Why did Car Purchases/Repairs take so long?

[orihara]

Why did buying a car take up to ten years and repairs take up to three years in the USSR and Eastern Bloc countries?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Because automobile production was rightly not prioritised. Production of lorries and buses for road transport took precedent, and even this was limited because road investments are generally not economical. The same goes for maintenance of private automobiles, thus resulting waiting times when dealing with an insufficient supply of maintenance facilities and the fact that commercial vehicles comes first for repairs.

In 1990, there were 211 petrol filling stations in Moscow, and only 24 in Leningrad, which gives some scope to the limited automobile traffic in the SSSR; although there was regular road traffic congestion in Moscow already in the 1940's and 50's.