Newer cars do last longer, especially Toyota or Hondas.
this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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My car is 15 years old, my truck is 18. No plans on upgrading until they bring back buttons and get rid of touchscreens and the spy crap.
You know what's cheaper for everyone than buying cars? A good public transit system and safe, actually useful/enjoyable bike infrastructure. I've run the napkin math on this and it's absolutely no contest.
Source: I'm a stranger on the internet and you will certainly not regret taking me at my word.
I live in a state with what would be considered nationally to have very robust public transit—and it fucking sucks. After years of relying on it and on a bike to get around I just want to own a car.
It’s very much baked into American culture but there is no reality where the us builds trains or runs busses out to national parks or every single rural town. Cars are an unfortunate necessity for this country.
Most public transit in my state goes where you don't want to go and takes 3 times as long to get there. I remember a while back when the tax renewal came up there was a story in the local paper about a woman who was using the bus to get to work and it took 2 hours for what was a 15 minute drive even in traffic.
When I say good, I mean good by the rest of the world's standards, not good by the US' standards. I'm talking 3-5 minute peak frequencies between even medium cities (NL) or even 30 minute frequencies to small towns (I want to say the swiss even have this to small towns). I'm talking protected bike paths that don't put your life on the line, not bike lanes that are considered good because they actually exist at all. I mean cities that have been been reformed (this one will take a while, I know) so that they're human-centric and it would never occur to you that you need a car.
It sucks, in all likelihood, because the US has spent 70 years making policy choices that puts cars over all other considerations. I find it difficult to express to you how big that gap is; it's something I've come to appreciate via exchange students. We're so ridiculously car dependent that there's all kinds of infra that we ought to have that just seems unreasonable from where we are now. That's not something you can walk back overnight, but it can be done.
It's not just the price...
My 6 CD changer is the envy of my friend group
The automotive lobby is pretty intense as they shape the regulatory framework applied to all modern cars, and I don't see it happening from a conventional carmaker, really, but I do wonder if, say, something like aptera, which can kind of attempt to skirt those regulations, will be able to breach the mass, undeserved market in the same way the gen 1 prius was maybe able to. Or, something like the toyota echo, you know, that class of new cars that we used to have 20 years ago which was supposed to appeal to younger people who weren't as financially well off. Or, is it just the case that the middle class has totally evaporated, and so the vast majority of americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and straight up just can't afford a car even with increasingly predatory auto loans?
Knowing the "average" is all well and good, but doesn't give that clear a picture. Does anyone have a source for the the median age, or better yet an age distribution graph?
Cars should last 20 years or more imo.
My 12 year old Subaru still runs like a top. I plan on driving it forever.
My 2012 Impreza has 92k on it and I bet I can put another 100k on, easy.
My 13 year old Subaru has 3 oil leaks and requires a quart of oil every month. And I just had to drop $1100 to fix the AC after it not working at all last summer.
My wife's 12 year old Subaru sputters to a stop if you brake too hard with the AC running. It also burns oil (always has) and requires a quart every other month.
I can afford new cars, there just aren't ANY that I want due to privacy concerns.
In 1960, if you told people that you drove a 10 year old car and needed two incomes to keep your family going, you'd be considered poor.
Of course, in those days, an executive who made ten times as much as his employees was considered vastly wealthy.
I see this as a good thing. We are a wasteful culture.
The average age of my vehicles is 23.8 years. If I remove the motorcycles the average age is 36 years, the oldest is 54. Am I winning? I just don't like new cars.
Totally dude, they cant track of your data and sell it haha. Mine is only 13 years old, lets see how long it lasts!
Yeah, that and new vehicles are bullshit.
My current car doesn't have a touch screen or an app, my climate controls aren't buried three submenus deep, nothing in it is a subscription, and it doesn't spy on me. I don't want a new car with the way they're making them now.
A lot of people know that the next big generation of cars is right around the corner and don't want to spend big bucks on a gas guzzler, or even a hybrid.
There are some decent electric options available now, but if like me, you can't afford a new vehicle, you need other people to buy them first and sell them second hand or wait for them to come off lease.
My car is currently 9 years old and I'm absolutely hoping that it lasts long enough for me to be able to buy a decent second hand electric.
My car is a basic car... it even has a standard manual... but it does have some useful features, like android auto and a reverse camera... but otherwise is a product of last decade with technology from the 1980's
All of this and repairability. Given enough time, I could repair everything on my car. Newer cars throw up as many barriers to that as possible.
Hopefully you won't run into the problem I had with my older car- parts availability. It's only going to get worse as cars get older. Especially with the electronics.
The oldest car I've dailied was a Honda CRX that was just shy of 20 years old when I sold it. Supply was getting sparse on the ground, but I could get even some rare, single-model-year, variant-specific parts from the dealership parts counter until right around the end of my ownership.
Currently I'm driving a 17-year-old Fit and honestly, I'm not too worried. Even if I can't get something new, it's right about in the sweet spot for junkyard availability.
It’s definitely a concern but Toyota Camry’s should fare pretty well on that front.
That's an advantage of a high volume car like a Camry.
It is almost as if it is a burden to live in a society that forces you to own a car, not an expression of freedom as car companies and proponents try to pretend.
Carless for 15years now. I rent or borrow one occasionally. I even have a class A license (means I can drive with 18wheels and speak seductively on the c.b.) I'm not anti-vehicle by any means, but I am anti these cities and ways of being we've built up around them. It's difficult having conversations about cars with people.
If you're an American like me you were probably brought up in a life dependent on personal automobiles. It would be indoctrination if it was malintended. I have difficulty expressing how bad our country looks, looking in from a carless vantage.
It's not a good look tho. Lazy, selfish, really unhealthy. Like I worry about some of you. And just fucking rude to nature. The sheer square footage we have paved over and devoted to these machines is just fucking tragic.
I love walking. Love the bus even when it smells like ass. I hate to be romantic and douchy about it, but you'll find me out with the unwashed masses, clinging to the last scrap of dignity.