my mother (now in her 70's) told me of a car produced back when she was in her teens, that would never need repaired and got excellent gas mileage, she said they scrapped the entire project due to it not needing any mechanical repairs.
Im not 100% sure how accurate that is since my mother isnt really interested in anything to do with cars, plus it was 50-60 yrs ago
that said, Ive always known the car manufacturers have the ability to get much more from their cars than what they put out on the market, not only that, but in the US they "dumb" them down even further.