE CLASS income (and there were a lot more middle-classes around back then...) so the people who bought the cars new tended not to keep them too long. It wasn't at all uncommon for the average person to trade it in every two years...or even every year, for a new 'un. And in just a few short years, that once new car was being driven by some 18 year-old pretending to be Mario Andretti, or some bar fly, etc. who'd never do any maintenance.
But heck, I've personally known quite a few people who had their 60's/70's cars into the 90's with well over 200K miles on 'em. I'd bet half the classics you see being sold these days with "only 40K original miles" have 240 or 340K miles on 'em- as did many cars being sold back in the day....you just never knew it, because they only had 5 digit odometers.
Funny how people just all of a sudden started driving more and cars started lasting longer as soon as the 6 digit odometer appeared, eh? 😉
@Anonymous
Yesiree, those engineers aren't stupid. They make very complex things, and they work (till just after the warranty runs out....). It's planned obsolescence- and it's being dictated to the car manufacturers. In Germany and India they've already legislated that all internal combustion engine cars will no longer be sold as of 2030. More and more countries will be doing this, as it is part of the UN's "Sustainability agenda" (I can't find the link at the moment- but you can read all about it right from the horse's mouth...)- Here in 'Merrca, they don't do things so overtly...it's safer just to foll the sheeple- so we have agencies like the EPA and NHTSA which mandate absurd standards that the manufacturers must comply with (Like achieving a fleet average of 54.5 MPG by 2025) and of course, the only way the manufacturers can comply while still delivering vehicles that anyone would want to drive, is by cramming them full of Star Wars-esque glitz to extract every single molecule of energy from that thimble full of gas while delivering 300HP from tiny 4 cyl. engine which must lug around that 4000 lb small car, which weighs so much because *safety features* (also known as distractions).........
We are quickly reaching the point where there will be no such thing as a used car before long. Once the warranty is up, as soon as it needs a repair, just throw it away. Uncle wouldn't want you driving that nasty old thing that only gets 25MPG...so to save you $20 a month on gas and to save the whales, you get to spend $35K every few years for something which is smaller and crummier than what you had before.
Me? I'll stick with my 10MPG Excursion, thank you very much.
- 96.
