[special-K]

The fact is, right about the ending of WW2, the big 3 automakers did adapt their auto building from doing their best to build cars to last indefinitely to lasting long enough, with some parts that would never last as long as the rest of them. Some of the thought behind that was people only keep them so long anyway. Who cares about the next guy? But it was also economics as well as hoping to give reason to want to trade-in for the new model. Some of it was to make better performance rather than the old designs that were dead reliable. One example is going from flathead to overhead valves. Flatheads make limited power by design but are so simple and tough they just run and run. The OHV adds multiples more moving parts. More to fail. Studebaker didn't fall into this and that is a big reason they fell out of the game. The people who bought the Studes didn't replace them as often. Frequent styling changes is an aspect of planned obsolescence, not just mechanical longevity.

As far as replacing springs and hardware with every drum brake job goes, I rarely ever have used new. I can count on one hand how many times. The times I did was due to a missing or damaged piece from the P.O. But I have never gone back and had any broken springs after doing that and I keep good brakes on my stuff.

On my motorcycles I am a crazy stickler on everything, but especially anything concerning keeping two spinning wheels under me that can stop as short as possible. I replace the wheel bearings every tme a wheel comes off