How many miles have you put on a car?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My parents have bought all their cars brand new, and have never put over 100,000 miles on any of them. They do tend to keep cars until they start to fall apart, so I find this unusual. The closest they’ve come is 95,000 on a 1985 Toyota Tercel.

I’m a fairly new driver, so I’ve only had one car, a 1986 Pontiac Parisienne Safari. It had 37,770 miles when I bought it from an old man in 3/00. Now it has 46,300.

So, who here has owned cars with a lot of miles? I know many people who have clocked impressive mileage on cars, such as the following:

1979 Ford Econoline 250: 350,000+ (sold, maybe still going)
1982 Pontiac 6000 LE: 282,000
1988 Hyundai Excel GS: 255,000
1993 Plymouth Voyager SE: 220,000 (still going)
1980 Cadillac Sedan DeVille: 210,000
1987 Nissan Stanza Van: 162,000+ (sold, maybe still going)
1987 Jeep Cherokee Pioneer: 140,000 (still going)

Has anyone here beat my uncle’s 350K Econoline?

-Andrew L

2

Can’t beat that, nope. But I had a Cavalier that had about 250,000 miles on it when the steering wheel fell off. I’d had to replace the entire electrical system once, and the straight pipe to the exhaust, too, but other than that (and the errors in the digital dashboard) the car still ran just great. I miss it. :frowning:

My current car is really my grandma’s. Had 120,000 on it when she lent it to me. I’ve put on… let’s see… 433 miles 5 times, 1700 miles three times… that’s probably around 8000 miles when you take into account the driving I’ve also done to go around town. Possibly more than that. And I’m about to put another 2,200on it next week. But after that I have to get my OWN car and I won’t be driving Grandma’s anymore - her insurance’s running out and I can’t renew it because it’s not my car, and she won’t let me keep it permanently despite her lack of feet (meaning she has no earthly use for it). (Not that I really care. It’s a horrible car.)

3

In 1995, I bought a Ford Escort that had 112,000 miles on it and I drove it until it finally died (May 2000) and it had 148,000 miles at that point.

I bought a Honda Civic (brand new) that same month and in the first year, slammed out 27,000 miles (the joy of commuting 37 miles one way to work every day). I moved closer to work (6 miles one way, baby!) and now it has 33,000 miles.

Colin

4

I just realized that the Cavalier a) had only 200K, not 250K and b) did not have the original motor - it had been replaced with an under-60K engine before I bought it. So maybe it doesn’t count.

5

My first car, a 1987 Mitsubishi Tredia, had 86,801 miles on it when I bought it in 1994. It got me through college and law school, and died a few months ago at about 147,000 miles.

6

racinchikki-

I believe the cars I listed all had the original engine blocks and transmissions, though they may have been repaired or rebuilt at some point. I know the Stanza Van’s engine got rebuilt at 162K after the head cracked. My uncle was the original owner; he sold it when the head cracked, and the new owner rebuilt the engine. That van later got welded back together after the frame rusted out and collapsed.

I know that my friend’s '87 Cherokee has the original engine and trans with no major repairs. Although 140K is not that high, it’s particularly amazing because he never changes the oil. He just adds a quart or two when it burns off and the oil light comes on. He’s put about 40K miles on it doing that. I guess the AMC straight six engine is just indestructible. That Jeep also survived a 30 mph crash into a telephone pole. It was rebuilt with parts pulled from various Jeeps in a junkyard, so the front end is now multicolored.

-Andrew L

7

The Suzuki Swift I drive now…I bought it in 1996, with 6,901 miles on it. I took it to around 50k by the fall of 1998, when my brother bought it from me. I got it back last summer, with about 92k on it. I hit 101,000 miles this past Thursday.

1999 Accord - company car. It had 22 miles on it when I picked it up at the dealership. When I turned it over to the auditor after me…it had almost 60k, almost exactly a year later.

2000 Accord…got it new in November 1999, turned it in after the layoff the next May. It had…15k by that time.

8

Nothing impressive with any car I’ve owned, but My friend’s mom put over 200,000 miles on her '97 Volvo within 3 years of getting it. Not a trucker’s pace but up there for a car.

9

My 1988 Honda Civic hatchback bit the dust two years ago after piling up 309,000 miles on the original motor and transmission.

(BTW, it consistently registered 4 miles per hundred over the Interstate mile markers, so it probably actually was more like 297,000 actual miles.)

10

I bought kiffa’s 1972 Datsun 1200 for a can of beer. It died with over 310,000 miles on the original engine.

I then bought my 1984 Maxima with 105,000 miles on it. It lasted to 220,000 miles. It had a slow and agonizing death over about a 2 month period, doing lovely things like dying after I paid the toll, but before I got into the Lincoln Tunnel (aka No Tow Zone).

This vehicle finally broke my patience and sanity when it overheated on the way to a car rental place. I lost it, yelling at this inanimate object (lots of f*cks - a whole boatload) while my elderly mother looked like --> :eek: . Bless her, she just said “Don’t worry honey, you’ll get a new car that works!”

Despite the bitter ending, my loyalty knows no bounds, and so I’m working on my second Maxima, a lively 1995 with a mere 118,000.

11

I’ve only had used cars, but they were all high mileage:

1974 Cutlass S - 105,000

1974 VW Bug - 198,000 (estimated since the odometer died at 168,000)

1974 VW Super Beetle - 145,000

1973 VW Beetle - 175,000

1984 VW Jetta - 190,000 w/original engine and then I blew it up and had it rebuilt). Sold it to a co-worker who put another 20,000 on it. It was spotted about 6 months ago still chugging along.

1993 Escort Wagon (my wife’s car) - 100,000

1994 Escort Wagon (mine) - 120,000

1992 Pontiac Grand Am (was mine, now my daughter’s) - 145,000

12

!983 Nissan Pickup - bought it new - had 20 miles on it when I pulled out of the lot.

Sold it in 1999 when I got a ‘new’ truck. It had about 190,000 miles on it. Not too shabby.

13

**1988 Ford Festiva ** Bought it at 20,000, put 110,000 and it still ran perfect. (paid $3,000)

**1989/90 Ford Escort ** 175,000. (Mr. Ujest’s old car) Donated it.

**1984 Dodge Ram 3/4 ton pick up ** 255,000. (this was a contruction pick up and it was outstanding. Still running, great engine, the brakes and something with the transmission finally helped us donate it. ) (FIL’s old truck)

**1995 Chrysler Concorde ** bought at 40,000. put on 50,000. had lots of problems with this due to a mouse in our garage and other non-mouse mechanicals. Worst car we ever bought and it still wasn’t half bad. (paid $7,000)

**1991 e-250 Ford Econoline ** 189,000. Bought it at 160,000. Drove great, mint condition ( considering it had been in 3 major accidents by the previous owner, my FIL) and ran great right until the day I had a near head on collision. (Paid $7,000, but with sweat equity, actually paid $700.00 from the Bank of Father In Law.)

**1993 e150 Ford Econoline ** 165,000. ** Bought it at 159,000. Runs great. I am avoiding head on collisions like a Geena Davis movie. (Paid $3,500) I love this van. I could live in it, possibly selling velvet paintings on some street corner.

I’ve/We’ve gotten alot of mileage out of about $15,000.

Why people lease is beyond me, ( We did lease once, and blew the mileage cap of 15,000 in 8 months. It was cheaper for us to turn it in early and keep on making payments than drive it as we did.) I would tire of the constant car payment. With proper maintenence, a car can easily last 150,000 before any major problems ( if at all)

14

There was some guy on the news/paper that still owns his first car, something like a 1966 Subaru Whatever and has maintained it faithfully at the same NY (Long Island somewhere) Subaru dealership all these years and he is about to turn **One Million Miles **

On the flip side, there is a social retard/mechanical genius guy at my husband’s office that has a 1986 Ford Ranger that looks like it has about sixty million miles on it while being dragged behind an astroid without it’s wheels on. This guy, as the office joke goes, probably spends what it would cost in a monthly car payment for a new car, just to keep this thing going. His logic defies everyone.

This guy is 45, lives alone and is exactly what the dork guy is in “office Space.”

15

My first car was a 1988 Toyota Tercel, bought in September of 1994. It had 63,000 miles on it at the time of purchase. I drove it until April of 2001, at which time it had close to 121,000 miles on it. I now have a 1995 Nissan Sentra (also about 63,000 miles at the time of purchase), which I have had since changing jobs to where I am now only four miles from my place of work. In my first year I’ve only put about 4,500 miles on it so far, so that may be setting a low record for this thread so far.

16

I put about 2000 miles total on my car last year, and am proud of it. Not a single mechanical problem with the '79 Volvo during that time (or the previous year, or this year so far). Whether that justifies purchasing a $3000 bike is a different matter, but I think it does.

17

Shirley-

“There was some guy on the news/paper that still owns his first car, something like a 1966 Subaru Whatever and has maintained it faithfully at the same NY (Long Island somewhere) Subaru dealership all these years and he is about to turn One Million Miles”

Yeah, I’ve heard of that guy. It’s a 1966 Volvo P1800. I believe he recently turned two million miles, although he did have the engine rebuilt once at around 600K (“It was running a little rough.”) I don’t know how he keeps it going.

-Andrew L

18

Well, it isn’t my car… but my family’s 1993 Honda Civic hatchback reads a good 170,000 [sub]mostly[/sub] trouble free miles. In reality, however, the speedometer has been fritzing out in the last year or so, and isn’t working about as often as it is. So the actual number is probably closer to 180-185,000 miles.

Yeah, we put a lot of miles on this car every year.

19

600,000 miles out of a Volvo engine? I’ll believe it when I see it.

I ran an auto repair shop for a few years, and I had a customer who got 375,000 miles out of a 1984 Ford truck, before the engine finally died.

20

283,000 on my '86 Honda Civic Si - best part was that I sold it for $1200 and it’s still running well. Replaced it with a '92 Civic that now has about 140,000 and hope to keep it running through this decade.

The engines keep chugging smoothly but the windows begin rattling, knobs loosen/tighten, sound systems require upgrading; on the other hand, no monthly payments, insurance and licensing are cheaper, no self-respecting thief gives them a second look.