The CPI's hedonic quality adjustment means that this graph doesn't mean what you think it means.
You must be young.
Cars used to last five years before falling apart. It helped drive the whole auto leasing industry, because nobody wanted something that turned into an old rust bucket in half a decade.
The reliable Japanese cars came in, and every marker suddenly started offering five, eight, and even ten year partial warranties.
Today, a ten-year-old car is very common. I kept mine until it was 12-years-old, and in that time it never had a breakdown. Just tires, oil changes, and many lightbulbs. My previous cars (Volkswagen, Isuzu, Ford, Ford, Mercury) had long been scrapped by then.