I did a little research, and found that the market sets car prices, not the manufacturers. That being said, both the new and the used car market prices HON/TOY products to last about 150,000 miles. Sure, many go much longer and still have some residual worth at
150,000 miles. At 150,000 miles, they become "might last longer" vehicles...but not a great bet. But for GM/FORD the market prices them to go only to 100,000 miles before it's worth merely a residual "might last longer" value. That's why a loaded CR-V can command $23,000 while you can find a similar Ford Escape that they can only get $18,000 for (after all the rebate shenanigans). The market is recognizing that the Escape approaches crap at 100,000 miles while the CR-V probably won't approach crap until
150,000 miles. The HON/TOY is actually cheaper to own. Here the 'Scape costs
18 cents/mile while the CR-V costs 15 cents/mile. And while most people don't own a car from showroom to junkyard, this same pricing pattern will show up at resale time so, again, even for the 2-3 year owner, the HON/TOY is cheaper than the GM/FORD to own. (I will say that with the depth of the GM/FORD rebates today, their cost per mile is approaching that of HON/TOY. But, of course, cutting prices enough to compensate people for this 50,000 durability gap is killing both GM and FORD in the process).