Never the same way twice. Haven't had enough to detect a real pattern.
In college I owned a vehicle for less than six months. I needed a beater for the summer, and when I was done it was sold. My goal was 6 months, 6,000 miles, $600 for all costs. Hit that goal.
My last car I planned on 250k without high cost, with the goal of 300k/10yr total ownership, in a vehicle that I really wanted. Like clockwork, at 250k it needed a bunch of work, but then I got 314k & 11 years out of it--exactly as planned.
Current car, shoot me but I have really low expectations. I'd like to make it last this year and then I think it will have done its job--I plan to run until it's cost effective to replace (or I win lotto!). I didn't buy it to be sporty, fun, cheapest to run, didn't have any real expectations other than to get below a certain level of frustrations (not in the shop all the, easy for me to repair but hopefully not often), cheap purchase, cheap running cost. Easy ingress/egress, no sentimental attachment in case it gets wrecked or something better comes along. Unfortunately it's not quite as cheap as I'd like: $1,500 purchase, $1,900 repairs/maintenance/upgrades, and only 31kmiles thus far. Would be nice to get depreciation+repairs below 10c/m, usually I allot 10c/m just for depreciation and I am starting to think I'm spending too much on depreciation.
Up here, everything rots away. Rock chips and road salt. Ten years is a good lifespan if it's driven heavily, after that it probably doesn't make sense, as everything is heavily worn & who knows what you will break when fixing something.