There is a lot on a modern car that won't last without expensive maintenance. You can keep it going down the road, after 10 years you learn to live with a few broken body parts, wear on the seats, and electronics that don't work. That all could be fixed - but it is cheaper to just buy a brand new car (the type of people driving a car that could either cannot afford a new car, or are too cheap to buy one). I've seen collector cars restored to better than factory new, but it the car was cheaper new (inflation adjusted) than the restore costs. Or more likely the costs were about the same as factory new, but the person doing the restore did it for himself and counted labor costs as zero.
Unless (like during communism in my country) you don't have money on a new car, so you are keeping 20-30 years old car running by self-maintaining it every weekend.
Sure, because you are not counting the cost of labor. Or maybe because labor is dirt cheap where you live. Most people reading this are in a country where labor is not cheap. Even in places where labor is cheap, in general the cost is going up.
