You wrote, "Most of the fault is with the over expensive parts.." They aren't that high. For $250 you can buy all the spark plugs, air filter, belts, gasoline filters, antifreeze, etc that you need for preventative maintenance. What's $250? We're talking about cars that cost $25,000 - $40,000 when new. And an equivalent replacement when the old one had deteriorated will also cost $40,000. There is some other psychological factor at work here and I don't understand it. It's always cheaper to maintain the old car until it gets so old, massive failures begin to loom such as entire transmissions or engines (and even here, the Volvo RWD folks, who I admire, will simply install another one and happily drive off into the sunset. These guys are tough...).