While I suspect you’re right about newer cars because of galvanized steel etc, but I also wonder how much of the contrarian viewpoint is due to sampling bias. Maybe your Acura was just good luck? I’ve had a domestic wagon of similar vintage that went through many Midwest winters. The exhaust rusted off and so did the sub-frame leading me to offload it many years ago. We really need better data than our personal anecdotes to understand the problem.
Definitely need more than anecdote. Exhaust system though is a wear item, I'd expect to replace that every decade or so.
Sub-frame, not so much!
A quick google shows graphs for "Average age of the US used car fleet" to be around 6 years in 1975, and increasing to 12 years today. Not enough time today before family arrives to really dig further though.
Very true, and car longevity has been steadily increasing. Although, I don’t think the bulk of them failures are attributable to “rotting body panels”. I remember when a car with 100k miles was considered essentially dead, whereas more drive trains routinely last twice that long.
