[TheCapn]

That's exactly the sentiment being shared on the reddit thread I just came here from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/nr4awu/which_expensiv...

As a personal anecdote: my 2003 VW (1.8T GTI) had 330,000km when I sold it to a friend (it continues to run strong, but not sure the KMs). I did all the work myself and I did it on time. Biggest repair was AC Compressor, the rest was just routine maintenance and a couple $50 sensors. If a CEL came on I addressed it as soon as possible. At the same time, I had a friend with a similar year Jetta TDI which lit on fire around the 290k mark. Every time I was in her car the CEL was on, and I remember driving it home on a road trip once where you'd hold the pedal to the floor the whole way just to keep it at the highway speed limit.