I think the key piece that people forget about is that maintenance includes environmental considerations. If you live in the rust belt, you definitely want to make an annual trip to Ziebart for the rust treatment. My truck is almost a decade old and has been treated annually, no rust issues beyond minor surface rust; a guy four doors down from me has the same model year and never treated his, and it's losing whole body panels to rust.

Most vehicles are mechanically sound and will run a long time as long as they're cared for. I had a Lincoln Town Car that died with 999,997 on the ODO and I was really only upset because it hadn't ticked over before it died.