I take for granted these days that my four-year-old car will get me from A to B without breaking down. Forty years ago, this wasnât the case. When I drove, I would listen carefully to the carâs many sounds, worried that something was about to go wrong.

This anxiety was reasonable. My first car, purchased in the early 1960s, had an unusual problem: The accelerator pedal sometimes stuck to the floor. I would have to bend down to get it unstuck while keeping one eye on the road. A few years later I bought a new car, but before...