Many people, including me, are holding on to cars produced during the 1995 to 2010 sweet spot. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
There’s an interesting irony about the state of the car industry that’s also a pickle of its own creation. Or – more finely – a pickle that’s the unintended result of the compliance complicity of the auto industry.
It went went along with the federal regulatory apparat’s regime of regulations pertaining to exhaust emissions that had become unreasonable by the mid-1990s but which had also served, prior to that, to make engines so tight (in order to comply with the fed’s emissions regs) that they – and the vehicles they were installed in – began to last too long.
By the mid-late 1990s, engines with 100,000 miles on them were in about the same or even better shape than the engines of the ’70s were with 30,000 miles on them. They didn’t burn oil – and they rarely needed more than an oil change, occasionally.
People began to realize this – and began to keep on driving the cars they already owned, rather than sign up for another round of payments on a new one they didn’t need.
Italicized to emphasize the fact.
Before the mid-late 1990s, it was generally necessary to buy a new car not long after it was paid off, which was possible (for most people) because it only took 3-4 years to pay off a car back in the ’70s and into the ’80s. This affordability made cars more disposable. And most people who could afford to did dispose of their car once it got to be about seven or eight years old because by then it was was old – not so much in years as fact.
That is the key, no leaking oil like the Valdez.
But so tight, you can’t work on them.
Had a Ford SUV with over 300k miles, driven to the moon and back, engine was rebuilt at 200k.
Buyer started it up and drove right off after the hood complained about no longer running vehicle.
It was Peaches and Herb-Reunited when the current jalopy returned from 3 month hiatus as muh supply chain disaster in summer 2021, drove straight to Harold the Brain’s homestead when it came home.
Another reason to have an old Jalopy is no report back to base track and spy horseshit or shut down by satellite for the good of the collective.
This just in from Peaches & Herb:
Reunited (1978)