The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

> It's always been my premise that good maintenance means longevity on vehicles.

There are myriad examples of manufacturing defects and cost optimizations that lead to early failures regardless of maintenance. I would not trust a well maintained Stellantis vehicle to make it to 200k miles regardless of how well it was maintained.

Look at Nissan. Their CVTs are known to have an effective life of about 60,000 miles. Anything beyond that is betting against the reaper. Because of the way the transmission is mated to the engine (in order to reduce the overall size) most times the cost to replace it costs more than the car is worth. Many times insurance will total a seven or eight year old Rogue or Altima if the CVT needs replaced. This is because Nissans depreciate in value so quickly, and it's somewhat of an ouroboros in that they depreciate in value so quickly because of the short lifetimes of the CVTs.

Meanwhile Mitsubishi has been suffering issues with their AWD systems failing, and because the Eclipse Cross and Outlander Sport are sold primarily as AWD that affects a majority of their sales.

Ford's had the issue with the dual-clutch automatics failing on the Focus, Fiesta, and Escape.

Dodge has... Well, really only the Durango currently that's reliable. The Charger PHEV is having all sorts off issues, from the battery packs overheating to random software glitches to the engine refusing to disengage from the electric portion of the drivetrain. The Hornet's been getting the shit kicked out of it by Kelley Blue Book and Consumer Reports because the transmissions are ripping themselves apart and the BCMs are bricking themselves.

Jeep's had issues with the Cherokee, Wrangler, Gladiator, and Compass because of the Pentastar engine nuking itself before 100,000 miles either by losing too much oil or the water jackets cracking. Meanwhile the differentials in the Wrangler and Gladiator have had problems that Stellantis denies.

Back before about... I'd say 2016? 2017? You had a lot less issues with new cars. Most issues were simple recalls like transmissions slipping out of gear or premature wear on the cams, not something that would entirely junk the car.

Yes, manual. It is very rare to find automatic cars of that age in Europe.

> It's always been my premise that good maintenance means longevity on vehicles.

There's a guy on my Range Rover forum[1] that has over 500,000 miles on his ex-police 4.0, and it's well on its way to 600,000 miles. It has had the engine rebuilt, new wheel bearings, and a new transfer case chain, and of course maintenance.

My daily is my low-mileage one with only 190,000 on the clock, and my other needs some work and has 270,000 on the clock.

> Pre-2007 cars can be driven for that long

Even in the final years of the 20th century it was considered a big deal and a testament to a car's quality if it got past 100k miles. Even in the decade before that it was common for odometers to only have five digits, because most people would never need the sixth.

> This was because managers hadn't yet taken charge of reducing material thickness to the absolute minimum.

Henry Ford sent people to junkyards to see what parts hadn't failed, in order to make them cheaper.