You don't have to bond with your car, but it really helps if you love your car. Know what I'm saying? I'll elaborate...

I average 20k miles on my car in a given year, pretty much any given year for the past 6 or 7. (This last year is actually the first year I've probably averaged substantially less than that.) I'm not attached to my car, perse - yes, it has a name (Ricardo) - but if I crashed it, I wouldn't cry about it, or miss it like an old friend. I'd shrug, and I'd get a replacement vehicle ASAP, and that would suck, and the process would suck...but I wouldn't be emotionally upset that I lost that specific car to "car-death."

On the other hand - I've thought about this in passing over the years, cuz you have to - I'd probably replace it with the exact same make and model, if I were able to. I love my car. I love my leather seats, I love the sunroof, I love how it handles (every time someone else drives and goes, "You have really responsive brakes!" I nod proudly and am like, "Yep!" - cuz why wouldn't you have responsive brakes if you had that choice, hmm?), it's never given me a real mechanical problem or failure, it just - works. It works well in every way that I need it to work. It doesn't feel too big or too small. Some of the controls are a little non-intuitive and I don't necessarily know how to work them without getting in there and mashing on the buttons...but those controls are things like passenger climate control and the built-in GPS system, they are not things I use much at all, nor is their design impactful to me as a driver in any way on the regular.

Get a car you love. Love cars because they work. I guess - you don't have to bond with a vehicle and doing so, could be kind of silly sometimes, even.

But you do have to trust it.