You could take it to 300,000, can’t guarantee it will be trouble-free. It would be a good idea to replace the belts and hoses before they fail on you on the road.
Cosmetically, you might start seeing stuff like fabrics, rubber, and plastics wearing out.
This is what I mean. You’ve got some broken stuff on the car, but have elected not to fix. Which is fine, but that’s not the same thing as “no problems at all.” I’d also be willing to bet that you’ve got various suspension/steering parts which are worn and sloppy and probably should be replaced, but haven’t been forced to notice yet. People seem to think that as long as the engine and transmission don’t mess up, everything’s peachy. I had a relative who thought that way about her car, until she got walloped with a big repair estimate for a load of suspension work that did need to be done.
jz77817, good point. The guy who replaces the tires looks at the suspension and other stuff while he’s under the car. So far, so good. Should I be doing more, do you think?
Driving it to the Moon? 
I did that with my old Dodge Omni.
I am the third owner of a 1996 Toyota Tercel and I am 3 miles away from 300,000 miles. The amazing thing is not that it will surpass 300,000 miles, its that it will blow past 300,000 miles. It has a standard transmission and the alternator and water pump are the only things that have been replaced since my Grandfather bought it new in Sept of 1996.
I have a neighbor with a 96 Chevy truck, 330K on it. It’s starting to show some rust, but any car a few years old does that in Michigan. One of the biggest obstacles to getting high milage with a car is somebody crashing into you. I worked with a engineer that had nearly 500K on a 71 potiac bonneville. Some drunk hit him, the bonny just about fell apart. I was scared to ride in the car with him, the floorboards were rotted out, he put plywood down to cover the holes. Great guy, but a little eccentric.
Anything that starts with Dodge, Kia or Jeep.
Perhaps the only non-routine-maintenance things. I cannot believe that it hasn’t had spark plugs, drive belts, tires, and a number of other items replaced.
A water pump is arguably routine, I’ve heard it recommended every 60-100k miles or whenever the timing belt is done.
OP posted 3 years ago. I wonder if he’s still driving the same car. And if so, what’s its mileage now?
I just recently got rid of my old 1988 Subaru with about 304,000 miles on it. It was beginning to have more maintenance expenses, but more importantly to me, I began to feel nervous about its reliability. I worried about it maybe breaking down at inopportune times.
But it seemed to run well as far as I could tell (notwithstanding my mechanic’s advice that he thought it really wasn’t running that well). I have a hunch it could have made 400,000.
Certainly is , like any other part exposed to the H2O … 20 years and its surely in a mess…
keep really good quality coolant in it, buy (or use ) the stuff which is almost pure glycol and use that at 40 %… , not that watery premix stuff.
I’d agree if you just said Chrysler and dropped KIA. I’ve owned a PT Cruiser and a KIA, and the PT was a POS. It’s the only car that I’ve gotten rid of before 100K miles in decades.
KIAs and Hyundais were POS when first imported into the USA, but are much better vehicles now. My son has owned two Hyundais and my two daughters and I all own KIAs. These 5 vehicles (3 with over 100K miles) have been in the shop less than the one PT Cruiser.
I’ve never owned a Corolla, but I drive a 2000 Camry that is up to over 280,000 miles now, and to all appearances shows no signs of quitting anytime soon, at least according to the people who know more about cars than I do who have looked at it. No idea exactly how much more life it has left in it, but I’m confident it’ll make it well beyond 300,000 and I plan to drive it into the ground. I’ve heard the newer Toyotas aren’t quite as good, but the older ones will last forever, and my Camry has lived up to that expectation. I got the car when it had a little over 200k on it, but it was a hand-me-down from family who bought it when it was not quite new but less than a year old, so I knew it was well maintained, and I have continued to take care of it. I dread the day I do finally have to get rid of it because whatever I end up with next I strongly suspect it won’t be as good of a deal.
And while all kinds of things do break in a car that old (even the plastic handle to open the driver’s door from the inside recently broke off after being used one too many times), it’s tended to be minor and inexpensive things like hoses wearing out discovered during routine maintenance, and infrequently at that, nowhere near the point where I’d begin to consider whether my total cost of ownership might be lower if I got rid of it and bought something else. Of course, I’ve had to put some money into it from time to time, but nothing majorly expensive, and most of it was for the sorts of routine maintenance jobs that need to be done many times over the course of 280k miles, new tires, brake jobs, oil changes, etc. Recently got a new timing belt and water pump at around 275k because it was due for them. I have yet to have something break and cost me over $800 to fix, though I do have a stick shift, so needing a new automatic transmission has never been a possibility. It’s not like the $800 repairs are frequent either. I’ve only had a few reach $500. Just as importantly, the few times I’ve had a problem not discovered during maintenance, it arose gracefully, not with a sudden breakdown in the middle of traffic, requiring a tow truck, or with the car just not starting one morning. When something goes wrong it’s more like the check engine light comes on while I’m out shopping and I finish my trip and drive it to the mechanic the next day. That makes the car feel quite reliable and I’d never hesitate to rely on its ability to get me where I need to go. To me, that is critical, and a factor that is overlooked if one focuses purely on monetary cost of repairs/maintenance and the price the car can be purchased at, and sold at when one is done with it after having driven X miles.
As other posters have described there are also other issues with the car, beyond the mechanical soundness, which I choose to live with rather than fix, which have accumulated as the car has aged. The power windows have been mostly broken (they sometimes work, but have fun getting them back up) for longer than I’ve been driving the car, so I just don’t roll the windows down. That’s not enough of an inconvenience to me to be worth the steep cost to fix it, since the AC and heat work fine and since I’m sure if I did fork over the money for a new window motor, it’d just break again sooner or later, probably sooner. The electrical system was modified at one point before I had the car to avoid an issue with the battery draining more quickly while the engine was off (wouldn’t crank after returning from a 2 week vacation), in such a way that when the car is turned off many things which ordinarily keep running off the battery do not. The clock is set to 1:00 every time you start the engine, and it’s impossible to leave the headlights on by mistake and drain the battery because power to the headlights is cut as soon as you turn off the engine no matter what. There are a few other things like that which might be minor inconveniences to some or more serious problems to others.
By comparison, the older Ford I owned before I got this Camry didn’t even make it to 150,000 and during the time that I owned it (about 50-60k miles total) the maintenance expenses were substantially higher both per unit time and per mile. In retrospect I should have gotten rid of it sooner. Not only did I spend a lot more money keeping it running than I do on my Camry, I had multiple instances of it breaking down in the middle of traffic or suddenly not cranking one day, so it failed both criteria. It got worse during the time I owned it, but even when I first got it, with the mileage around 70,000, it was less reliable than my Camry is now at four times that. The one advantage it did have over my Camry: the windows were controlled by crank handles. No power windows means the motor that controls them can’t burn out.
well we bought the VE 99 rolla back in 2000 with 2k on it, parents ran it till 130k maintaining everything then passed it on to me. I didnt change the oil for about 6m and bc these rollas tend to start consuming oil and knocking at around that time i ended up running the car for about a week with absolutely no oil. That was 6 years ago, I was a dumb kid that didnt know jack rabbits about cars. 2014…car still runs eats about a quart every week but with Oil Stabalizer, friendly weather and no steep hills i can do a quart every 2 weeks. I have changed absolutely nothing (even brake pads)…well besides oil filters nowadays and a couple fuses/bulbs/ and tires. Car currently has 260K and just might outlive me the way things are goin :/. She looks ratchet tho, I had no mercy. Perfect car for first timers
It almost sounded like Ford didn’t want to push their luck with their shoddy engineering and penny pinching manufacturing process. Ford sedans of that era were barely making any money compared to the Explorers and Escorts they were using to print the green stuff.
I have a 2004 Toyota 4Runner with 208,000 miles that still feels like a new vehicle.
Here is all the work that has ever been needed on the vehicle: both front brake calipers, both front wheel bearings, one front CV boot, driver’s side electric door lock, climate control fan blower, muffler (only one replacement so far), plus routine brakes, tires, fluid changes, etc.
Amazingly enough, the vehicle still has the original Panasonic car battery (still going strong at 10-1/2 years)! I’ve been tempted to replace it, but am now wondering just how long it will last.
Cosmetically, the vehicle doesn’t have a speck of rust (though the chrome on the alloy wheels is peeling).
I fully expect the vehicle to get 300K miles. I almost wish it would break down, because I’d like to get a new vehicle, but just can’t justify the purchase of a new vehicle at this point.
I own a 2014 Corolla S that I bought at the end of November last year and I have 13000 miles on it. I’m wondering what the long term prospects are for the CVT transmission holding out for 200000 miles since it’s relatively new technology.
It’s a weird tranny too, what with it’s computer simulated shifts and all…since it technically doesn’t have any gears…
Let’s hope POKER gets back to us after 4 years with an update on the car.