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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

I believe at least part of this is better quality cars that last longer. The 1980s started an era of crap cars that were junk after 100k miles. That's improved, over time, and not equally across all makes and models.

But, we finally seem to be at a point where there are fewer reasons to get rid of a 10 year old car.

Edit: some corraborating figures: http://news.ihsmarkit.com/press-release/automotive/vehicles-...

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Companies like Honda who have been known for reliable cars that last well over 150k have been going the other direction with regards to quality. A lot of their parts are made in China not to the standards they were in Japan.

This will hurt them in the long run. I've bought two Toyotas but then I rented a newer one the other day and was not impressed.

I'm curios as to how it would hurt the manufacturer. As a consumer, yes I'm not getting the amazing reliability. But if their cars don't last forever, people will buy more cars right?

But if they're told their Honda will last forever and it breaks down at 90k, how likely are they to buy another Honda?

Can you tell me why you weren't impressed?

I have a 2008 Toyota Tundra with ~96k miles on it, no problems except standard maintenance schedule.

I have a 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid with ~112k miles on it; again, nothing but scheduled maintenance. I did have to just replace the brakes and rotors for the first time because they rusted out due to disuse; battery regeneration is so effective they're only used in panic stops (mostly).

My next vehicle is a Tesla, but I'd buy a Toyota again (used, from Carmax) if I needed a vehicle sooner.

In states with a lot of snow, body rust used to be a real limiting factor as well. Growing up in the 60s-70s, I doubt if any of our cars got much past 50K miles over ~5 years.

Rust is still taking cars in the northern states. It takes longer, but if you make it to around 15 years rust will start reaching important things like brakes and suspension.

Same here in Northern Europe, but those are commodity parts and relatively easy to replace (although can be labour intensive). I just replaced the calipers and springs (half destroyed by rust and half by potholes) on my 2002 Lexus IS200 and it's as good as new after 210,000km.

When I was young my parents had a Renault and after around 12 years the bodywork started going rusty under the passenger footwell. They had it patched up, but eventually the rust spread. Nowadays something like that is pretty uncommon.

I've also had all the brake lines and power steering lines rust out in a Ford Explorer though. That's probably my one really big failure of not getting rid of a vehicle when it had the first of those expensive repairs.

Yeah, I have a ~20yo Honda Del Sol that I bought in the last model year. I haven't driven it in winter for a while. (I have another vehicle.) At this point it creates something of a sensation at the local Honda dealer when I bring it in because there aren't many on the roads any longer (because of rusting out) and it was a somewhat unique vehicle.

Still, this is 15-20 years vs. 5 years.

Most American cars fail after 10 years and look quite beaten up. Japanese cars used to last 20-30 years but I think Toyota and Honda are the only brands that have kept up this reputation, and even then not all that well.

All this has to do with the fact that people don't have money to upgrade to the latest lease.

My 1979 Honda CVCC is going as strong as ever. I swapped the engine/transmission out once, but the engine was still running fine, I just wanted the 5-speed. A cheap repaint in 2013, and AFAIC it's good for another 20.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Honda/comments/1q9tww/just_finished...

Wow. I'm impressed. There's something about completely ordinary old cars that look so pristine after a few decades. I saw a Datsun B210 the other day that was similarly cared for and it impresses me more than most classic muscle cars. Everyone expects a '68 Camaro to look awesome; nobody expects the same from a '79 Honda.

Thanks! And you're right. Many years ago, I used to feel a little silly about maintaining what was essentially an inexpensive economy car. But it was the first car I bought with my own money in college (for the princely sum of $500 in 1992), and I just really enjoy driving it around town. It's so small I can park anywhere, and it gets 30-40 MPG.

And nowadays, it gets lots of positive comments. Turns out the muscle car/classic car guys like seeing the old stuff no matter what it is.

Wow that car looks really really nice, with a stylish flat. It really tells me that the owner loves him/her/it :)

My father had a Datsun B210 in California (no snow or road salt) and the body rusted badly after a few years.

California in general is pretty easy on cars, but if you live close to the ocean, salt air is still an issue. The majority of the rust my CVCC got was during the few years I lived near the beach.

It looks great -- however, how safe is a model made in '79 compared to a modern model?

Compared to a modern car? Not even the same scale.

It is 'safe' for the time, in that it's a unibody steel shell, which is more resilient than the body-on-frame style that was common in the era. It would probably handle a rollover OK. The bumpers are solid. There is an anti-whiplash head restraint, and the seatbelts work as expected.

But there are no reinforced bars to prevent cabin intrusion from a side impact, and crumple zones are nonexistent. No airbags.

So I don't really drive it on the freeway. It's an around-town runabout. On the 35mph-and-lower roads it spends 99% of its time, It's fine. It is undoubtedly safer than the motorcycle I would likely otherwise be riding.

For distance driving, I use my 'new' car, a '98 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Which is probably still bad compared to a truly modern vehicle, but is much safer (and more comfortable) than the CVCC. And the ZJs were great years for Cherokees. The straight-6 is practically indestructible, and the transmission will last forever. If I keep maintaining it as well, it should last for easily another 10-20.

(Not having a car payment, and having insurance payments of <$100/month for both, is nice.)

"All this has to do with the fact that people don't have money to upgrade to the latest lease."

1. A lot of folks still find leasing cars to be a bad money decision due to restrictions on miles, messes that families make, and never actually owning the car.

2. I truly think this is more that many don't have the money to properly care for the car. I've seen folks that do all the maintenance and fix problems as they arrive. 500,000 miles (800,000km) later, their cars are still running, though they look worse for wear.

Honda mechanicals, absolutely. Honda paint, on the other hand, just doesn't seem to hold up as well as other brands.

Meanwhile whatever godforsaken toxic chemical Mercedes Benz was putting in their paints in the 70s and 80s seems to have left those cars impervious to dulling and fading.

The 1980s started an era of crap cars that were junk after 100k miles.

I would qualify that by saying "American compact cars". Japanese cars were fine, and a Chevy Caprice would still give you a few hundred thousand trouble-free miles.

Full sized cars like the Monte Carlo we're junk too. Owned a 1980. 88-92 saw the first mass consumer computer controlled fuel injection. That is when cars really got reliable. Removing carburators was a game change. My parents had a Ford Tempo (1990) and drove that thing into the ground (250k miles) running a paper route. The auto transmissions sucked in that era though.

You could get 200k miles on my 90 Ford mustang manual. Auto tranny would always bust 40-50k miles on that era Mustang though. Repairs were simply less expensive in that early car computer era. I actually knew how the whole computer system worked. Difference in th 6502 and modern assembly. Yet, cars don't need much more than a 6502 for most things. Oh well.

I agree that replacing carburetors with electronic fuel injection made a huge improvement. Another step was replacing the distributor and points with electronic ignition. When was the last time anyone replaced a spark plug?

Huh? I've replaced tons of them. Before they went to platinum/iridium plugs, you still needed to change them at 20-50k. The platinum or iridium ones will last 100k I think, but any car these days lasts longer than that, so they still need to be replaced once or twice. But on modern inline engines they're generally really easy to replace.

Maybe you meant to ask when the last time someone replaced a distributor or adjusted points was? A lot of cars still had distributors up until around 2000 or so, so they're not completely gone yet. But points, thankfully, have been gone since the 70s.

> But on modern inline engines they're generally really easy to replace.

The last two pickups I've owned, 2006 and 2010 F150s, it entails disassembling half the engine head to get at the spark plugs - and I have some experience, the 2006 had the garbage 5.4 V8, that has coil problems and blows plugs regularly after 100k miles... Other modern vehicles I've looked under the hood of don't look to be designed for any more ease of access or repair, either.

I guess you're looking at crappy vehicles then. Go look at some 4-cylinder Japanese cars. They're all super easy to work on and last forever. Well, the Hondas, Toyotas, and Mazdas anyway. I always steer clear of American cars; those give you all kinds of wacky crap like putting the battery inside the wheelwell so you have to remove the wheel to remove it, aside from horrible reliability and interiors that fall apart quickly.

Yeah, the Tempo referenced way on up was falling apart. Interior was garbage, but it kept rolling.

Yeah, from what I hear, that's pretty normal with American cars (particularly GM and Ford): the drivetrains are usually very reliable, but the interiors are terrible and fall apart quickly, and the rest of the car looks like crap before long too. But the thing never quits running so it keeps getting used even though it looks awful.

I honestly have no idea why anyone buys American cars, unless they don't know this. Probably they're a little cheaper than imports.

I have a Chrysler product that needs new plugs every 30k. Luckily they're super easy to replace.

Uhh, maybe you should go inspect the spark plugs on your car right now. Spark plugs are very cheap and not worth economizing on.

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