What cars can last for 300,000 miles? (Fiat, Honda, VW, Lexus)

[mmyk72]

Originally Posted by NC Transplants

The Toyotas, Nissans; Subarus...etc, etc..all Japanese and of course Europe's Mercedes Benzes, VW, Audis, Porsche, BMW BUT of yesteryear. Only the Japanese makes and maybe the S.Korean makes will make headway in longevity and reliability....oh, sure some Americans might stretch their longevities.

Forget about todays non-Japanese makes! Audi and BMW, M.Benz are nice but wait till you hit 50,000 miles then it'll cost you.

If it is a German or Japanese oldie..keep it; with good maintenance they'll outlast the newbies.

cheers...

I agree! Also if the car was actually made in Japan, even better.

[eaton53]

Originally Posted by NC Transplants

Forget about todays non-Japanese makes!

Nonsense.
Domestic pickups are among the most likely to be long lasting.
A GMC is as likely as a Lexus (17% vs. 18%) to make it to 180K.

That said, NOTHING can be counted on to make 300K.

[supton]

Anything can make 300k, if not more. All it takes is someone willing to keep putting money into it. Although not living in the rustbelt and not being a low mile/year driver helps.

[eaton53]

Originally Posted by supton

Anything can make 300k, if not more. All it takes is someone willing to keep putting money into it. Although not living in the rustbelt and not being a low mile/year driver helps.

They can, but the stats say a low percentage of anything make 180K. The rolling money pit becomes not worth it.

Some cars are pretty close to never making it.
I recall a Dashboard Light article where a Jag's chance of making 180K is something like 1 in 1600.

[Stonepa]

A Toyota Land Cruiser, Toyota Tacoma, Lexus LS, or Lexus RX can most certainly be expected to hit 300k with just normal maintenance. How do I know? I have several Land Cruisers, which I bought new, with over 300k with zero issues. My wife's RX is well on it's way. A friends LS has almost 400k on it and still runs like new, with nothing there than recommended service. And Tacomas? Well,.... These cars are bulletproof.

[eaton53]

Originally Posted by Stonepa

A Toyota Land Cruiser, Toyota Tacoma, Lexus LS, or Lexus RX can most certainly be expected to hit 300k with just normal maintenance. How do I know? I have several Land Cruisers, which I bought new, with over 300k with zero issues. My wife's RX is well on it's way. A friends LS has almost 400k on it and still runs like new, with nothing there than recommended service. And Tacomas? Well,.... These cars are bulletproof.

For every one of your anecdotes, the stats say that there are nearly four that say otherwise.
22% is the number for Lexus to 180K, not 300K. When 78% don't make it to even 2/3's of 300K, it most certainly cannot be "expected".

I looked on AutoTrader to see if there were a lot of these vehicles for sale with 300K on them.
The answer... not really. Less than 20 for all of them combined. If 300K were a common occurrence, there would be a lot more than that.

What were there a lot of? Ford pickups with 300K. Almost 4 pages of them.
I'm sure those owners got lots of good anecdotes too. But, so what? They're outliers... still a tiny number on a percentage basis.

[Stonepa]

Originally Posted by eaton53

For every one of your anecdotes, the stats say that there are nearly four that say otherwise.
22% is the number for Lexus to 180K, not 300K. When 78% don't make it to even 2/3's of 300K, it most certainly cannot be "expected".

I looked on AutoTrader to see if there were a lot of these vehicles for sale with 300K on them.
The answer... not really. Less than 20 for all of them combined. If 300K were a common occurrence, there would be a lot more than that.

What were there a lot of? Ford pickups with 300K. Almost 4 pages of them.
I'm sure those owners got lots of good anecdotes too. But, so what? They're outliers... still a tiny number on a percentage basis.

Different uses. If you are a tradesman and put 30-40k miles a year on your truck then, sure, you will fairly quickly get to 300k. If you are an average American commuter you drive 12.5k miles a year so it takes 25 years to hit 300k. Lexus has barely been out 25 years. Therefore, it makes sense that there a bunch of trucks out there with high mileage for sale. They rack them up. But there are a lot of Land Cruisers and other Toyotas out there that have huge miles that will never come up for sale because their owners, like me, never sell them.

The question was how many can last 300k miles, not how many are for sale with over 300k miles. My statement still stands.

[Tiffer E38]

Any car can get to 300k with reasonable maintenance, so long as you don't expect it to still be "like new" at that point. Anecdotal, but my '81 Chevy Citation, a truly ugly car, made it to 323k before I gave it to a friend. It did NOT get anything other than tender loving abuse for the last 200k of it's life and did not cost more than oil and brake changes (and wipers) for that period with the exception of an alternator at 250k. it was just a beater errand runner that just refused to die.


Identical to this one but with more dents:





The main advantage it had? I was living in the PNW at the time and we didn't have to deal with rust there. West coast and southewestern cars tend to last a LONG time.

[eaton53]

Originally Posted by Stonepa

Different uses. If you are a tradesman and put 30-40k miles a year on your truck then, sure, you will fairly quickly get to 300k. If you are an average American commuter you drive 12.5k miles a year so it takes 25 years to hit 300k. Lexus has barely been out 25 years. Therefore, it makes sense that there a bunch of trucks out there with high mileage for sale. They rack them up. But there are a lot of Land Cruisers and other Toyotas out there that have huge miles that will never come up for sale because their owners, like me, never sell them.

The question was how many can last 300k miles, not how many are for sale with over 300k miles. My statement still stands.

This "the owners never sell them" stuff is just talk with nothing to back it up, totally unprovable.

Bottom line... this is nothing more than your Anecdotes vs the Actual Statistics.
Everything you posted applies to you. That's great, but until you produce some statistics that back up your claims, it's meaningless in the big scheme of things.

I will produce them.
http://www.dashboard-light.com/vehic...s/Over180k.png
This is how many actually last that long. Not even close to most of them.

[Stonepa]

Originally Posted by eaton53

This "the owners never sell them" stuff is just talk with nothing to back it up, totally unprovable.

Bottom line... this is nothing more than your Anecdotes vs the Actual Statistics.
Everything you posted applies to you. That's great, but until you produce some statistics that back up your claims, it's meaningless in the big scheme of things.

I will produce them.
http://www.dashboard-light.com/vehic...s/Over180k.png
This is how many actually last that long. Not even close to most of them.

This doesn't really say much about how long a car will last. For instance, Porsches can easily last 300k miles. However, how many get driven that far? They get driven on the weekend, at the track, whatever. However, a Honda commuter car will rack up the miles.

Statistics are just that - statistics. Like those from our last election, the only thing that matters is what happens, not what the statistics say. Anecdotally, within my sphere of knowledge via friends and a club, I know of at least 25 Land Cruisers with over 300k miles on them. I ride in Prius taxis all the time with 800k-1m miles on them (pretty much any taxi in Seattle or SF). All 3 of the guys I know that have Lexus LSs have well over 200k and one has well over 300k. And they don't sell them because they are reliable.

Tells me all I need to know.