‘I believe this 100 percent’: Driver accuses auto manufacturers of designing car parts to fail when warranty expires

Cars have been part of conversations about “planned obsolescence” since the early days.

In fact, many historians trace the origin of the concept to General Motors. Around the 1920s, cars had reached a saturation level in American markets, and the vehicles were built of high enough quality that drivers were not replacing them with regularity.

To encourage sales, GM started to number their cars by year, encouraging “a certain dissatisfaction with past models compared with the new one” among drivers...