I believe there was a sweet spot, with cars designed from 80s to the late 90's and built up until about 2005, these dates vary a bit from make to make, some like Renaults i'd be wary of touching anything made after mid 80's, Jaguar wouldn't go near anything after about 1970, some like Merc dropped the ball earlier and actually improved after 2007 but whether the latest will be as good as a 2008 C/E class only time will tell.

Makers had improved corrosion resistance, performance safety economy had reached high standards but we hadn't yet gone down the digital electronic route to any great degree nor started to fit things like electric parking brakes and other tat that no one asked for.

Lots of makers had superb designs from that 90s design era, VW with their PD Diesel a prime example, lots of others about, tough and durable they last years and years with a bit of sensible servicing and TLC, in fact they lasted too long IMO for most makers and we won't see their like again in the mainstream.

UK buyers play right into makers hands, besotted with buying that new car despite it having no spare wheel or an EPB they didn't want, massive wheels that give bone shaking ride and port hole windows they can't see out of they still buy the things and then feel compelled to change when the warranty is about to expire because they know if it goes wrong it will cost a fortune to fix if a permanent fix is even possible (DPF?), still a ridiculous 3 years for ironically the most popular UK sellers.

I expect most of the current new crop will be uneconomic to fix in about 8 or 10 years at best, and likely to be as attractive as Laguna 2 to those buyers of old stalwarts like me who usually buy cars at around 10 years or older...we'll be running 90's designs for a good few years yet, by the time there's none to be found i'll be pushing up daisies anyway.

Emissions regs have helped see the end of the era in no small way.

Edited by gordonbennet on 16/05/2016 at 19:34

Kia has a 7 year warranty on their cars...

Many of you will remember a 12 month warranty as standard..

Many wil remember 3000 mile services.

Many will remember as I do that Customers were often the quality control team for some makes. When the XJ40 was launched I can remember almost all of those vehicles coming back in with warranty problems. They were "made to last a year" and then start earning money by way of spares sales and Hourly rates, nobody will convince me otherwise.

Cars now still have a lifespan which can be prolonged with sympathetic servicing and maintaining them properly.

The rub is when it is no longer economical to replace a wiring loom or 2 or 3 ecu's.

My kia has the 7 year warranty, but if something major goes at year 6 will kia spend £3000 on a 6 year old car?

I would not unless the car was worth it.

He basically said today's cars not meant to last 5 years!

Kia has a 7 year warranty on their cars...

Your confusing warranty with reliability. Basically a Kia is no more reliable than the average car and some parts are often very expensive too

Bah humbug!

An airliner--which I have said before on this site--is basically a very complex vehicle which goes in the sky at 500mph-will last for 20 years plus. The reason--because it is forensically maintained.

This of course is not the case with cars where dealerships have a "new vehicle every 3 years sales agenda", owners who have difficulty understanding the difference between basic servicing and ongoing vigilant maintenance and unscrupulous "garages" and "fitters" who's main aim to harvest as much money from anyone they can--all the time.

Airliners, and military aircraft, are designed for continuous maintence - made possible by the low volume production - that can't happen with high volume, low production cost items like cars.

London buses like the RT (38-79) and RM (56-05) were built like that, and could be refurbished on a production line at 50/week.

I think we're being unduly pessimistic. It wasn't so long ago that a brand new car rusted through in just 4 or 5 years, that's a thing of the past in the main. Our son's 12 year old Corolla looks good for that again to be honest. Complexity and electronics are our enemy now, not rust. But if one steers clear of particularly hi tech (notably German) and known trouble makes (VAG and their engine problems, Mazda and their diesel woes) a car should still last at least 10 to 15 years with proper maintenance. Proper maintenance being a lot more involved and thorough than the dealer checklists every 10 to 20K, de-salting and oiling the undeneath, more frequent oil changes, cleaning the brakes, oiling the hinges and locks, cleaning and checking earthing points and electrical connectors etc. None of this is ever done properly unless one does it oneself. But then most people are buying on the never- never on a 3 year deal, so much like the smartphone, they are abused and then dumped with minimal care. . That's an expensive way of getting around though, when extrapolated over the actual serviceable life of a car.

I have a deppfreeze (free) which is at least 25 years old and works perfectly.

Our Yaris diesel is 13 and works perfectly.

Our Sony TV is 10 years old and works perfectly.

Our Miele tumbledrier is 9 years old and works perfectly.

There is NO need for "OTT maintenance on a cra to make it last a decade or more. Just regulkar servcing and some mechnical sympathy..Whcih rules out 75% of all cars over 7 years old...

Just look on any car sales website (Autotrader etc) and see the cars with over 100k miles, no rust and still servcieable. 20 years ago, that number would be far smaller.

5 years life only applies to its life as a marketable product, not as a usable one.