Which Automotive Manufacturers are the least Planned Obsolescence based?

All modern equipment is designed for a particular life expectancy. Most cars are made to last 15-20 years and 200k-300k miles; designing them to last 25 years prices them out of the largest part of the car market.

What turns most people off to the concept is that in the 1980s and 1990s the large American makes were vying for the lucrative fleet market. Rental companies and companies that leased cars for three years fed the demand for cars that were reliable for, and warranted for, three years. A friend of the family had one such car, an early '90s Escort (if I remember right). In the fourth year, after the warranty expired but she was still paying on it, the water pump seized and destroyed the timing belt, which shattered a valve seat and destroyed the engine - all in a fraction of a second.

Life cycle design saves the consumer money. How much more do you want the manufacturer to spend on an alternator that is designed to last 40 years in a car that is designed to last 15-20 years?

Cheer up - in IT the obsolescence problem is worse than in the automotive industry. Switches and routers are replaced due to obsolescence (performance no longer meets current standards) long before the hardware becomes unreliable.

Volvo? VW?

It is a dumb question IMO.

"corporations are designing obsolescence products to maximize profits in all markets". Right. If manufacturers only make cars that can survive a nuclear war, ONLY the very rich will have cars. And the economy that you know now will NOT exist. GM, Ford and Chrysler will all close. And if you are one of the employees of companies that support or feed from the sales of these 3 big companies, you will be UNEMPLOYED.

As they often say, "Be very careful what you wish for. You might just get it."

Subaru, Toyota, that is all I can think of.