Your first paragraph does not make sense, first you are questioning of it being a disposable appliance then are claiming that no car will be in good nick after 11 years.
next - the maintenance bit, how many kei cars do you know that have worked sucessfully with no added fizooliyat to keep them running and have worked for more than 100,000 kms on no rebuilds?
Speaking of parts - with the Honda Civic and Toyota corolla - you can get genuine brand new spare parts from the dealership - down to the most smallest part, you can even get new complete original body pieces - thats how insurance rebuilds work.
With the kei cars the scrapyard is your only hope and not everything is available as entire cars are not allowed in scrap, so they have to be cut up at the point of origin. I know you will say that Pakistani denters are talented and can fabricate parts by hand and everything but thats invalid - they do not follow repair sequence as required. e.g. if you tear out the rear suspension from hitting a hole in the road you would be really in soup to find a replacement floorpan for your kei car to mount it back. No scrappie would have it as it adds dead weight to their cargo - so they cut that bit out. Hand fabricating it will render the piece soft. Genuine manufacturer parts are still not completely available, just go and ask any parts store for the full clutch friction and steels set including complete seal and fitting kit of your car's automatic transmission - you'll get your answer.
About Vitz parts prices coming down - nearly all parts available that are low cost are replacement parts not genuine parts and the only parts available are what the shopkeepers call "parchoon" parts, meaning those that sell off quickly. A simple question of asking them for genuine toyota brand new brake discs, brake pipes or even the air cleaner plastic casing will send them into confusion - and they would have the nerve to recommend the scrap yard... lol
What I beleive is that people think that the scrap yard is the feeding source for these cars, that is itself flawed. What good is spending labour cost to replace a part that you know has its life cut in half. On PW I have seen people proudly saying that they BOUGHT brake pipes, struts, transmissions, dash contols etc. from the scrappie and how cheap they were. Theres a reason - they are used parts. Due to this mentality and the over genius ustaadification involving rigging stuff to work, gutting out cat converters, regularly cleaning the TB 5 times a day, literally grinding case hardened items to fit (like valves and lifters). This looks rosy temporarily until the car starts to visit ustaad jee every month to keep his "income flowing"
BUT - your money, your car, your game.
and back to topic - the only way to get some economy out of these cars is to drive them with A/C on mix setting or completely off and do not make the engine lug to work, Im sure kids on bicycles will be passing you very quick.
