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My 1973 Chevrolet Impala which was bought new in June 1973.  It died on October 23, 1994.  215,000 miles.  Occasional minor and to be expected problems but never anything serious.  My 1995 Honda 4CL Accord LX had just over 180,000 miles on it when a kid ran a stop sign and totalled it for me on 12/08/2000.  This was a head-on collision.  Thankfully I was stopped to make a left turn.  God and that Honda spared my life.  I walked away with just a busted knee.   The kid ran over and immediately told me he was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone and didn't see the stop sign.  Actually there were two stop signs, the two yellow flashing lights with the stop ahead sign across the road, and the flashing red stop lights over the road at the stop signs (many people have met their deaths at that intersection).  I probably would still have it.  Nothing was ever done to this car except regular maintenence.  I replaced it with a 2001 TOL V6EXL.  Believe it or not this was probably the only lemon Honda made.  Injectors regularly blown...tranny went out twice...(warrenty replaced tranny once...2nd time I got rid of it).   My mechanic (who used to be the service manager at a local Honda dealership) told me he hated the Accord V6 and claimed they gave a lot of trouble.  He told me I should have NEVER gone for the V6 and always stayed with the 4CL.   I still see a lot of mid-90's Accords on the road.  I loved that 95 Accord.  If I ever buy another Accord it will be a 4CL.    
 
Speaking of Hondas...

I had an 87 Civic with bookoo miles, great car. Unlike most econoboxes, I have always felt that the Hondas were nice to drive where other were just there to drive. The Civic was tossable and willing and the 1st car after my Chevettes. It was a DX and the only options were 5-speed and A/C. The base only came with a 4-speed. I never found Hondas easy to work on though, which is why I do not own one, their carb and later the EFI is quirky when it breaks. I like my Gen6 Corollas for their combination of reliability and service.
 
I thought this was interesting. Neat video about a 1990 Accord. This era of Accord is still on the road everywhere, I think it may be safe to say it was the best era of the Accord. Japanese cars seemed to reach their hey-day from about 1988 thru 1994 and there are a lot of cars from that era on the road still.
 
Joe's Story
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Surprise Parade:
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-Tim
 
My old 82 4cyl Volvo GL was around the 200m mark when I sold it in 93 to my niece in law for a pittance. They drove it for a few more years, crossed the country twice in it and finally sold it to someone else up in Edmonton. I never had to do anything with the car other than regular maintenance. They actually regretted selling it after they did.. Even the fabric upholstery still looked like new. My dads old 97 Corolla went well over 200m and got passed around thru the family when he bought a new honda in 93. I wouldn't doubt it's still on the road around here somewhere.
 
Thats the 2 Honda commercials I had spoken about in my previous post, Tim. BTW, My first name is Tim also. I did run into Joe once at Darlings Honda/Nissan dealership in Bangor Maine when taking my next door neighbor to pick up his new truck. The car does look mint. Joe is a certified car fanatic and has more years of car experience than we will ever see. I am glad they did give him the new Accord.
 
Honda

My first car was a 1997 Honda Civic EX sedan. It had about 325.000kms on it when I bought it, and when I sold it, close to 360.000. Just goes to show what routine maintenance can do for a car.
 
A Tech and his rig...

Jeri, my 2001 Chevrolet 2500HD, has made it well past the 300,000 mile mark and still will give a Mustang a run for the money at a light. She is starting to show issues with the head gasket and the shop is weighing options including a new engine. She has the Duramax Turbo Diesel with the Allison transmission. I've driven more than my fair share of work rigs in my career and have found that I enjoy this one the most. Jeri has been instrumental in bring home many rescues from The Pile and even made the long journey to Long Beach, CA. to bring Kevin his GE's and Frigidaires for the Big Wash In.

 

I know. There is definately an attachment between myself and Jeri but as any Tech will tell you, 300,000 miles is a lot of time between a Tech and his rig. By the way, it has always been a tradition for my children (starting when they were very young) to name my rigs over the years. The belief was that if they named the rig, she'd make sure that I got home safely at the end of the day. It's worked so far...

 

RCD

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Back when I was a professional driver, we had this really worn out van in the fleet, it was a 2001 vintage Chevyvan.

I was taking a load of Japanese Tourists from the airport, one of them was complaining that his car was about ready for the junkyard, it had really high mileage on it. I asked him how many kilometers were on the clock, he mentioned he had about 120,000 kms on it. (For a Japanese vehicle, this is quite high.)

So, I said, "You think your car has high mileage?" .. I pointed down at the odometer in the van, which was stuck at 999,999 kilometers and wouldn't roll over. His eyes went as wide as saucers.

When that van was finally retired, it had roughly about 1.7 million kilometers on the clock. (The dash had to be reprogrammed)

Back in 1972, my father purchased a 1969 Chevrolet C/10 truck. He kept that truck until 2003 when he finally retired it. He was helping me move and all of the boxes in the back bent the frame so badly that he had to use a crowbar to get the door closed. (We didn't overload it, the truck was just rusted out.)

When my father finally retired it and had the scrappers pick it up, the odometer had 372,000 miles on it. Over all of that time, the engine only had to be rebuilt once in the entire time he had it. That truck was as BOL as you could get too.

I was so impressed by that truck that I bought a 1996 Chevy Blazer in 2000. In the three years I owned that truck, I had more problems with it then I ever had with any other vehicle I owned. I must have spent at least $5k in repairs on it before I got rid of it. That's for another thread though. I got up to about 158,000 kilometers before I sold it. That's when I found out that it had major mechanical issues that just shouldn't happen during normal wear and tear.
 
We try to keep all of our cars until they have at least 200K on them. Some make it and some don't. My current car, a 2004 BMW X5 just turned 100K this week. It's been pretty reliable so far.
But hold on to your wallet if you need a brake job! Jeesh! The rotors have to be replaced each time you replace the brakes. Well, you pay for it. But the a/c is extremely cold! It's freeze you out on the hottest days.

The last car was a 1994 Ford Explorer Sport. That one lasted until 180K. The engine and drive train were still good, but the body parts started falling apart.
The power windows failed, it was getting to the point where something was breaking on it every month. The a/c unit needed a total replacement too. And even when the car was new, the a/c didn't work all that well either. New models now have dual a/c. I did most of the work on it myself.

I also had a 1982 Toyota Corolla that was very reliable. I had it until it had
120K on it when I had that horrible car accident in it. I was not impressed with the way the seat back frames shattered during the accident. They came right through the front of the seats, snapped like daggers. Plus it was another car that had a/c that never cooled properly either, even when new.

My favorite car of all the ones I have owned was my 1970 Cougar XR7. It was that butterscotch color with a brown leather interior. Absolutely fully loaded. It was a dream to drive. I only got 91K out of it. The engine was always breaking down(351 Cleveland). First the water pump, then on a highway trip in the middle of now where (I-55 near Sikeston, MO) the freeze plugs on the engine blew. Then a week later the timing chain went. And a month later the transmission stopped working. So away it went, I traded it in for a 1977 Chevy Impala. It was kinda boring but a decent car.

It seems if you maintain a car, it'll last you a long time. My father and my brother didn't maintain their cars. My father would change the oil in his cars only when he thought something was wrong with it. Usually about every 5 years. But he always lectured us about not driving a car too often. He would preach "All that wear and tear ruins cars". He never got it. My brother just doesn't care. Of all the cars they both have had over the years usually didn't last over 40K.

My sister has a 1993 Mercedes E320 diesel powered wagon. It is garage kept and only has 83K on it. It is olive green with a tan interior and looks like new. It still has the new car smell to it. The only thing that has gone wrong with it is the transmission shifter gave out once and they have overhauled the a/c twice.
 
My Passat was recently in for its 150K mile servicing. The technician was amazed, he said the car was absolutely pristine. Maybe it costs $1K a year to keep it going, but divide by 12 and it's way lower than a car payment. If the car were obsolete (gas guzzler, or too large/small for my needs), it wouldn't be worth keeping. But the Passat in 98 was very, very advanced (basic engine still in production, though now at 2.0 liters) for its time, with cab forward design and a curved roof. And 34 mpg on the freeway is surpassed only by diesels or hybrids. Many other sedans, including MB and BMW, went from boxy to emulations of the 98 Passat design. I remember the CR take on the styling: "design will last well into the next millennium" and they were right. When I first bought the car, there were very few on the road and people would come up all the time (at a car wash, etc.) and ask, "what model car is that?" Now so many automakers have echoed the design that today the shape is very familiar to people.

From what I've heard from friends who live in Japan, vehicle inspection in Japan is very, very strict, and in some cases components have to be replaced at stated intervals, even if they are not worn and still function well. This boosts the cost of hanging on to the car to levels so high that often it is more economical (or a wash) to get a new car. The gently used cars from Japan are then exported to other Asian countries with less strict rules. Several of the friends who told me about this intimated that the rules seemed less geared toward safety and more geared towards forcing a captive market to buy new cars every 3-5 years.
 
In England the MOT is the dreaded inspection. They inspect EVERYTHING, including the chassis, subframe, etc. Usually when a car doesn't pass the MOT and is too expensive to fix it's time for a new car.

In Germany from what I understand as your car ages the licensing and insurance costs start rising. Eventually it becomes uneconomical to keep the car and you buy a new one.
 
 
 
THANK YOU Tim for posting about the 1M mile Honda, that was a VERY cool story!
 
That reminded me of this story I'd heard a number of years about Irv Gordon and his 1966 Volvo P1800.   He made the Guinness Book of World Records in 1998, for most miles driven by a single owner in a non-commercial vehicle.   How many miles?  1.69 MILLION!
 
Well he is still going strong today and the most recent info I've been able to find is, as of November 2011 he was at 2.92 MILLION MILES!!    

Kevin

This video aired on PBS in Jan, 2011
<object width = "768" height = "432" > <param name = "movie" value = "http://www-tc.pbs.org/s3/pbs.videoportal-prod.cdn/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" > </param><param name="flashvars" value="width=768&height=432&video=1754492120&player=viral&end=0&lr_admap=in:warnings:0;in:pbs:0" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param > <param name = "allowscriptaccess" value = "always" > </param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param ><embed src="http://www-tc.pbs.org/s3/pbs.videoportal-prod.cdn/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" flashvars="width=768&height=432&video=1754492120&player=viral&end=0&lr_admap=in:warnings:0;in:pbs:0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" width="768" height="432" bgcolor="#000000"></embed></object>Watch Can My Car Live Forever? on PBS. See more from NOVA scienceNOW.

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My current cars don't have very high mileage but they are getting quite old. My daily drivers are a 19 years old Toyota 4x4 truck with 171,000 miles and a very similar 22 years old Toyota with almost the same mileage (271,000 km). I got both of them used 3 years ago with 124,000 miles on the 1993 it and it's been quite reliable since. I replaced the timing belt on the V6 at 130,000 for the first time and did the valve cover gaskets and replaced the original radiator at the same time but it's been pretty trouble free. The a/c and every accessory still works. Even the power antenna does! The 1990 Toyota has no power options or A/C and I replaced it's 4cyl engine with a better one that I already had a few years ago at 257,000 km and I had to repair some rust on it's body since it spent all it's life in Canada. Next spring, I should replace both box sides as I have new ones waiting to be installed.

My older cars have lower mileage than that but I had to replace the 430 engine on my '67 Buick Riviera at 74,000 miles after mine self-destructed on the highway. I wanted to go to the service station at the next exit and have the car towed from there but I didn't make it, even after slowing down! Just a minute after it started to knock, the bottom end exploded and a rod went out with a big chunk of the block and it even did a small hole the frame where it punched it! The only clue that something was bad before that day was the low oil pressure reading on the gauge and a few seconds of bearing noise when I started the engine. And I had a similar Buick 455 (which I thought was worse than the 430 when the 430 exploded!) rebuilt at 85,000 miles on my '75 Electra as I felt the same was going to happen soon! I was aware of this before I got the car with 64,000 miles on it as the oil pressure switch didn't work when I went to test drive it. I asked to the owner if I could replace it before buying the car and when I did, the oil light came on at idle as soon as the engine was getting warm!
I still managed to do 21,000 miles with this tired engine after I negotiated the price of the car 1500$ below the asking price.
The original engine and transmission are still fine in my '65 Buick which now has a bit more than 100,000 miles on it. On these cars, I think that age, lack of maintenance and long storage periods did more damage than the mileage. My '75 Buick had been stored from 1981 to 2001 and I'm wondering if they did a single oil change during these 20 years. But the Buick 350-430-455 and early V6 engines were clearly not as good as the older Buick Nailhead engines or even newer ones (the V6 got much better in the late eighties but I still had to replace a 1991 3.8 V6 at 145,000 miles when it's bearings went bad).

I think that more precise fuel systems, better design, alloys and other improvements like roller lifters and rockers really made most newer engines much better. The newest ones even work with 0W20 and 5W20 oil in hot weather. But I don't think that transmissions got that much better than older ones. They are now more efficient but I doubt they are more solid than a GM ST 400/TH 400 from the 1960's.
 
buick oil pump design

PhilR,didn't buick have kind of a bad design for the oil pump on their '67-later
engine designs-something like a gear type pump with it's aluminum case cast as
part of the timing cover-the main fault being the side thrust from the pump gears
wears the aluminum bushing surface for the pump gear's shaft,letting the gears
cock in the housing and gouge it up-greatly reducing pump output...I might be
thinking of pontiac or oldsmobile too,can't remember which one had this faulty
oil pump design.
 
My 91 Ford Escort G.T.(Mazda Protege Engines and Chassis body by Ford) the  door panels and everything fell off that car but I put 490,000 Miles on it.I ragged that car out.Worked at Pizza Hut while in High School and college,drove it to Alaska,Maine,all over the place..That Mazda 1.8 Dohc Engine was bullet proof never did nothing to save for water pump,Timing belt,clutch.It took a telephone Pole and myself in November of 1998 I had a Seizure at the wheel and slammed into right past the Ringold G.A. weigh station on North I-75 hit the pole 120 M.P.H.+ that killed it,the Seat-belt and that fact that I was not conscious saved me... The reason that engine lasted soooo long was it was designed for  the Mazda 323 Turbo all-wheel drive rally car from the start .That was a new everything for the 91 Escort the normal Escort had a 81 H.P. Ford engine in it but the G.T. had that Mazda screamer in it and it would fly red line was 7500That engine is highly sought now and very rare.I did things I would never do now,That car  never once did it leave me stranded ever...It was a beautiful blue color,Mom bought that car for me new behind my Dads back,LOL he made her mad cause he bought another boat for him, but fussed at her for buying a Channel Purse.I was a spoiled kid better rephrase that I am a spoiled kid..
smiley-laughing.gif
 
120 M.P.H???

Is this not sensationalized a bit? First you are asking us to believe that a Escort could get up to 120, then it would take an impact of that magnitude.

Sorry, the skeptic in me has seen too many crash test videos to buy.

 
<a name="startPOSTER_38639.32"></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">cfz2882</span>

 

You are right, it was Buick's design.  First introduced on the aluminum V8, then on the V6 and the small block 300-340 and then on the 400, 430, 350 and 455 engines... Olds and Pontiacs had other problems but the Buick had a badly designed oiling system. The oil pump was a bit small, the aluminum timing covers which integrated the oil pump had wear problems and also expanded at a different rate than oil pump gears which caused even lower oil pressure when hot. Some longer aftermarket gears with spacers and aftermarket timing covers (also with higher volume oil pumps) are supposed to help but... The newer 3.8 V6 had this problem corrected by having a crankshaft-driven oil pump.

 

The older Buick Nailhead V8 engines (322, 264, 364, 401 and 425) had a strange design but they were usually more durable (and their oiling system was ok!). And like many older engines, they had forged crankshafts.

Later engines like the 430-455  had "nodular iron" crankshafts which were supposed to be a bit better than basic cast cranks but still not as good as old forged ones. I had a '76 Electra which still had relatively good main bearings (I expected them to look much worse) but the thrust bearing grooved the crank and the crank had so much play that it digged every main cap and the block on both sides. The oil pump housing and gears were still good on this one but the crankshaft play caused very low oil pressure. I dismantled it at 96,000 miles to have it rebuilt but when I saw what had happened, I decided to scrap the car and buy another one instead.

 

 

[this post was last edited: 2/5/2012-03:38]
 
none of the Olds engines

had any of those issues as the Buicks did...I started the Blue & Gray Chapter of the Olds Club of America in 1984 and have had over 20 vintage Oldsmobiles 1936 to 1977. All the Rocket 303, 324, 330, 350, 371, 392, 425, 455 V8s were as tough as nails, 200k+ easily with any kind of decent maintenance. Some of the HydraMatics were less than bulletproof however.

All of our SAABs since 1974 have gone 300k+ no problem. We keep driver cars until they are no longer economical to repair. Still have '84 and '87 SAABS going strong.
 
i found an '87 saab 900 16v turbo at the junkyard with 375000 miles-engine had
water in the oil,so looks like it blew head gasket or something.Car had been in the
northeast for most of it's life apparently,and was badly rusted-big,gaping holes-
even under the hood lots of screws and bolts were seized.Among the big hoard of
parts i was able to salvage were the two radiator fans-both had bad motors from
salt spray exposure,car may have gotten hot at idle and blew the head gasket.
The engine in my '71 99 saab is from an '80 900,had 100000mi when i got it-was in
almost perfect condition other than some wear to the chain guides.
 
Yes,it is very true and that car was 80% Mazda Protege with a Ford Escort G.t. sticker on it, but I was going doing a long  hill  and that engine pushed out 160 H.P. I had it boosted and other things .My Civic V-tec will do 120M.P.H. easy  ....The Power pole snapped and hit the back of the car and the passenger side tire was next to me.I broke my back,ribs,and legs in that wreck that pole after it broke caused chain reaction and the power wires came down on I-75 and had traffic blocked for hours..I got sued for Millions of dollars and even the City of Ringold was suing me for the POLE,That ..I had to file  bankrupt,I should be dead but I was in the middle of a Epileptic seizure and remember nothing but getting on the I-75 and the next thing I recall is that Jaws of life cutting me and and somebody saying my name over and over.I don't know how I lived,but it's the same way drunks live and the others die in wrecks..I have had SO many terrible accidents and should have been dead many times because of the Epilepsy,but I just look at it when its your time its your time...
 
Roger, When I talked about Olds engine problems, I was first thinking about their 350 Diesels... I'd take any Buick engine before one of these! Buick 455 engines had better heads than Olds 455, at least in the early seventies...
 

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