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America Is Getting Older. Is That Why Its Cars Are Getting Older Too?
Retirement can turn a four-year car replacement cycle into twenty years. An American reader's experience raises a question that national vehicle statistics cannot yet answer.
A retired American named Robert Emmett Dolan left a long comment beneath my article about why people keep their old cars. Before retirement, he spent twenty-five years commuting to work, sometimes more than two and a half hours a day. He needed a dependable vehicle and generally replaced his commuting car every four years.
Then he retired.
Robert estimates that a car might now take twelve to twenty years to accumulate the mileage that once justified replacing it after four. He no longer drives to work every morning. His existing vehicle can serve him for much longer.
I read his comment in Karachi, where I have watched families maintain old cars because replacing them would consume a substantial part of their savings. My earlier article examined America's expensive new-car market. Robert's experience suggested another explanation for keeping an old vehicle, one that I had largely overlooked.
He no longer needs to replace his car so frequently, even if he can afford to do so.
