Count me in as another enthusiastic advocate of keeping old cars on the road. Keeping old equipment in service is the best form of recycling, and what jobs it may not support in the new car industry it does support in the aftermarket industry, I still buy bits and pieces for all my old cars to keep them maintained and safely serviceable.
I get disgusted at certain people (not all, and nobody specific on this forum) who obsess over the "safety" that a new car's rating promises, but then do little or nothing to participate in that safety - driving aggressively or distracted, insisting on a 5-star-rated car to drive to work but then riding a quad at 80mph with no helmet on the weekends, having poor diet/exercise habits that put them at serious risk of cardiac failure, sleeping around with anyone who'll participate, sans condom... BUT THEIR CAR HAS TO BE SUPER SAFE!!!11!!!
We somehow managed to survive all the "unsafe" cars we all grew up in... I have nothing against safety equipment, and eagerly use what is available... but let's face it there's more dangerous stuff we all do than hop in a 20 year old car. I can do a lot of
living with the $10,000/yr I save vs. buying a new car, at only a tiny % greater chance of dying because of my vehicle choice.
Now if I was in charge of a company like AutoZone or Napa, I'd start hosting low-cost classes for the public on evenings and weekends for how to perform basic repairs to your own car, to keep them safe and on the road. Gear the class to be friendly to both genders, and focus on the types of repairs that can be done with simple tools in a driveway or carport - and offer a discounted model of code reader for OBD2 cars to attendees. That'd pay itself off pretty quickly I'd guess, with those same freshly empowered individuals feeling confident enough to lift the hood and at least check their own oil and tire pressure once in a while. The challenge of course would be in reaching non-gearheads to get them in the door in the first place. Ah, well, I'm just rambling anyway
