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I drove a 2008 Honda Odyssey with 175k at the time from San Antonio to Los Angeles and back with some side trips in California. It ran perfectly. A few months after this, at around 182k, we had to get something repaired. So it's doable in older cars, just a judgement call.
People harp about how meticulous they are on maintenance, but on a high mileage car, unless you recently replaced the alternator, starter, all belts and hoses, transmission, engine bearings, head gaskets, lifters, wheel bearings, fuel pump, water pump, or battery, you are on borrowed time and they can suddenly fail and strand you without warning on a long road trip.
My daily driver has more miles on it than you can possibly imagine. I would confidently drive it to Portland tomorrow, either Oregon or Maine. I might check the air in the spare tire first, though.
It depends on the car and the maintenance done to it. I'd use statistics on my side and go to a model-specific forum to see what kinds of problems other owners have had a various mileage and time periods. It would give you a good indication how robust your car is as a population. I know my 300K mile old MKIV TDI is still reliable and there are many folks with well over 500K miles on theirs. Only issue I've had was a seized idler pulley bearing that sheered my accessories belt. Only had 20K miles on it so it appears the bearing was defective. $125 repair...no big deal.
I've also got 70K miles on our Tesla Model S 85 and the only issue we had was a faulty rear window defroster. Flip a coin, both cars are extremely road-trip ready.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140
I have one car now that has 160,000 miles and wouldn't hesitate to take it on a road trip, but it's a stick shift. I have yet to make more than 140,000 on an automatic without the transmission going out, in several cases they only between 90-110,000. That's been on a Ford, Chevy, Jeep, and Toyota. All were well maintained but maybe I just have bad luck with automatics.
Yep, you do!!
We only had Automatic Transmission cars and the mileage was way over 150,000 on all of them and never had any AT problems.
Our present cars,
Honda Accord 2003 - 175,000 miles
Honda Odyssey 2004 - 180,000 miles
Previous car - Toyota Van 1987 - 386,000 miles
Gave it away ...
All of them had extra transmission coolers added and were all used to pull light trailers.
Except for huge yearly maintenance (independent repair station) all of them serviced by me.
Both present cars, look like new and absolutely no problems!
People harp about how meticulous they are on maintenance, but on a high mileage car, unless you recently replaced the alternator, starter, all belts and hoses, transmission, engine bearings, head gaskets, lifters, wheel bearings, fuel pump, water pump, or battery, you are on borrowed time and they can suddenly fail and strand you without warning on a long road trip.
That's true.
Back in 2010 I left a car in BFE Kentucky for this reason. It was a 1994 Chevy Corsica, so not a great vehicle in the first place. It was 16 years old, 190,000 miles, and very well maintained (though old and beat down). I needed to drive 2000 miles round trip on short notice, so took this car since there wasn't really anything mechanically wrong with it as far as I knew.
It made the first 1000 miles back to Deepest Darkest Appalachia without incident. No problems at all. I was there for a few days and then headed back. I was on I-75 in the mountains, going about 80. No noticeable problems with the car. Crossed a bridge, and I heard this awful racket. I looked around, assuming it was some douchebag on a Harley... but it wasn't. It was my engine hitting the rev limiter. The transmission was free-wheeling.
And it never moved under its own power again. I pulled a trans cooler line off and started the engine... no oil came out. I think the shaft that drives the transmission pump probably broke. This car was old, ugly, rusty, beat up... something had been leaking water onto the floorboards for *years*... and never was much of a car even when new. It wasn't worth towing it home, let alone fixing it. So my brother came and picked up the car. Dropped me off at the airport, and the car was scrapped.
Worked out well for my wife. This meant she got a new(er) car, and I inherited her old one (which had in turn replaced that sad old Corsica a few years previously). And I'm still driving that old 2001 Lumina, just turned 318,000 miles.
I wouldn't hesitate to take it on a road trip. It's about the journey
I'm sure it's been mentioned but mileage is not really something to go by. How well has the car been maintained? I think the other question is who is with you?
In my younger years I had Buick Century that was approaching 200K that was well maintained. I'd take it anywhere but I'd always take the title with me... LOL Always figured if it died with major problem I'd just sell it on the spot and take a plane home. Never failed me other than a bad battery.
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