Cars lasting longer now?

[paigeoliver]

I have been wondering something, are cars just lasting longer now, or what?

I remember when I was younger and I would go to the junkyard and scavenge for parts you would rarely ever see any odometers with 200,000 on them, most of them usually seemed to have 140,000 to 180,000 (or 90-120,000 for american made 4 cylinders).

I was recently at the junkyard sourcing parts for my Suburban and a friend's Escort and I couldn't believe the mileage on most of the junked cars.

For the most part 200,000 was the minimum I would see on anything, even American made 4 cylinders. I saw quite a few up near 300,000. Saw quite a few cars over 200,000 that weren't even there because they were worn out, but because they were totalled.

Only real exception seemed to be the Korean cars. I saw loads of 2000 model and newer Hyundai's and Kias. I even saw a 2003 Kia in there (and over a dozen 2002 models of Hyundai's and Kias, the 2001 and 2000 models were too numerous to count).

[USSEnterprise]

My dad had a Datsun Nissan Maxima from 1983 that he bought used in 1989, and he had it until 1998, when the transmission died. He put over 300,000 miles on it. then again, we had an old Toyota 4-Runner from 1987 that only lasted 150,000 miles. The engine block warped, and repair would have been expensive. We donated it earlier this year. They generally seem to last a long time, especially German and japanese cars.

[Kremmit]

Maybe MO is where all the old cars from California have been sent.  Seems like back when I was a kid, you always saw plenty of people driving around in beaters, but not anymore.  Practically nobody here has anything that's more than 10 years old, I swear.  And I'm not just talking about San Francisco and LA, I'm in a small city in far Northern CA, and it's still all BMWs and Armadas.   

People look at me in my beat-down $500 1980 Chevy LUV and think there's something wrong with me, while they drive around in a car that costs more than $500 every single month! 

"Oh, but I don't want to have to mess with breakdowns and repair bills!" 

Hey, when I drive past the mechanics, I see new cars up on the lift, doubtless getting expensive repairs made.  If mine ever needs anything that costs more that $500, I'll just drop it off at the junkyard and get another.  And up until the day it stops running, my car will never depreciate. 

Oh, hey, I went on a rant!  Back on topic, I don't know how many miles are on my LUV, because the odometer only has 5 digits- but it's still on the road after 25 years, and it has definately NOT been garaged and lovingly maintained.

[paigeoliver]

A lot of those cars in the junkyard ARE less than 10 years old, just with massive miles on them.

I think beaters blend in more these days. I don't mean the REAL beaters like your Luv truck, but the stuff from the late 80s, lots of new models introduced around that time period that carried forward much later. In general I just don't think the late 80s models look nearly as "dated" today as the late 70s models did 10 years ago.

Although cars are once again transistioning from curves to angles again, so all those 90s cars are going to look dated FAST. (pre 40s styling was alll over the places, 42-63ish was curvy cars, 64-84 was angle cars, 85- 2004, curves again, 2005+ angles!

Of course the exact dates of the curves and angles transistions are quite amorphous, as models are introduced at different times and such.

[ChadTower]

If you could even find a junkyard in MA, none of the cars will have 300k on them, and half won't have 200k.

Those Korean cars really were junk until recently.  The Hyundais are much better now, especially since they're still under powertrain warranty until 100k.

No one in my town drives a 10 year old car... it's kind of sickening.  The place is full of 40k SUVs driven by women with one kid and no load.  Every time I park my Civic someplace I can't find it when I come looking because it has been surrounded by an Expedition, an Escalade, and a Hummer.  These people must spend thousands every month, between payments and insurance and $60 gas refills.

[missioncontrol]

alot of older cars only went up to 99999.9 befor rolling over so there is really no way of knowing how many times they rolled over before being junked...........

[ChadTower]

When did they stop doing that?  It was quite a while ago, I would guess...

[Stingray]

At some point a law was passed requiring cars to have an extra didget on the odometer so you could see actual milage (unless it exceeded a million). Not sure when that was, but I have a 1989 Chevy truck that has the extra didget.

Obviously I'm not familiar with every engine, but the small block Chevy V8 has always been a long lasting engine. I've never had one that couldn't do 200k easy, assuming proper maintenance was done.

At the other extreme, my Mini is a 1974 and it's little one liter 4 banger is still going strong too.

It really is all about how well a car is taken care of, granted some cars are crap even when new.

-S

[missioncontrol]

My 87 Bronco does not have the extra digit...

[Stingray]

I guess we're starting to close in on the year.

-S

[ChadTower]

The problem is rarely the engine.

[AceTKK]

I have a 1981 Datsun 280zx passed down from my dad that I drive on the weekends sometimes.  212k+ on the odometer and never once has it failed to start.  The only maintenance I've done is replacing the vaccuum hoses and brakes / battery.

-Ace-

[ChadTower]

My Civic is in the shop getting new ball joints right now.  93k.

[Stingray]

The problem is rarely the engine.  The problem, at least here, is usually that the rest of the car has rotted away around the engine.  The tranny and engine are usually still alive when a car is junked here, but the front end is piecemeal, the floorboards are rotted out, and the quarterpanels are rusted.  It's not worth fixing a car every 6 months even if the engine is solid, when the book value is only $400.

That's not really an issue here. Rust isn't a problem. If you see a really rusty car on the road, it almost certainly came from out of state.

-S

[ChadTower]

For about 4 months of the year here, your car is covered with a solid coating of salt.  Some people will try and tell you they wash their car every week and that it takes care of that, but by the time they get home from the carwash, the car is coated in salt again.

[Stingray]

Just ran out for lunch. Thinking of this conversation, I was really looking at the cars I saw. Saw several in the 10-20 year old range, and about 5 in the 30-40 year old range. None of them had any rust on them at all, even the ones that were beat all to hell. It rarely snows here and the roads are never salted. In really bad winters the road crews will throw down a little sand.

-S

[ChadTower]

They salt here enough that it kills people's front lawns.  If you were to lean up against your car in February, the salt would leave a white powdery coating on your coat and you'd smell like an old pretzel.

[Effayy]

The problem is rarely the engine.

[missioncontrol]

Bah, now I wanna move to SF.

[Havok]

Bah, now I wanna move to SF.

[missioncontrol]

hmmmmmmmm that explains why my application was denied......

[USSEnterprise]

uh-oh!

[DrewKaree]

I guess we're starting to close in on the year.

-S

My '88 Sunbird had it.

If you were to lean up against your car in February, the salt would leave a white powdery coating on your coat and you'd smell like an old pretzel.

What's your excuse for smelling like an old pretzel now that it's July?

[missioncontrol]

also some older cars you could drive backwards and the odometer would go backwards......

[USSEnterprise]

how old?

[ChadTower]

What's your excuse for smelling like an old pretzel now that it's July?

Too much time in Maritime Canada.

[paigeoliver]

My 89 Suburban does not have the million mile odometer, but 89' model regular Chevy trucks do.


In most models it seems to have went in with the first late 80s redesign. Which is why my Suburban (89' model, but design dates from 1972) doesn't have it, while the Chevy full size trucks (redesigned in 1987) got it with the redesign.

[Trenchbroom]

Most Japanese cars had 6 digit odometers in the mid-80's.  US makers jumped on board around 1990.  About the same time that the automated seat belts came on the scene.

I work as a total loss adjuster for an insurance company, and I agree that vehicles have MUCH higher miles than they did 20 years ago.  Even makes/models that are notorious for their poor reliability still get 100K miles easy. 

Not like the old days where you would buy a new car with a one year 12,000 warranty and be lucky to put 120,000 miles on the vehicle before it bit the dust. 

[RayB]

Salt + water = rust
Salt left there dry won't cause rust.

So whoever says they wash their car alot to get salt off, is doing their car a disservice.

In Cali, you don't see rusted cars, but what you see is flaked off paint due to sub damage.

[geomartin]

I think on average people keep thier cars just as long as they always have.  You're seeing the higher mileage on the cars because, according to government statistics, people have much longer commutes to work.  I guess you could blame sprawling suburbia on the higher mileage.

[ChadTower]

Salt + water = rust
Salt left there dry won't cause rust.

So whoever says they wash their car alot to get salt off, is doing their car a disservice.

Doesn't matter when you are driving through 4 inches of slush.

[DrewKaree]

Salt + water = rust
Salt left there dry won't cause rust.

If you drive in a place where salt is deposited on your car due to its use in clearing the roads, that equation is rather humorous.  Salt left there "dry" will never happen, as Chad pointed out.  It gets on your car BECAUSE of the water helping it reach your car. 

You also have the obvious problem of never being able to remove the salt from your car, since you'll HAVE to add water to do so. 

Removing the salt as soon as possible IS the right thing to do, since it will be working on your car UNTIL it is removed.  In "Cali", you don't see rust BECAUSE they aren't driving around on winter-salted roads.  Period.  As was pointed out about a region even closer to the winter weather, SAND is used, if it's even laid down at all. 

See what happens using that "new math"?

[danny_galaga]

they SHOULDNT be lasting longer, purely because you need to have a turnover to keep the market flowing. Built in redundancy has been around forever (who would have been seen dead in a model T when they started making cars with pressed, compound curved bodies for instance) but they are getting slicker at it. Cars now arent meant to be easily serviced for instance. Which is interesting since it used to be the case that the manufacturer would make more from spares than the car itself "I'm in the business of spare parts- the cars are just incidental" . i think that was a quote from Henry Ford. Now i think about it, the fact cars are harder to service may bring down the number of non-genuine parts others are willing to make. So even though there is less servicing, there are more genuine parts sold. hmmmm. bloody complicated business...

[shmokes]

I have a '98 Dodge Neon that hasn't had any problems except two dead batteries.  It's over 128,000 miles now.  It has completely amazed me.  I never would have associated this kind of reliability with an American car -- especially an American car that cost $9,000 used with like 13,000 miles on it.  I'm crossing my fingers for one more Winter and looking to get a replacement in the neighborhood of next summer.  I'm planning on moving up a notch in the class of car -- maybe the $18 - $22,000 for the next car and even so I will be surprised as hell if I make it to 130,000 without anything but a couple of dead batteries.

Oh yeah, there's also an electrical problem with my Neon that causes the back speakers to go out.  Every time we took it in to the dealer while under warranty they would just replace the speakers which solved the problem.  They'd go out again within a month or two, though, after which the Dealer would just replace them again.  That went on until the car was out of warranty.  Now we just have no back speakers.  That's just annoying, of course.  Not saying anything about the car's reliability.

[Avery]

My father in-law (who has like 15 different project cars - I hear the 67 Jag is about ready to roll) sums up this conversation this way - "When's the last time you heard anyone saying they needed a valve job?"

[Scott84]

I drive my dads car:


1992 Honda Accord EX
Extra Digit Added
250,000 KM

Runs Perfectly

Repairs: starter motor replaced, and regular maintenance (oil, etc)



I cant stand Kia or Hyundai. I think that there cars are ugliest cars on
the planet. They have that 'cheap' look to them. Not saying my dads honda is any better, but still.

[SirPoonga]

My parents had a Toyota Camry with 250k on it before the strut mounts rusted away.
I bought my Corolla and Camry with 130k on it.  My corolla was put out of commishion due to an accident, at 170k.  My dad's Tercel went 210k before the brakes froze up and the car wouldn't go into 1st gear.

I have yet to see a Toyota no longer run due to how many miles were on the engine.  As mentioned, most of the problems are due to rusting and salt from winter.  That's more of what amazes me, if someone has a car that lasts over 7 years of driving in the winter.

[ChadTower]

A couple of years ago I bought a Subaru Legacy Outback (1997) with about 70k miles on it, thinking the same thing.  Subaru engines run forever, right?

Hellllllllll no.  We had problem after freakin problem with it.  The alternator died, the clutch transfer died ($1500 job on an AWD car), the engine itself sounded a death squeal and was barely chugging along when we traded it in at 97k miles.  We didn't even have time to neglect it and Subaru claimed that searching on the vin popped up a timely history of scheduled maintenance at the dealer by a single owner until we bought it.

[SirPoonga]

We didn't even have time to neglect it and Subaru claimed that searching on the vin popped up a timely history of scheduled maintenance at the dealer by a single owner until we bought it.

Sounds like a lemon, you know you can check that info out yourself.  May not be able ot get the details for free but you can check how many times it has been serviced at least to give you a clue.

Like my car, 1st year for this generation of Camry.  Checked VIN against carfaqs and other sites, my didn't have many records.  I looked up recalled, did some checks, all my recalls were done.  I'm guessing then that the few times it was recorded were for recalls.

That's also good advise, try and stay away from 1st year models unless you know something about them.  Like one 1st I'd get, but would check to make sure recalls were done, is a 2000 celica.  One of the "problems" that people complained about was the short throw of the manual shifter.  They made it have a longer throw 2001+.  Personally, I'd like the shorter throw

[ChadTower]

The car had 70k+ when we bought it, that is way beyond the range of what one could consider a lemon.  It was just a piece of crap.

[danny_galaga]

My father in-law (who has like 15 different project cars - I hear the 67 Jag is about ready to roll) sums up this conversation this way - "When's the last time you heard anyone saying they needed a valve job?"

thats a good point. people dont bother keeping cars long enough to bother. although another reason is that metalurgy is all the time improving and valves do last longer than they used to...

[shmokes]

That's more of what amazes me, if someone has a car that lasts over 7 years of driving in the winter.

I live in Utah.  My Neon gets more than its fair share of snow and salt.  Impressive.

[ChadTower]

My mother has a 95 Spectrum.  Runs great, but the floorboards are rusting out, the undercarriage is failing, and half the paint has just fallen off the chassis.  The engine will still be good when it's no longer financially viable to keep the car.  Most cars in MA end up that way if they aren't totaled.