My last car was a '90 Toyota Corolla that I bought used (~40k miles) in late '92. By the time I traded it in for my HCH last March, it had >320K miles! There were minor annoyances with it by then (cassette player didn't work, driver's window didn't close right sometimes, could only open trunk via the remote release), but the engine and transmission were still in 1st-class condition!

Previous car to that was an '84 Civic hatchback. Bought it used in late '85, had ~175K miles when I traded it in for the Toyota.

Since I do a lot of driving (already over 20K miles on the HCH), I plan to keep it as long as possible, regardless of future hybrid improvements. Ditto the wife's HCH, which we're getting next month.

Well... I usually hit 100,000 miles *long* before I hit 5 years.

My last few cars:
-- '81 Chevette: 100k in 24 months (got the car for free, put $300 engine in it and it ran for 2.5 years)
-- Used Toyota Corolla (had 115k on it, and bit the dust around 225k). I owned this car for 11 months.
-- Toyota Echo: 100k miles after 11 months.

Then I changed jobs... and the days of driving 2-3k miles per week are hopefully *over* for good!

I'm with you, the results so far seem suspect. The vast majority go both a 5 year life AND around 100,000?

My vehicle history, NEW anyways.

1986 Dodge Colt 8yrs-100,000 Rusting badly, tranny problems.
1988 Dodge Ram-50 17yrs-130,000 Burning oil, emissions.
1994 Jeep Cherokee 10yrs-140,000 Unresolvable engine/computer issues.
2004 Honda Element still own 18,000
2005 Toyota Tacoma still own 5,000
1970 Dodge Challenger Convertible owned since 1992 93,000, 12,000 mine.