To a large extent this depends on the car and depends what you mean by "old". Modern cars vs. 1970s cars? The older cars are completely hopeless. Modern cars vs. 15 year old cars? The older cars may have had things like ABS and side airbags as options rather than as standard, but you can find one that has them that doesn't have cellular telemetry.
IIRC, there is for Europe a directive which requires 60/65% (?) of the force within a crash must be absorbed by the frame/chassis. It came into action around 2015, IIRC.
That's when it became mandatory on all vehicles, not when the first vehicle to satisfy the standard became available on the market.
As another example, side impact airbags have been mandatory in the US since 2013, but the Volvo 850 had them in 1995 and they were present on something like half of new cars a decade before they were mandatory and >97% of new cars three years before the mandate.
I think there have been considerable improvements in basic things like frame materials & airbag placement in the last 15 years. Certainly in the last 20.
Although, it seems to have been only available/produced in Brazil, Columbia, Russia, Uzbekistan, which I'd argue is in line with my original sentiment.
That was the second generation which started in the 2011 model year. The first gen Cobalt was made and sold in the US into 2010 (the last year the first gen was made anywhere). That was also the last full year a car without ABS could be made in the US, since 2011 is when it became required by law.
Hmm yeah but anything over 15 years isn't really viable as a daily driver anyway. Then you're getting to the point where you start having serious issues every year at the mandatory mechanical check. Then you're getting into old-timer drive once on a sunny day territory.
I always bought medium sized cars at 10 years when they're already only a grand or two. The smallest ones are made so cheaply that they're already too tired at this age and strangely enough they're more expensive due to the lower road tax. So more people want them.
And then I used to drive them till the maintenance becomes too expensive, for 5 or 6 years or so. And just scrap them then.
I guess if I still owned a car I could still do this for a good while without having to get spyware. But not too long.
Yeah at that point I'd just go for another 10 year old car.
My last car was a Volvo S40, had really nice leather interior, nearly full option and cost me €2000.
I only had a few brake pads an a broken trunk cable to deal with (super common issue on this model), the latter I did myself for €40 in parts. Ran great for years. But yeah there's an element of luck also.
My previous car was an Octavia, that had more issues. Electric window broke and I replaced it all myself. But it was a pretty nasty job. Eventually the gearbox started whining and when I brought it to the shop it basically blew up. But it had served me 5 years at that point. Cost me €1200 to buy.
