> I remain baffled when people buy a 7 year old used V6 Traverse, a vehicle extremely well known for catastrophic engine failure

I’m puzzled as well, buying a car that depreciates 60-70% in 7 years seems like a horrible idea, you could spend roughly the same on a Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot and only face 30-40% depreciation after 7 years. This information is freely available if you google “[vehicle model] depreciation curve”.

Nissan (and Stellantis, Mitsubishi) decided to stop making better cars and focus almost exclusively on subprime lending, the rest of the story tells itself once you have that information.