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I figure on just replacing stuff as it's needed, and not deferring maintenance. I've had worst luck with cars in the 60,000-100,000 mile range. It seems like once everything that's going to wear out has been replaced once, then you're just on a progressive replacement schedule as long as you want to keep the car. There's nothing like a good detail job and new suspension components to make the old car feel like a new one.
Doing my own work makes it practical (and having an extra car so when one's in the shop I can still get around). I'm all for the repair-rather-than-replace ethos. Local work, long-term relationships, etc. Maintenance gets short shrift in our economy, from the tax code to advertising. I'm not sure why it's $100/hr to have a professional work on my car, but that does give me motivation to try to fix it myself.
Maybe part of the problem is an "investment" mentality people sometimes apply to vehicles. For some reason it makes more sense to most people to take a $5,000 depreciation hit on a new rig than it does to spend $1,500 fixing the old one, even though both will do the same thing.
If some financial genius could come up with an installment-paid maintenance plan, it might make people more likely to maintain their vehicles longer. Seems like it might be the unpredictable nature of repair costs that make new car payments look like a better deal. The incentives are wrong, though, giving people motivation to buy after they discover a problem and cancel after a covered repair. I guess the extended warranties with a refund clause (if you don't make any claims, they refund some or all of the warranty cost) is designed to address this.
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