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Not if the price is right and the truck is in good condition with a rebuilt transmission or a manual. A car with that kind of mileage would be cause for concern. If it had a manual transmission, and the suspension had recently been replaced, it could be viable if it were really cheap. There is no reason an engine cannot go well over 300,000.
My 2001 VW Golf TDI has 295K miles on it and if I had to buy my own car right, I would pay upwards of $8K for it given all the modifications that were added through the years. Our 2006 Chevy Silverado 2500HD Duramax has 180K miles and I would just swap the drivetrain if something catastrophic happened the truck.
Generally utility vehicles with simple and readily available components make great high-mile vehicles. Nearly any pre-1993 model, any truck, any sport-compact, and vintage car would fit this category. Once cars become too complicated with too many sensors, too many solenoids, and too many relays, it becomes a game of whack-a-mole trying to fix all the gremlins that pop up with such miles. Off the top of my head here's my list:
Any air-cooled Porsche
Any Mazda Miata
Any Honda S2000
Any Toyota pickup
Any Nissan pickup
Air-cooled VW Beetle
Any reasonably priced diesel vehicle
Any classic car
While mileage is only one barometer of a car's condition, I do tend to shy away from anything over 100,000. I know cars can go beyond that, but my experience has been that parts start failing at that point.
While mileage is only one barometer of a car's condition, I do tend to shy away from anything over 100,000. I know cars can go beyond that, but my experience has been that parts start failing at that point.
Have you owned a car made after 2003?
Every car we have has over 100,000 miles. Most are in the 130,000 - 200,000 range. Generally about 250,000 I start figuring out what we want for a replacement. That is when I usually start having substantial problems. Before that there are little problems. Little problems can occur form 10 miles on.
Yes, high mileage scares me. Years ago I'd trade at 30K or so. Then I had an AMC Eagle that I really liked and kept it to just over 50K miles. I think it was the highest mileage car I'd ever owned up to that point. I absolutely loved my second Saab 9000 Turbo, so much that I kept it to 180K miles! But that last 30K miles was fairly expensive, and it was needing another spendy repair or two. It just wasn't dependable enough for long trips.
More realistically, I'd now feel pretty good about a car up to 100K miles, maybe a little more or less depending on the vehicle. My 3-year-old Prius just turned 84K on the OD. I bought it new and am still waiting for something to go haywire on it. So far, the only thing that's gone bad was a 50 cent fuse, and the dealership fixed that for free. I considered trading it last spring but didn't. This spring? I dunno. It's just so danged dependable, but I am getting a little nervous with the high miles.
Location: San Ramon, Seattle, Anchorage, Reykjavik
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Creamer1
Say... 285,000 miles?
Please list some model-specific examples.
Nope. Not scary for the right vehicle. I have a 1998 Land Cruiser that still drives like new after almost 400k hard miles. I recently bought a 2wd Toyota Tacoma base with 465k miles to haul wood at my cabin. Everything works fine, even the AC. The only thing that kills a well maintained Toyota is rust.
285k...is higher than anything I would consider for a daily driver. Sure there are definitely some Toyota's and some v8 trucks that still may have considerable engine life remaining but at such a high mileage is the rest of the vehicle in decent enough condition to justify shelling out money for repairs?
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