I think people’s impression of things is skewed because overall cars are much more reliable than they used to be. When I was a kid a car over 10 years old was something you expected to have issues, and certainly wanted to avoid buying. That’s not the case these days, and the huge numbers of functional older cars on the roads make us not realize just how many old vehicles are out there because they’re normalized.
My car is 15 years old, my wife’s is 9. They’re both perfectly fine and they don’t feel old to us.