How far has your car gone?

[Arwon]

Ah well I'm well-insured anyway.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Had a 97 dodge ram that I bought in '01 and had 49,000 miles on it. When I was done with it 12 years later it had 225,000 miles on it (95% highway/interstate miles). No major repairs and could have kept on going but the gas mileage was killing me. The money I saved in gas getting a much more fuel efficient car was about the same as a car payment.

 

[Antilogic]

My family used to have a '96 Nissan Altima that was my dad's commuter car then my high school/early job car. I think we got it up to around 170,000 miles before someone rear-ended me while I was sitting still in a turn lane.

I don't have a car currently, thank you MBTA.

 

[Cutlass]

When I was first learning to drive we had a 1968 Mustang that had 180k something miles on it. We rebuilt the engine. That car had been through hell, and was of a generation of cars never meant to last that long. It finally died because of a failed oil pump. I had a Cutlass with about the same mileage at the end for 11 years. The engine died in the 180k range. That Corolla got hit in the 180K range. Someone may be telling me not to keep cars longer than that....

 

[Grisu]

our ford galaxy has roughly 100k km on it atm, and I sure hope there's at least that many inside it. My first car went at around 200k.

 

[Quintillus]

24,000 miles/40K kilometers on my Honda. Planning to keep it until it stops working, or I move to somewhere that I don't need a car. Or possibly until electric cars are a good option. Aside from the not needing a car possibility, I ought to have it for a long time.

My family tends to keep cars a long time. My uncle just traded his Honda in at 240,000 miles, and still running, but with increasing maintenance, whereas my dad drove his Mazda until over 190,000, before giving it to my sister, and it now has 200,000. I learned to drive mostly in that car, and it's great - small turning radius, great visibility inside, and 40+ MPG on the highway on gasoline. Meanwhile, my mom's car has less mileage, but is older than I am.

 

[sophie]

Coming up on 210,000 miles on the Toyota Camry my parents bought new 13 years ago.

 

[Zelig]

Guys, I feel the need to point out that Mm is clearly the optimum unit to measure car distances.

k km is redundant and defeats the entire design of the metric system.

 

[Verbose]

Ford Focus 2006 about to hit 15 000 km + a Mini Cooper 2003 at 10 000 km.

 

[Antilogic]

Guys, I feel the need to point out that Mm is clearly the optimum unit to measure car distances.

k km is redundant and defeats the entire design of the metric system.

Clearly, we should use kilomiles instead.

 

[Arwon]

Guys, I feel the need to point out that Mm is clearly the optimum unit to measure car distances.

k km is redundant and defeats the entire design of the metric system.

Hush you

 

[Leifmk]

351,000 km and counting!

An Opel Zafira 2000 model which just passed the mandatory test so is good for another 2 years I think.

Dang; I'm guessing you live (or the car's previous owners lived) somewhere other than the greater Oslo area because cars never last to that kind of mileage around here (in fact anything above 200 000 km would be considered high mileage here).

What I have:

Old car: Toyota Avensis, 1999 model, about 193 000 km. Trying to get rid of this, because we had to get a bigger car to fit all the kids in and we don't really need two cars.

New car: VW Touran, 2013 model, I guess still below 15 000 km. Bought nearly new. Intend to keep it for a long time. With any luck our kids may be learning to drive in it, a decade or more from now.

 

[Formaldehyde]

My current car has 129K miles on the odometer. But it hasn't worked for over 13 years now.

 

[GinandTonic]

05 astra c. 95k miles. Got it two years ago c. 80k miles when some numpty in a mini cooper drove straight into the back of the of the last astra that I had got at the same age and mileage about five years before. She's just starting to get a little more "personality" than one might like.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

All the way so far.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Ford Focus 2006 about to hit 15 000 km + a Mini Cooper 2003 at 10 000 km.

That's not much in either, as old as they are.


Many seem to drive their cars until they break apart.. don't service costs and other bothersome issues stack up? When the guarantee time is up, things could get costly..

 

[Borachio]

There's quite a number of cherished low-mileage Mini Coopers about. Why anyone would cherish a Ford Focus is a bit more difficult to understand.

But if you look after a motor vehicle, they can last for a hundred years.

 

[Zelig]

Many seem to drive their cars until they break apart.. don't service costs and other bothersome issues stack up? When the guarantee time is up, things could get costly..

It's possible to have a string of unlikely failures, but on average isn't the case.

In general, it's always cheaper to run an older car, since depreciation costs drop more quickly than maintenance costs rise, and they both level off to an equilibrium state at about the same time. (Generally car stops depreciating since it's near worthless, maintenance becomes ship of Theseus-like.)

 

[Farm Boy]

A little over 150,000 miles on a 2001 Plymouth Neon. I'll keep it going until I think I need to(can) find a more lightly used vehicle to save money on maintenance. I can't realistically afford not having someone else pay for the new car depreciation(damn you to hell cash for clunkers). So usually when something big enough breaks that the repair becomes competitive with car shopping. A task I loathe deeply.

 

[Narz]

I gave my car away to my baby momma so don't have one anymore. I still drive it sometimes though, it has a touch over 100,000 miles.