An awesome defense of Free Market Captialism..

[Keef]

laugh it up chuckles, If it weren't for the cash for clunkers thing that went on a about 10 years ago, there would still be too many 90's grand prix, grand ams and all the other cars that GM put the 3.1-3.8 v6s in. Jeeps with the V8 and inline 6, still see a lot of those on the road. And there are still a whole lot of early 2000's cars around. Mostly Fords and GM's but a lot of high mileage vehicles still on the road. In a weak economy, when people are worried about making mortgage payments, car companies are not going to get people to trade in and buy a new car. Only recently, have I noticed around my area of Lansing, that people have started buying new cars. But just take a drive, unless you roll in like Bloomfield or Gross Point, or whatever area is the rich one for you, chances are you will see far more used cars than new.
Johnny, I will get to your question when I have time. Your question, while a simple one liner, is not so simple of an answer and will take me more time than I have at work to answer.

There are still a lot of 90s cars on the road but they are only made by a few manufacturers. The key to longevity is the availability of parts. GM's offerings during the 90s weren't what I would call reliable, but they were plentiful. They were everywhere, they weren't highly desirable, and they depreciated like rocks. Replacements parts were just as plentiful, and because the GM of the 90s epitomized the term platform sharing, many of the cars all used the exact same parts. The cars were always and still are crap, but they are so simple and cheap to maintain that it is still cheaper than buying a new car.

The 90s were the tail end of GM's genius implementation of "planned obsolescence" wherein they actually engineered their products to fail in specific ways at specific times (out of warranty) to force customers to either pay for maintenance or buy a new (cheap) car. Either way, GM thought they could profit by making their cars bad on purpose. Unfortunately for them, the Japanese competitors which rose in the early 90s did not practice this. The combination of GM's uncompetitive business model and customer dissatisfaction meant that they fell behind and stayed behind the curve.