[beatr911]

I'm in the maintenance business. Building maintenance. Billions of dollars are wasted each year due to bad maintenance practices. The same is true of personal vehicles. Unfortunately many people do not know how to reasonably maintain thier vehicle or choose not to because the local mechanic is more painful than the dentist. For those, it's just less painful to just do enough to get by and then blow a big wad on a shiny, cool new vehicle. With very few exceptions, vehicles are not investments they are cost centers.

Fortunately the economy is helping people re-think how useful that old steed really is. Too bad peoples memory is short. When the economy gets better new cars will sell again.