Car Lease Mileage

You pay for a car so that you can use it as you wish.  TV commercials and advertisements show car owners speeding along unrestricted/traffic-free roads (sometimes off-roading) to varied destinations.

In reality...
Friends recently bemoaned the fact that they can't take their car on a road trip... because of their car lease's constraints on mileage.

If they used the car for the Saturday road trip, they couldn't drive the car during the week afterward.  How absurd!  Especially in modern-day America.

Yet, there is logic reasoning behind it.  Today's cars are usually only good for 30,000 miles, before things start going wrong with them.  That's why most 3-year leases allow for under 10,000 miles per year (which is not a lot).

Not long ago, the USA manufactured GREAT automobiles--especially the World War II Jeep.  Look up vintage films about them online: they "took a beating and kept on ticking" through all kinds of terrain and conditions.  Now, the American military has replaced those indestructible vehicles for gas-guzzling / impractical Hummers.  (I'm sure the oil industry doesn't mind the taxpayer money).  Look online for other car ads, up to the 1960s.  See the film, "Tucker".  

New cars are lightweight (but even more costly to repair than all-metal vintage cars).  They're full of computerized technology (bells & whistles) but have crappy mechanisms.  Ford innovatively made the first mass-produced car: Model T, which was as unstoppable as the Jeep.  Nowadays, Ford is nicknamed the acronym "Fix Or Repair Daily".  Years ago, my Scoutmaster had a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the only thing wrong with it was an occasional rattle in the passenger door.  Nowadays, my friend's Jeep Grand Cherokee has needed to be dropped off for whole afternoons at Jeep Service Centers THREE TIMES in FOUR MONTHS for malfunctioning computerization.  (and the engine belt snapped apart, right after passing their first inspection!)  (and the headlight died, weeks after that).  

Thus, drivers don't want to keep their cars beyond their lease agreements.  So, they tolerate the mileage constraints... instead of enjoying those expensive toys.