>I pretty much expect that any car I own in my lifetime will be a rather old one.

I recently came to this conclusion, for similar but not identical reasons. Modern vehicles have increasingly complex electronic and mechanical systems wrapped around the engine to improve efficiency. The complexity is becoming a risk, in my opinion, due to the potential cost of maintaining the vehicle beyond 5 years of age.

My usual buy in is around 5 years old, and the cars I have access to now are a huge liability due to all the additional features that can go wrong (DPF, EGR, variable vane turbo etc etc).

My next vehicle will be an old, normally aspirated, petrol engine with the simplest wiring loom I can find.