alt Hacker NewsI learned this lesson with my Kia Telluride. Rave reviews, but it was a new model without years of data behind it.
At 70,000 miles very expensive parts began to break down like clockwork, like the very complicated alternator, and even small accidents racked up $10,000-$20,000 repair bills. Insurance paid for it, but the car was out of commission for a month each time.
I can’t fault the reviewers exactly, but I learned a lesson that there may be something to longer, proven designs that have been battle tested over millions of collective miles.
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For second hand cars, here in Australia we have a youtuber that goes by the name ReDriven, this guy Adam reviews second hand cars specifically and focuses on reliability, and what it's like to live with. He's got a mate who's a mechanic that details all the specific mechanical problems that they see with the cars.
Such an insanely useful little channel and they do amazing work.
I think small accidents == large bills is caused by the amount of sensors and crumple zones in cars.
Layered on top of that is the massively increased cost of parts and labor to install the parts and paint them. And cars aren't really made to be taken apart easily.
Then there is the issue of availability of parts, especially in newer cars.
All of that makes it so that there are a 100+ cars outside the body-shop I frequently pass by. Because of the speed (or slowness) of the pipeline, body-shops need to be a certain size. Then insurance tries to squeeze them, and people don't get paid enough for the work they actually do.
So that's why your repaired bumper is 2 tints darker than your body. No-one has the time to properly blend the paints.
If you're conservative and buying something as critical as a daily use car it makes a lot of sense to get second or later model year of the second or later generation since a major redesign. Preferably a model that has been sold in high volumes and used heavily as a taxi or something. Then at least you will know the most likely problems before you buy.
I think reliability is the reason they killed the Soul. It scored too high a score on reliability for its price point.
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That is why Toyota is so popular in the US: They are extremely reliable.
(I personally don't drive them, but many of my family members love them.)
If you want to keep a new car 10+ years, they're generally a safe bet. Related: I had very little problems with my 2018 Tesla Model 3, but traded it in at 6.5 years because I needed a larger vehicle for my family.