Chances are your gas vehicle probably won't make it that long... the mx. over the years
There are PLENTY of gas vehicles that will go 500k without major maintenance. The toyota wagon is a prime example, but so is the chevy scottsdale, my f-150 bush truck had 350k on it (a 1991) and was still going strong when I sold it. Sure, you have to maintain a gas vehicle, you also have to maintain a diesel vehicle, and when something engine related breaks on a diesel vehicle the repair tends to be MUCH more costly than its gas counterpart.
I have never purchased a new vehicle because I do not see the value in it. So my knowledge comes from actually driving beat old vehicles and I can tell you that your assumption regarding when a domestic will die is way off. Most, if not all of my used beaters have had well in excess of 200k when I let them go and all of them left me working. Short of the ones I wrote off none of them ever left me stranded due to catastrophic failure... save the acura legend and nissan 200sx. I love machines so I tend to swap due to boredom. Without a doubt the domestics have been more reliable and have less stupid things that need changing, such as timing belts... Even the japanese manufacturers are taking a page out of the domestic books on this one because changing that belt is c. 600 bucks, and a chain rarely needs to be changed.
Think of cars like airplanes. Sometimes TBO is not such a great indication of what state the aircraft is in. Sure it might have 2000 hours left but if it's sat for ten years it probably isn't airworthy. (gross exaggeration) however an aircraft with 500 hours tbo might be a better machine because it is flown often and maintained. Same thing goes for pretty much any vehicle. An odometer reading is not the end all criteria for deciding what condition a vehicle is in, just as TBO isn't the be all criteria for deciding what condition an aircraft is in.
What happens though, is some consumer reads a magazine and takes it as the gospel. Magazines are great resources no doubt, but let's be clear that they come with a vested interest.
Most magazines review a car ONCE, at the time of production, and if there are no MAJOR model changes they quite often neglect to test that car again. Perhaps when the magazine tested the vehicle in its first iteration there was a minor problem which colored their review, but they wouldn't pick up the review the next year when the problem was solved but the vehicle was still the same generation.
Anyways, foreign or domestic if you get something you like you pretty much can't go wrong. Every manufacturer makes a lemon here and there and q.c. can't catch every little glitch, but it is interesting to note that in Egypt there are a million LADAs running around in top notch condition with tons of mileage...
I mix it 100 to 1 with 2 cycle oil to keep my injection pump happy.
