Despite cars getting better in most ways, it is getting difficult to accurately forecast what many cars will cost to run. I agree with Carl that many owners get stung for thousands for repairs, and as I pay for my own repairs, it would be brutal to get hit with a bill like that. Journalists obsess about this car being a second faster to 60 than that car, and about fuel consumption, but never seem to explore long term ownership costs, or build quality.
Car makers don't appear to care about the albatrosses they hang around owners' necks. When I read about problems on newish cars with DPFs, dual mass flywheels, failed turbos, air suspension systems, EGRs, timing chain and tensioner failures, catastrophic engine failures (Mazda 6), power steering failures (Vauxhall) pedestrian airbags going off while driving over potholes and costing a fortune to repair (Jag XF), cars that car thieves are able to effortlessly steal with a laptop and a bit of software (BMW and others) I wonder where the JD Power team get their data from. Some forums for quality, executive cars are just a litany of expensive sob stories.
Many owners seem to lose their cars for weeks for repairs, having paid a fortune for them in the first place. Clearly, it is dissatisfied owners that tend to post, but the sheer scale of problems is staggering. I remember going on a holiday with mates and the engine failing in our cortina mk 1. Two of the lads had it towed to a scrapyard, found a suitable engine, and replaced it within a couple of hours, and probably with just two or three spanners. I sometimes think we would be better going back to basics. Or here's an idea. What about manufacturers not waste any more time on their current efforts to gain 1 mpg, so that they can advertise a better headline rate of fuel consumption, which is never remotely achievable anyway. Why not stop wasting time trying to reduce emissions with clumsy devices like filters, which by their very nature, will inevitably get blocked and land people with a big bill,. Why don't manufactures stop concealing from drivers the fact that they cannot take short journeys, only long ones, thus ignoring the driving habits of the vast majority of car owners. Why not stop wasting time trying to add more and more technology to cars, to the point where driving needs more concentration than docking a Shuttle at the International Space Station. Why not instead focus on what drivers really want, which is refinement, low levels of noise, vibration and harshness, components that last years before they wear out or fail, rather than months. Why not, as road surfaces deteriorate before our eyes, focus on ride comfort instead of the ability to shave off half a second at the Nurburgring. People can opt for sportier models if they wish, but I'm pretty sure most of us value our vertebrae over a few minutes off a typical journey. I'm pretty sure a 1960 Morris Oxford rode more comfortably than the majority of modern cars. Just watch some old films of the 50s to the 80s and you can see, as cars pull up, the lovely soft suspension settling. Do all these things and perhaps, after owning over 70 cars, and currently being in the market for a 2 - 3 year old car, preferably a hatch or estate for daily use, I might be able to think of one car, at any price point, that I can truly say I aspire to, because I can honestly say there is not one car that fits the bill at the moment. For many years, I could not afford a decent car, but now that I can, I'm stumped. (My 400 is a weekend/hobby car btw)