I am surprised nobody mentioned this before.

In the "olden days" despite inferior technology, cars were designed to last, overengineered. Thses days, as many other mass consumer market products, the cars are engineered to fail. By this I mean during design stages one of the main brief points if MTBF (Mean Time BEfore Failure) figure. This influences everything. With today's material tech, design advances and computer modelling it is child's play to design and build a car which will never fail (Somebody mentioned Lexus doing 120k miles between services). They cannot do it as it would be commercial suicide - they need to sell new cars, not change fluids in 30 year old built like tanks never failing cars .

So I think they are less reliable by design and fully intentionally. As for the complexity and how even the a bulb change requires dismantling of half af the car (to change a pollen filter in VW Sharan one has to dismantle half of the engine bay's upper plastic bits and bobs, to change fog light bulb on Lupo one has to dismantle half of the bottom of the car to get there...) again, made this way to make sure you visit your dealer... Diagnostics - almost dead art, "techs" (I am sure there are real pros out there as well!) just plug diag rig in, read codes and replace parts, very few investigate root cause, just happy to keep changing whole subsystems. Granted, some of them are sealed for life and nothing can be done but still proper diagnostics of root causes of problems is rather rare I dare say...

I blame Colin Chapman. he used to say that if his race car didn't fall apart as it was rolled into the pits after winning a race it was overengineered and too heavy

i'm with scribbler on this, late 90's was a golden era for european cars, they've gotten frumpy. slow. and too complicated ever since... its a vein attempt by the manufacturers to ensure you go to a franchised dealer to have it fixed... vag group cars have been crap since about 2005 in terms of reliability and durability

Conversley Pre 90 Cars with carbs and no fuel injection were not as reliable (remember Krypton tuning anyone?) which is why i think mid to late 90's cars were the most reliable as they had just enough electronics but not too much that it caused software issues and glitches. Think of all the recalls for cars these days potentiometers and electrical problems that cause cars to accelerate on their own or not brake as they should. None of this with Mid 90's cars they just rolled off the production line and worked and still work now!

I don't honestly believe cars are designed to fail or that certain parts are designed to be hard to get to. Rather I think that the manufacturers don't really care about those things and it's just not a consideration in the design. As long as the MTF is after the warranty period then it'll get signed off. If not they'll spen some money on development.

I think governments (EU) have a lot to answer for by foisting a lot of technology onto cars with their regulations. All the green wash never seems to take into account the building of the car in the first place. i.e would it be more environmentally friendly for me to drive one car for 30yr or to continually change cars every 3yr to newer 'greener' tech.

Embedded/production environmental and energy costs are often neglected and only recently "cradle to grave" assessements were introduced but I do not think are mandatory. Using a car for 30 years would be brilliant form the above point of view but first of all it would bankrupt manufacturers (unless they went ink jest printer way) or the purchase price would have to accomodate such a huge life span.

Everything, including your house, is designed for a certain life span and not to last forever. It perhaps will last longer than the stated design life as it is designed with safety margins...

More reliable I would say but more expensive to fix these days with all the electronic controlled stuff and more specialized equipment required to fix them

I just think cars have many more components now, meaning a bigger

list of things that can fail/break/go wrong. Some will stop the car working altogether

and some won't. My earliest cars were so basic electronically speaking that even

the ignition was points based, with a manual choke.

But I at least knew how to work on those cars. 90% of problems could be cured

with a rummage down the breakers and a bit of beer money for the parts you actually

paid for and couldn't fit into your toolbox . These new fangled eco vehicle dismantlers

are very pricey in comparison.

First car I drove (and learned to drive on) had two pot 650cc motor in the rear driving rear axle directly and air cooled. No electronics at all of any kind, even starter motor was operated by a linkage lol. Absolute hoot to drive!I drove it for 6 years, only once managed to blow the head gasket (driving top speed for 30 mins continously) and it was running as new. My brother then got his clammy paws on it and drove it to the ground within a year...

Was it unreliable then?

Modern cars are much more reliable than old ones. How many old cars would go 20k miles between services (4-6k averages with grease nipples, points etc). Think back to the likes of the Marina - a shockingly bad car - rusted away as you looked at it, used more oil than fuel and needed most parts replacing over it's 60k lifespan.

As it's been mentioned earlier in the thread - it was a rare occasion that cars used to get to 100k - now many are reaching that milestone within 2-3 years and are expected to keep going.

Casting my mind back to my childhood, cars were very unreliable - many mornings they wouldn't start through either damp, points, HT leads, fuel, flat battery etc, let alone the amount of maintenance required at weekends. Admittedly most of the work could be done by the home mechanic, but I think that is probably where the difference comes in - old cars need a lot of attention and repairs but can be done at home, new cars don't need as much regular work but when things do go wrong it is often a garage/dealer job.

The above is just my opinion btw

Everything, including your house, is designed for a certain life span and not to last forever. It perhaps will last longer than the stated design life as it is designed with safety margins...

Maybe not forever, I agree. However, I live in a house built in 1859 and drive a car from 1994 and both are still going strong. But to go with you on this I just wonder though if a car built this year will still be going in 2032? Probably not. My brother in law works with a few car manufacturers around the globe and he would back you up on your theory with the experiences he's had.

It's difficult to compare cars from the sixties & seventies with what we are currently driving, because the 'older' cars were more basic.

As I started driving in 1973 I can say that quite a bit of time at weekends were spent keeping the thing on the road. Rust was a constant battle, plugs, points. damp leads and distributor caps, Carburettor problems, adjusting tappets, oil leaks etc etc.

Also remember that the handling, performance, brakes, comfort, mpg were nowhere near modern cars.

As other have said, yes you could fix it yourself and parts were cheaper, but would I swap my Octavia Elegance Combi 1.6cr DSG for my old MkIII Cortina estate 1.6L? ...................No Chance.

I have a 1996 Rover 214 and a 2003 Bag of **** Fabia VRS. I've had the Rover since August 2010. It cost me £250, is my motorsport toy and only ever gets driven flat out. In that time it's done nearly 60 events and has finished all bar one when a piece of metal flicked up off the floor and got lodged in the cambelt causing it to lift enough to let the inlet cam slip back 3 teeth. Next morning, I lined everything back up and turned the key. It ran perfect.

I bought the Fabia at the end of November last year. So far:

The DMF has failed.

It leaked oil from the rocker gasket. Replaced gasket, it now leaks from the other end of the gasket.

The radiator leaked.

The CTS fell out and it dumped it's coolant all over the road.

The electric windows don't work properly

The passenger seatbelt wouldn't retract and had to be replaced.

Driver's seat would rock back and forth due to a worn bit on the subframe.

Rear doors leaked water into the cabin.

And worst of all the engine nearly fell off last week due to a failed engine mount.

So which car do you reckon I'm confident will always get me home?