This guy's summery sums it up nicely.

"# Pch101 :
December 14th, 2007 at 11:22 am

Well, this is the part of the trilogy that I was waiting for. And you’ve hit the nail on the head with this one.

When I read on bulletin boards about car owners who intend to own their cars for 15 years, I just shake my head and wonder if they’ve ever looked under the hood or elsewhere to see what makes a 2008 car different from one built in 1988 or 1978. Those electronic gizmos are going to die long before that ever happens, and take the car down with them because the parts are too costly and the DIY mechanic won’t be able to replace them.

Cars today are far more reliable than they ever have been, but they are less durable. They will give more trouble-free service, but their total service lives will be shorter.

The age of passing your 20-year old beater onto your kid so he can travel cheaply and learn how to keep it running is dead. The analogy of the 8-year old computer is very much on point. The beater won’t be worth fixing, a computer swap will cost more than the car is worth."