then why would people buy new cars every 5 years?

Please read this entire message

Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):

Questions about a business or a group's motivation are not allowed on ELI5. These are usually either straightforward, or known only to the organisations involved, leading to speculation (Rule 2).

If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the detailed rules first. If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please use this form and we will review your submission.

The Japanese believe that if they make good cars, people will buy their cars again when they need to buy a car. American automakers believe that if people have to replace their cars more often, they'll make more money.

Yeah that seems about right. It just seems a little shortsighted on the US manufacturers side though.

When you run a business by quarterly reports that can happen.

My FIL had a '98 Honda CR-V that had almost 200k miles until it racked up too much in repairs to keep. I told myself when I was in the market, I was definitely going for a Honda.

The time came and I got a used 2012 Civic with 35k miles. Now the car's 11 years old, around 160k miles and still going strong. Building to less than exceptional reliability seems like a terrible business decision unless you go strictly for the customers for whom money is no object, and/or the ones with more dollars than sense.

You mean like the ones who will only buy Chevy because their daddy drove a Chevy, and his daddy drove a chevy...? :)

Either that or people who don't care about having constant car payments and just lease new ones all the time I guess hehe.

Yeah! If that's the approach a new American car will last that long for sure, that's a good point!