I had a '99 XJ for a while and I loved that thing. Worked on it a lot. Broke down a lot. Learned a lot.
Now I'm looking for something to spend my time building out for simple trips. Over the weekend kind of things. Am curious when the sort of year cutoff for being able to work on and fix things yourself is. I'm pretty handy and capable mechanic, but it seems like sometime around 2015 maybe they all just become computers and its impossible to do anything on your own?
There are plenty of specialty tools for the 1980-2004 Toyotas I own. If you can fab the tools up, it's not a big deal, but of course that's not electronic related. We had a 2017 Tacoma that I felt I could do all the work needed on, short of the transmission. We had a 2019 civic that required a call to the dealership to get it unlocked after charging the battery. So, I think it has a lot more to do with make and model than year. On a side note, I come across a lot more negativity towards Ford for dealer only, engineered to fail parts than other brands, but that could just be social media.