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This link is to an in depth study to the most and least durable cars

General Discussion
#21
If a critical part fails on an old car, then it might mean the end and the crusher comes next.

Which means that the long-term endurance of vehicles is about the hull value of the vehicle, more than anything. A car with greater market value will last longer, because it continues to make economic sense to fix it up, vs part it out, for longer periods of time. Heck, many perfectly-running (but old) cars are “worth more dead than alive”; that is, the value selling the car off, part by part, exceeds the value of the car as one, running vehicle.

Yes the secret to keeping a vehicle going a long time is to make it as unlikely as possible that you get “behind the curve,” economically, on a repair. The best way of accomplishing that is to get a well-engineered, bone-simple machine, of which MANY were made…so that you have cheap junkyard parts widely available for a very long time.

#22

The one significant fault I see in this study is that they don’t seem to factor in the effect of simple useful transportation functionality on the number of miles in a typical trade-in. Any vehicle that compromises practicality is likely to be dumped early, in my opinion. Whether it’s a gas hog, big and clumsy, uncomfortable, or too small like a sports car, doesn’t matter, what does matter is that if it doesn’t serve the many purposes of basic transportation for most of us, it’s going to be traded in or sold earlier. Even if it is 100% reliable.

It’s sort of like what @meanjoe75fan‌ wrote.

But, to me, that’s just not the end of the story, because sometimes a car is just too much fun, or too useful for one special purpose, so you buy it and use it for that. This study should not scare away someone who wants a Miata, for example, simply because most people trade them with low mileage. Maybe it means to buy a used one. I think it’s the same for an old beast of a vehicle that uses a lot of gas, but you use it to haul a fishing boat to a lake once a month.

There is a lot to be said for owning a couple of different vehicles, for different uses, especially if you can care for them yourself. For the population that sees a car as a commodity like a refrigerator or a washing machine, studies like these can be useful.