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