rdssdi wrote:With the complexity of new cars it may be a good idea to move on in 3 years. Servicing could become an expensive proposition.
I don't fully agree. You may be correct about high-end sports cars, which quite frankly, often seem a bit ambitious from an engineering standpoint when you consider the small companies that make them, but for 'regular' cars it's not true at all. Sure, they have more sensors, computers, servos, etc., but they still also have most of the same old bits between all that stuff, and many bits are either maintenance-free now or very close to it (for instance chassis-lube-jobs have gone the way of the buggy-whip).
In 2002 I bought a brand-new VW GTI, the one with the 1.8 turbo engine. I'd say that it was wonderfully reliable until it was about six years old, and then the decrepitude began to creep in. Now the 'average' owner would have traded it at five years and paid somebody else to do all that maintenance and repairs, but I'm the 'keep 'em until they die' type too and I do my own work on them as much as I can. The cambelt service on that car was a total pig of a job, although still orders of magnitude easier than that of the Esprit I used to have.Around age 7 it began to have some other problems too, like a crank-position sensor that failed, and shortly after that, one of the ignition coil-packs would blow about every 10K miles. The crank sensor is very easy to renew, but you need an OBD-interface to diagnose it. No big deal; it's just another tool. I got an interface cable and software that worked with my existing laptop computer for $250. Around the same age, several plastic cooling-system components began to fail, as did the breather-plumbing. I repaired all that easily, and in fact I saved 90% on the breather repair by using components from Home Depot instead of VW parts! It looked ghetto as hell, but it worked and was LOTS more durable than the OEM parts. In January 2013 the GTi ate its cambelt while on the way to the office one morning, with about 165K miles on the clock. It's a 20-valve, 'interference' head design, so I didn't even bother thinking about repairing it, as even doing all the work myself it would have cost more than the car was worth.
By contrast, in 1999 my mother bought a new Mazda MPV. It has about 50K on it as she's retired and lives in a small city, but keep in mind that this means that it never really gets thoroughly warmed-up and sees virtually no highway-miles. It's still in good shape, and in 17 years it's troubles have amounted to:
1) Some carbon build-up in the throttle-body a few years ago that caused some slight sticking, cleaned-out by the local Firestone garage and no problem since.
2) The driver-door's electric lock makes a bit of a howl when it actuates- but still functions just fine.
3) Some very slow seepage from the oil pan gasket. Bit of kitty-litter on the garage floor is the worst from that.
And then there's my friend Duane. He bought a Toyota Camry around 2002, new, and it was pretty much flawless. Other than regular maintenance, all it ever needed was a few lamps here and there. When those started needing renewal he joked about what an unreliable POS his car was turning into. Last year he traded it -at over 300K miles- for a Ford Fusion hybrid, which Duane (who is in his 70s) thinks is a computer posing as a car but he can't shut up about how great it is. High praise considering that he thought his Camry was the most perfect vehicle ever devised.