On May 18, 11:33 am, N8N wrote:
....
To me, "durability" means that the product in question will last as
long as possible - i.e. it will always be cheaper to repair it if it's
broken than to replace it. Something like an old tractor; it may have
small issues, but it will keep going and going indefinitely as long as
it's kept up. IME German cars are the *only* vehicles for which this
is true, at least among cars made in the last 30 years. Any other
vehicle - eventually there's going to be a failure that will cost more
to repair than the value of the car.
....

That's true for any German car, too. Remember, even the 100-year
shay _eventually_ wore out.

While I'll agree it's possible to keep almost anything operational
almost indefinitely, it certainly gets to a point that except for
collector's value, the resale value will be smaller than any major
repair. The other difficulty, of course, gets to be replacement parts
for anything that isn't at least relatively common...the advantage of
Ford/Chevy/andnowToyota, etc., ...

Anecdotally, a buddy back years ago bought an old Mercedes cheap
because he also had been become convinced they were indestructable.
After two years of many very high-priced repairs, he understood fully
the reason the original owner had parted with it so cheaply...