This depends on the period of time and mindset of the consumers of that age.
Rolls Royce at one time built cars guaranteed for the life of the owner. But that day is gone and when it was the case, a Rolls never broke down. They fixed it and never sent a repair bill.
The European mindset was that the mechanics should be factory trained. There were and still are a lot of secrets that only factory trained mechanics know on these cars. So of course no service manual factory or other wise told you every thing you needed to know. At one time it was just accepted that cars were going to break down and the rich (they were the only ones who truly needed cars as far as Europe was concerned) could afford a personal mechanic/chauffeur. British cars could be fixed and that is why they lasted so long.
Now when talking British cars, it needs to be realized there were two world wars that took place. Britain suffered for this in the manufacturing sector. While the US was able to move on to the assembly line. The Brits stuck with car building teams that constructed cars with old school methods one at a time. The worst part was that the US donated money to the continent for rebuilding the lost info-structure, but Britain and US industry paid the price. France, Japan and Germany at least got money to build new factories. But not so for US and English car makers. Such car makers as Willies, Hudson and Ford (to name a few) got took to the cleaners on this. While GM got those government contracts that put them in a better market position after the war. Now this has little to do with cars, but a lot to do with why the auto market developed the way it has and is used as an example:
Baldwin Locomotive Works was already building diesel powered locomotives before the start of the war. But GM got the contract to provide these units (and I don’t think they were even making locomotives at the time). This meant they got the money to develop a product and build plants to build them with tax payers dollars. While Baldwin got stuck building cannon barrels and steam engines that were shipped over seas.
One other example of how those in power changed the balance in private industry:
Coke was given the designation of being a war time priority item, and this meant that Pepsi had to surrender its sugar to Coke.
So British car makers were left high and dry after the war by a government that subsidized the competition in other countries. Who knows what might have been if British Leland or any of those other car makers would have received the same help Toyota, Datsun, BMW, VW and Audi got.
So some can and will blame the labor portion of the industry, but the fault lies with government, wall street and those who bribe to get what they want.