According to one web site, “you can expect a standard car to last around 12 years or about 200,000 miles.” Another site agrees, “The average car lasts around 12 years or around 200,000 miles.” Both of these web sites are wrong.
A 1957 Mercury Montclair, made during the gaudiest era of U.S. automotive design.
This caught my attention when I was reading the MBTA’s State-of-Good-Repair report, which tried to explain Boston transit’s state of poor repair simply as a function of age, and not the agency’s own incompetence. It did so by using cars as an example, claiming that the “useful life” of a car was eight years and anything older than that was in a “state of bad repair.” Continue reading
