I take care of my 98 Toyota Corolla. It has almost 200,000 miles and has no problems. I keep it in a covered, closed garage, and at work it is under a covered garage. I do regular oil changes, in fact a bit early most times. I get 50,000 mile all-point checkups.
Do I have a good chance of reaching 300,000 miles (or even more) with this car? Can I do anything more proactive than I already am doing?
Thank you.
As an aside, I’d like to say that this is what I hate about Toyotas. This has happened repeatedly: my wife and I have wanted to get a new car. Our neighbors have gotten them. Our friends have gone through a couple. And here we sit with the same old Toyota … because it just won’t die.
We have a 93 Corolla with just under 250k on the odometer - still has the original clutch, even. We’re getting rid of it in a couple of weeks, but only because we’re going back a single car and the newer one (an 05 Hyundai) has better safety features.
With the kind of care and feeding you’re providing, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if you got 300k+ from your 98.
Certainly the drivetrain will last that long. Practically any modern car can if properly maintained. I’ve run a 1980’s Buick Century and a 1980’s Ford Taurus past 300k (although the Taurus was a manual transmission so that might be cheating).
But the trouble is that as the car gets older and older, you get more squeaks and rattles, maybe the paint starts to fade and the seats lose their springs and pretty soon you start not fixing little things like the exhaust and the shocks. Then your clutch goes out or you need a timing belt and all of a sudden you’ve got a car that needs more work than its worth and you’re not really crazy about it anymore and gee the new Corollas are looking nice this year (the 2018’s maybe?). This is what kills most cars these days instead of the engines actually wearing out. The moral of the story is that keeping up with minor repairs, even cosmetic stuff, is almost as important as basic maintenance.
These days, if you maintain a car well and drive it kindly, you can easily get over 200,000 miles on it. Jackrabbit starts, pounding around in city driving, and things like that will cause some significant wear and tear. Avoid that sort of thing, and keep maintaining it well, and you should be able to get 300,000 miles out of it.
Things will start to break. Our 93 Toyota Camry (which has been passed down from my mother to me to my wife and now to my son) has had most of its exhaust system from the catalytic converter on back replaced twice now, and both of the front power windows have broken in the last year. The power radio antenna stopped working a couple of years ago so we just yanked it up into the up position and left it there. The electronic door locks don’t work reliably any more, which is no biggie since using the key still works just fine. All of these things could be fixed of course, but that’s a lot of money to spend on a car with well over 200,000 miles on it, and the things that are broken are all very minor. We’ll probably keep it until something major breaks, or until my son decides he wants to buy himself a fancier and newer car (and can afford to do so), whichever comes first.
oh come on, you haven’t had to fix or replace anything in 200k miles?
He said it has no problems, not that it has had no problems.
My car has had plenty of problems in the past, but at the minute all works fine. As such, it has no problems.
I just bought a '96 Accord LX with 138K on the odometer. It was owned by a single woman since new from VA so no rust and it came with copious service records. I replaced the valve cover gasket two weeks ago and am doing the timing belt in the spring.
I am confident I will be able to double the mileage if I take care of it. Keep them maintained and aside form catastrophic failures or crashes you should be good.
My '99 Corolla with about 160,000 has had a hole in the exhaust patched, and two gaskets in the exhaust replaced. A headlight and windshield wiper here and there. I’ve lost some of the dashboard lights in recent months, but not so that I can’t still read my instrument panels in the dark. The seatbelt sensor for the passenger seat is permenantly on, so I always have a blinky red light on the dash. That’s it. I’m hoping I can get another three years or so on it before I have to do any major fixes or replace it (knock on wood).
When my '96 Camry passed 175,000 miles I promised my wife I would get rid of it the next time something major went wrong. Five years later, when I passed 230,000, I told her I really wanted to get to 238,857 miles. Then when I passed that I asked for another extension to 250,000. I think it was close to 260,000 when I finally sold it for $1,000 and it was still running great, and had had absolutely no major problems since 175,000. I had of course had to replace brakes, tires, etc… during that time but I would have had to replace those things on a new car anyway.
Replacing things at standard intervals, which you should do in order to keep a car running, is not a “problem.” It is proper maintenance that prevents problems…
Our Honda Civic is as old as the OP’s Corolla. We have had to replace a bunch of things since we bought it (second-hand) a few years back, but all of those things were part of routine maintenance. Brake pads, oil filters, tires, and even a timing belt have been replaced in that time period.
As in GreasyJack’s scenario, the cosmetic stuff isn’t great. The paint job is fading in places. But the car has given us no problems.
Donate it to charity and buy a new one - you’ll get to feel good about yourself, you do get to write it off (though not for blue book value, anymore) and you can get a new one.
And yes, they run forever.
Toyota’s maintenance schedule calls for a longish list of service items every 30,000 miles. If you’re extending that to 50K, that might be pushing your luck.
Given good regular maintenance, my main fear would be that an automatic transmission might not make it to 300K. That’s typically a $2000+ repair bill, which on that age/mileage car merits a long, close look as to whether the money is better spent on repairing the car or on buying its replacement.
Other than those concerns, I would say there’s a reasonable chance it can make it to 300K. If you like the car and it suits your needs, keep going with the maintenance and care until something changes.
I had a Corolla from the mid 80’s that I got used with 100k miles, drove it to almost 200k, sold it to a friend who took it over 300k. He eventually wrecked the suspension by using it to haul rocks off road. The 80s Toyotas had remarkably long lives, I have an 85 Celica now, but have less than 170k miles on it. The 90s models may turn out to have the long life span of the 80’s models, there just hasn’t been enough time to to determine that yet.
I like to watch cars as they reach 1 light second on the odometer, just before the 186282.4 mile mark (which would likely be off somewhat because of varying tire circumference due to wear, inflation, inaccuracy in the instrument). Reaching 2 light seconds is remarkable, but I’d give a Toyota a better chance than other makes.
Some light-second factoidsfrom the Wikipedia:
The mean diameter of the Earth is about 0.0425 light-seconds.
The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 1.282 light-seconds.
The diameter of the Sun is about 4.643 light-seconds.
The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is 499.0 light-seconds
Besides the Ford Escort, is there any modern car that won’t last 300,000 miles with proper care?
When we bought our 1999 Tercel, the salesman told us the same thing - his wife wanted a new car, but their old Tercel just wouldn’t DIE already!
I stumbled across this a while ago - Canadian Corolla about to turn over 1,000,000 kms. Apparently the dealership traded her straight across for a brand new one because they wanted to show off the car. It is really extraordinary because Canadian cars have a very hard life; if you get ten years regular driving out of them, you’re doing really good.
My 94 Camry has 276,000 and just keeps on going. We thought the transmission had quit a few years ago, but it turned out to be a $1.58 snap ring that my SO was able to replace. Other than that, we have had to repair the passenger door latch, replace the struts and front axle (the only way to fix the CV boots) and the usual batteries, tires, etc.
It has some paint fading and I added extra cushioned seat covers a few years ago. Everything else works fine and it gets GREAT gas mileage. I drove it from Washington to Texas a couple years ago and got 35 mpg on the trip. I normally average between 29-31.
I will continue to drive it until it dies or needs a repair large enough to justify parting it out.
Not as many miles as you guys, but my 99 Camry is at 160K. The only repair that cost more than $100 was something with the AC. The paint on the back bumper faded early, and the plastic knobs on the radio cracked and fell off. Oh, and the lights that illuminate the gear shift, the ash tray, and the clock are dead. No biggie.
I said when I bought the car that it’d be my last car. I still enjoy driving it but my husband wants something newer. We can’t afford a car payment, so that ends that discussion. 
Saint Cad, my 03 325xi BMW wheezes like an old smoker on oxygen. Always has its routine maintenance taken care of, garaged half of its life, etc. I’m a pretty gentle driver; I let the car run 5 minutes before driving in the winter. It has constant, expensive and often bizarre problems that aren’t maintenance related (the heat has gone out, once I went through three taillights in as many moths). It’s been a hassle since it was roughly 5 years old. I joke that it ages in dog years. I was in a 12 year old Honda with 120k miles in it the other day and it was a world of difference. The Honda sounded quieter and had fewer rattles and general annoyances.
If my car makes it to 125k miles (it’s at 85 now) it will be an Og given miracle. It’ll go to my little brother in March, and he’ll drive it for 2 years until he graduates from high school. Then it’ll probably be sold.
ETA: When my car goes to my little brother, I’ll be the thrilled owner of a came-off-a-lease Legacy or Venza. I can’t wait.
this is like the question of “my grandfather’s ax”*
** Any** car will last for 300 000 miles, if you’re willing to replace enough parts, one at a time.
Some people will say I am nuts, for paying a $1100 repair on a car worth $2000. But the result is a $3000 car that runs fine, and should last several more years. Well worth it. (to me)
YMMV
*(the axe will last forever. IF you grind the blade , then replace the handle .But is it still your grandfather’s axe?)