Independent ie article! Madness if you drive a ten year old plus car !

Standard operational missive by SIMI as transmitted by acolytes in the media. The financial sector and the government would be just as happy with it. It's almost entirely set up to convince more people to buy new "green"(don't make me laugh), "safer" cars so that leads to an increase in personal finance which keeps the financial sector happy(the insurance industry is part of that, hence their BS about 15 and then 10year old cars) and the government because strong new car sales are one of the economic indicators that make the economy and confidence in the economy look good and the tax take of course. Keep us consuming.

Too late. 😅

Motoring "journalism" is one of the most incestuous branches of the fourth estate when it comes to industry influence. It's a two way gentleman's agreement. Keep criticism to a minimum and we'll keep inviting you to junkets in sunny locales with open bars. Say something bad, or god forbid honest and good luck with ever getting into the inner circle again. The rise of youtube and social media reviewers has cut into it which is a good thing. For all the static he gets Jeremy Clarkson was one of the earlier mainstream journos being honest about car reviews and the industry and he got so big that the industry couldn't really squeeze him out though a few tried. Opel being one for a time.

Because Ireland is such a small village as far as this stuff goes and the protaganists all knowing each other it's been even more obvious down the years. In many cases the "articles" can be treated as industry press releases with the "author" byline slapped on at the top. A few of us will remember when the Jap import scene was huge here and SIMI firing out similar doom pieces about those cars. They tend to use the same bywords like safety and being more green to get people on side. A hint of a tint of letting yourself down socially another angle. It's all about their bottom line. I remember the late Gerry Ryan having an industry pundit or journo(it's hard to tell them apart) on his show going on about new cars and Gerry questioning a lot of the guy's logic. Yer man wasn't too happy at this line of questioning. We got the same journos along with the industry and government pushing diesels when that was a thing. Until it wasn't.

This particular article is a non entity, which goes nowhere, with a lot of internal WTF going on. As HC03 noted earlier: If you're in the position of praying your car doesn't breakdown over the winter you're not in the position to fork out 40k for a new car. Ah but HC, it's grand to add to your debt pile by buying some new yoke on tick.