Brag on your MMM high-mileage or old car

[JAYSLOL]

Not a car, but thought maybe this belonged here.  Over the last 12 years running a small landscaping company, we have a fleet of 3 - 4 lawn tractors in use at any one time.  We’ve always bought the entry level John Deere tractors because they are fairly inexpensive to buy and run, and since we have new people all the time, if a crew trashes one, it’s not a big loss like if we ran a commercial unit that’s 5-10x the price.  Obviously, if it was just me, I’d run around with a very nice commercial unit because I know how to take care of things, but when you have 4 crews based in 3 different cities and new people all the time, shit happens.  Anyway, we used to replace the old tractors every 2 years at roughly 300-400 hours because that’s about all they would last before developing issues that weren’t worth fixing, but over the years I’ve gotten better at tracking and performing maintenance on these units and better at doing bigger repairs myself, to where we’ve more than doubled the hours/years we can keep these units running, most of the time I can keep them working for 4-5 seasons at 800-1000 hours, and still sell them in good working condition after that.  The John Deere place I get parts at is always blown away by the number of hours of work I’m getting out of the entry level machines.  1000 hours doesn’t seem like much, and for a car driving normally it wouldn’t be, but these machines are run at full-throttle all the time when working, which makes it the wear-and-tear equivalent to running a car for 1000 hours on a race track, or 1000 hours of towing a heavy load, so it’s actually quite a lot to get out of the cheap units. 

[Wintergreen78]

Not a car, but thought maybe this belonged here.  Over the last 12 years running a small landscaping company, we have a fleet of 3 - 4 lawn tractors in use at any one time.  We’ve always bought the entry level John Deere tractors because they are fairly inexpensive to buy and run, and since we have new people all the time, if a crew trashes one, it’s not a big loss like if we ran a commercial unit that’s 5-10x the price.  Obviously, if it was just me, I’d run around with a very nice commercial unit because I know how to take care of things, but when you have 4 crews based in 3 different cities and new people all the time, shit happens.  Anyway, we used to replace the old tractors every 2 years at roughly 300-400 hours because that’s about all they would last before developing issues that weren’t worth fixing, but over the years I’ve gotten better at tracking and performing maintenance on these units and better at doing bigger repairs myself, to where we’ve more than doubled the hours/years we can keep these units running, most of the time I can keep them working for 4-5 seasons at 800-1000 hours, and still sell them in good working condition after that.  The John Deere place I get parts at is always blown away by the number of hours of work I’m getting out of the entry level machines.  1000 hours doesn’t seem like much, and for a car driving normally it wouldn’t be, but these machines are run at full-throttle all the time when working, which makes it the wear-and-tear equivalent to running a car for 1000 hours on a race track, or 1000 hours of towing a heavy load, so it’s actually quite a lot to get out of the cheap units.

That sounds satisfying! I get that businesses have to pay attention to costs, but it is frustrating that so much stuff just gets used and thrown away when a little maintenance could keep it working.

Nice job.

[onward19]

DH's old beater truck finally met it's end. 200,000 miles! We bought it for $2000 in 2012 and it lasted 10 years - about 8 more years than we'd expected! It was old, rusty and sad when we bought it, and even worse when we sold it to a scrapper.
 Technically it was still going and still drive able at lower speeds, but it would have cost $800 to fix some transmission issues, and the truck was only worth about half that amount.
  Pretty impressive! 

[JAYSLOL]

DH's old beater truck finally met it's end. 200,000 miles! We bought it for $2000 in 2012 and it lasted 10 years - about 8 more years than we'd expected! It was old, rusty and sad when we bought it, and even worse when we sold it to a scrapper.
 Technically it was still going and still drive able at lower speeds, but it would have cost $800 to fix some transmission issues, and the truck was only worth about half that amount.
  Pretty impressive!

I think it’s safe to say you got your money’s worth out of that truck!  Out of curiosity, how much did you get from the scrap yard for it?  Even if they gave you nothing for it, your purchase cost was less than $17 per month of use.  That’s like 1/30th the amount the average person with a car payment spends per month on purchase cost

[onward19]

DH's old beater truck finally met it's end. 200,000 miles! We bought it for $2000 in 2012 and it lasted 10 years - about 8 more years than we'd expected! It was old, rusty and sad when we bought it, and even worse when we sold it to a scrapper.
 Technically it was still going and still drive able at lower speeds, but it would have cost $800 to fix some transmission issues, and the truck was only worth about half that amount.
  Pretty impressive!

I think it’s safe to say you got your money’s worth out of that truck!  Out of curiosity, how much did you get from the scrap yard for it?  Even if they gave you nothing for it, your purchase cost was less than $17 per month of use.  That’s like 1/30th the amount the average person with a car payment spends per month on purchase cost

 Yes we sure did get our money's worth out of that truck! Definitely didn't expect it to last that long, and we worked it really hard the last two years too! DH hauled home stone for a retaining wall (50ft L x 3ft H) in multiple trips - what amounted to several huge pallets worth. Plus loads of gravel, landscaping rock, dirt, sand, furniture, you name it! So not only was it drive able, but it also moved a LOT of heavy things.

  The scrap dealer gave us $450. :)

[Jules Anne]

2013 Honda Civic with 32K miles on it. Prior to that a 2001 Honda Civic with 121K miles on it which I only traded in because I needed a/c and it would cost more than the car was worth to install it.

[JAYSLOL]

DH's old beater truck finally met it's end. 200,000 miles! We bought it for $2000 in 2012 and it lasted 10 years - about 8 more years than we'd expected! It was old, rusty and sad when we bought it, and even worse when we sold it to a scrapper.
 Technically it was still going and still drive able at lower speeds, but it would have cost $800 to fix some transmission issues, and the truck was only worth about half that amount.
  Pretty impressive!

I think it’s safe to say you got your money’s worth out of that truck!  Out of curiosity, how much did you get from the scrap yard for it?  Even if they gave you nothing for it, your purchase cost was less than $17 per month of use.  That’s like 1/30th the amount the average person with a car payment spends per month on purchase cost

 Yes we sure did get our money's worth out of that truck! Definitely didn't expect it to last that long, and we worked it really hard the last two years too! DH hauled home stone for a retaining wall (50ft L x 3ft H) in multiple trips - what amounted to several huge pallets worth. Plus loads of gravel, landscaping rock, dirt, sand, furniture, you name it! So not only was it drive able, but it also moved a LOT of heavy things.

  The scrap dealer gave us $450. :)

Wow, you almost got 1/4 of the full purchase price back lol, too good

[change_seeker]

A friend's dad was about to donate a 1994 Nissan pick-up.  He asked if I wanted it for $200.  I said yes so that our family in the area would have a vehicle for trips to the feed store and dump.  My in-laws insured it.  About two months ago my 200k mile Subaru engine died, so I'm currently driving a $200 vehicle!  Manual transmission and cheap to operate.  Not sure what mileage it gets as the speedometer/odometer are not working.

[zolotiyeruki]

I think it’s safe to say you got your money’s worth out of that truck!  Out of curiosity, how much did you get from the scrap yard for it?  Even if they gave you nothing for it, your purchase cost was less than $17 per month of use.  That’s like 1/30th the amount the average person with a car payment spends per month on purchase cost

 Yes we sure did get our money's worth out of that truck! Definitely didn't expect it to last that long, and we worked it really hard the last two years too! DH hauled home stone for a retaining wall (50ft L x 3ft H) in multiple trips - what amounted to several huge pallets worth. Plus loads of gravel, landscaping rock, dirt, sand, furniture, you name it! So not only was it drive able, but it also moved a LOT of heavy things.

  The scrap dealer gave us $450. :)

Wow, you almost got 1/4 of the full purchase price back lol, too good

The older the car, the better it holds its value :) We bought our '95 Corolla in 2003 for $4500.  It got totalled in 2022, and the insurance company paid us $1700 for it.  Our purchase price came down to about $12.50/mo!

[monarda]

I like this way to calculate. Need to go back and add together purchase price + repairs for our past couple of cars. It'll be a bit to figure the cost of gas and registration/insurance to see what our total cost of ownership was.

ETA: Purchase plus repairs for our previous car ended up ~$100 a month.
The current car is going to dip under $200 a month in the next month or two, and we're going to keep that car for quite a while.

[ColoAndy]

2012 Honda Accord.  125,600 miles.  Will begin adding to that total more now that I am headed into the office more frequently, unfortunately.

[BlueMR2]

Sold my newer car (a 1995 with 150,000 miles).  Engine had been knocking for a while.  I didn't want to deal with replacing the engine, and a local guy (that had a spare engine) had asked about it earlier, so we made a deal...  That means more miles on the remaining car.  Just had the 303,000 mile maintenance done on that one...  Just a few posts up I was at 300,000.  :D

[srrb]

2001 Honda civic with 275 000-ish km (170 000 miles). I'd like to brag that not only is it 21 years old (I bought it brand new), we've always been walk-more/drive-less peeps, so even though it was a work commuter car, that's still only about 13,100 km/yr average. Mainly used as a "ute" with a roof now, lol. If you sit anywhere but the driver's seat you're likely to get a sliver and dirty butt.

[WheresMyMule]

2012 Kia Sorento with 213,000 miles.  We bought it from a mechanic friend of ours in 2019 with 170,000 - the engine had been replaced and had about 60K on it, and the transmission had also been replaced and had about 30K on it.  It was expensive for us ($6500), but I plan to keep it and let our 14 year old use it when he starts driving.

[Must_ache]

The older the car, the better it holds its value :) We bought our '95 Corolla in 2003 for $4500.  It got totalled in 2022, and the insurance company paid us $1700 for it.  Our purchase price came down to about $12.50/mo!

Using the CPI, that car could cost $7,156 in today's dollars.  So in today's dollars the cost was $5,456 or about $24/month. 

I sold my 4-yr car at the beginning of the year for more than I paid for it, but they certainly weren't selling 2022 cars at 2017 prices!

The older the car, the better it holds its value :)

The older the car, the less value it has to depreciate.

[Dicey]

I haven't posted on this thread in forever, so here goes. In the last few months, we've used DH's 2002 Ford F150 twice to transport stuff to one of our rentals. It's 500 miles one way. Yesterday, I moved it out of the driveway. I looked down and noticed it's up to 107,000 miles. Woot!

[monarda]

Okay, who can brag about having the highest miles per dollar? (or km per dollar)?

Considering purchase price plus repairs, we've driven this car (Prius) about 60,000 miles and spent about $15K (very rough) so about 4 miles per dollar for what we've put into it, other than gas, but we've only owned this one since 2016 (bought with 101,000 miles)

And with today's fuel prices, each tank (in summer) we have about 47 mpg and $4.50 per gallon, so about 10 miles per dollar

People who buy new cars are going to be averaging under 1 mile per dollar. Ha!
I need to take this into account when considering if our next car should be an EV. Not sure we drive enough miles to see a great benefit. (will need to calculate)

Who has the oldest car you've driven for many miles and not have had to do many repairs? You're gonna win the distance per dollar prize!

[Dicey]

I just asked DH. He's had to replace two coils in 20 years, which he did himself. He also upgraded to some great looking rims that he scored on CL. He also got a burnt-out red shell on CL, for which he paid $200 and painted to match the truck, using materials and equipment he already had. He is only on his second set of (self-installed) brakes. That's it besides tires (still on the third set) and fluids, also DIY. He paid $20k cash out the door in 2002. All in all, he's done okay on it. No plans to replace it any time soon, knock on wood.

[Bateaux]

My old 2008 Accord is at about 235K.  I really only drive it to work now.  I've estimated that I need another 6000 miles of use till retirement.   The car is making terrible noises, valves are clacking.  The shocks are shot.  I have 2 different sizes and 3 different brands of tires.  The A/C isn't working.  The catalytic converter is plugged. The transmission slips a little in first gear.  None of the interior lights work.  The seats are all split.  Other than that. It's great.

[JAYSLOL]

Okay, who can brag about having the highest miles per dollar? (or km per dollar)?

Considering purchase price plus repairs, we've driven this car (Prius) about 60,000 miles and spent about $15K (very rough) so about 4 miles per dollar for what we've put into it, other than gas, but we've only owned this one since 2016 (bought with 101,000 miles)

And with today's fuel prices, each tank (in summer) we have about 47 mpg and $4.50 per gallon, so about 10 miles per dollar

People who buy new cars are going to be averaging under 1 mile per dollar. Ha!
I need to take this into account when considering if our next car should be an EV. Not sure we drive enough miles to see a great benefit. (will need to calculate)

Who has the oldest car you've driven for many miles and not have had to do many repairs? You're gonna win the distance per dollar prize!

My 95 Toyota I’ve had for 20 years and 170k, purchased used in 2002, gets around 36mpg, I do most of my own work with a couple exceptions like the clutch and timing belt.  I did a rough calculation that it’s total cost is around 4 miles per dollar, but that’s including purchase cost, every repair, new set of tires and oil change etc, as well as insurance for 20 year of driving. 

[Dicey]

I just asked DH. He's had to replace two coils in 20 years, which he did himself. He also upgraded to some great looking rims that he scored on CL. He also got a burnt-out red shell on CL, for which he paid $200 and painted to match the truck, using materials and equipment he already had. He is only on his second set of (self-installed) brakes. That's it besides tires (still on the third set) and fluids, also DIY. He paid $20k cash out the door in 2002. All in all, he's done okay on it. No plans to replace it any time soon, knock on wood.

Well, perhaps I spoke too soon. Today DH's truck wouldn't start. He thought it might be the fuel pump. Turns out is was the power train computer relay. It cost him $25.00* and a trip to Auto Zone to repair. Love that dude! While we were there, we went to the cheap produce market in the "bad" neighborhood. We got three pounds of organic baby carrots, two pounds of strawberries, one pound of cherries, and two big beefsteak tomatoes. I also got change back from my six one-dollar bills. Errand bundling for the win!

*It could have been even cheaper, but he broke a different relay while he was diagnosing the problem, so we had to buy two.

[iluvzbeach]

@Dicey, in non-mustachian universes, people buy brand new cars when their “old” car needs a repair. I mean, you can’t have an “unreliable” car, can you? ;)

That $25 repair is outstanding!

[BlueMR2]

He thought it might be the fuel pump. Turns out is was the power train computer relay.

Side note as this is one of the things that I've noticed over several decades now...  While I'm sure fuel pumps do fail sometimes.  Not once ever has it been the fuel pump on any of the great many non-start incidents I've been involved with.  Yet, that always seems to be the first assumption of what it is.  Power windows are the same way, the motor gets blamed first, but I can only remember one case where it actually was the motor.  Usually the switches, sometimes relay, sometimes wiring.  :)  OK, I feel better now.  :)

[getsorted]

He thought it might be the fuel pump. Turns out is was the power train computer relay.

Side note as this is one of the things that I've noticed over several decades now...  While I'm sure fuel pumps do fail sometimes.  Not once ever has it been the fuel pump on any of the great many non-start incidents I've been involved with.  Yet, that always seems to be the first assumption of what it is.  Power windows are the same way, the motor gets blamed first, but I can only remember one case where it actually was the motor.  Usually the switches, sometimes relay, sometimes wiring.  :)  OK, I feel better now.  :)

It's kind of the same thing with water pumps and overheating.

[Dicey]

He thought it might be the fuel pump. Turns out is was the power train computer relay.

Side note as this is one of the things that I've noticed over several decades now...  While I'm sure fuel pumps do fail sometimes.  Not once ever has it been the fuel pump on any of the great many non-start incidents I've been involved with.  Yet, that always seems to be the first assumption of what it is.  Power windows are the same way, the motor gets blamed first, but I can only remember one case where it actually was the motor.  Usually the switches, sometimes relay, sometimes wiring.  :)  OK, I feel better now.  :)

DH has been mechanically inclined ever since he started riding and repairing his own minibikes as a kid. He's a "check the fuses first" kind of guy.  IMO, being able to fix things is a mustachian superpower.

[Bartlebooth]

2008 Dodge Dakota, 150,000 miles.  The rear wheel wells are really rusting so I'm not sure how much longer I will feel OK with driving it to work.  I suppose when the outline of the wheel well substantially loses its outline/definition.

It was free from a family member last year so very low price per mile!

It started leaking from the grab handles when raining and eventually this got so bad that the passenger footwell would fill with an inch of water.  I figured sunroof seal was bad so called about getting it replaced.  They didn't have the part and kind of had trouble finding it.  I became suspicious--"hmm, they don't seem to replace these very often" I thought to myself.  Some Internet sleuthing led me to it being a clogged drain.  10 minutes of fiddling and garden hose testing and the problem was solved for free.  I guess sunroofs don't actually need to seal that well as water absolutely gushes out of the drain when I test with the hose.

[getsorted]

2008 Dodge Dakota, 150,000 miles.  The rear wheel wells are really rusting so I'm not sure how much longer I will feel OK with driving it to work.  I suppose when the outline of the wheel well substantially loses its outline/definition.

It was free from a family member last year so very low price per mile!

It started leaking from the grab handles when raining and eventually this got so bad that the passenger footwell would fill with an inch of water.  I figured sunroof seal was bad so called about getting it replaced.  They didn't have the part and kind of had trouble finding it.  I became suspicious--"hmm, they don't seem to replace these very often" I thought to myself.  Some Internet sleuthing led me to it being a clogged drain.  10 minutes of fiddling and garden hose testing and the problem was solved for free.  I guess sunroofs don't actually need to seal that well as water absolutely gushes out of the drain when I test with the hose.

I used to have a Dakota Sport (I can't remember now if it was a late 80s or early 90s) and the drains in the bed were so easily clogged with fine grit from driving on dirt roads that I used to keep a coat hanger in the vehicle for clearing them out. Nice to know some things never change!

[monarda]

IMO, being able to fix things is a mustachian superpower.

Absolutely!
<flexes arm muscles in a superhero kind of way>

[Dicey]

IMO, being able to fix things is a mustachian superpower.

Absolutely!
<flexes arm muscles in a superhero kind of way>

Hee, you made me think of this:

[monarda]

IMO, being able to fix things is a mustachian superpower.

Absolutely!
<flexes arm muscles in a superhero kind of way>

Hee, you made me think of this:

Yeah, baby!

[Just Joe]

Not a car, but thought maybe this belonged here.  Over the last 12 years running a small landscaping company, we have a fleet of 3 - 4 lawn tractors in use at any one time.  We’ve always bought the entry level John Deere tractors because they are fairly inexpensive to buy and run, and since we have new people all the time, if a crew trashes one, it’s not a big loss like if we ran a commercial unit that’s 5-10x the price.  Obviously, if it was just me, I’d run around with a very nice commercial unit because I know how to take care of things, but when you have 4 crews based in 3 different cities and new people all the time, shit happens.  Anyway, we used to replace the old tractors every 2 years at roughly 300-400 hours because that’s about all they would last before developing issues that weren’t worth fixing, but over the years I’ve gotten better at tracking and performing maintenance on these units and better at doing bigger repairs myself, to where we’ve more than doubled the hours/years we can keep these units running, most of the time I can keep them working for 4-5 seasons at 800-1000 hours, and still sell them in good working condition after that.  The John Deere place I get parts at is always blown away by the number of hours of work I’m getting out of the entry level machines.  1000 hours doesn’t seem like much, and for a car driving normally it wouldn’t be, but these machines are run at full-throttle all the time when working, which makes it the wear-and-tear equivalent to running a car for 1000 hours on a race track, or 1000 hours of towing a heavy load, so it’s actually quite a lot to get out of the cheap units.

That sounds satisfying! I get that businesses have to pay attention to costs, but it is frustrating that so much stuff just gets used and thrown away when a little maintenance could keep it working.

Nice job.

THAT!

[Just Joe]

Can't remember if I posted but we have four drivers at our house now. DW and I carpool in an late 90s CRV with north of 300K miles. One teen has a late 90s Miata. 140K miles. Other teen has a late 90s Chevy Malibu with 190K miles on it. There are a couple more (collector) cars but they have more years than miles to brag about. 

[OutToLunch]

2006 Ford Focus with 164,000kms. Hasn't missed a beat since my wife bought in 2009. Have replaced most of the wear parts (incl. brake discs, shocks, belts & clutch).  Otherwise the worst we've broken is a couple of light bulbs & a light socket.

The closest to a breakdown from memory was a combination of a hard start fault & my wife not tapping the accelerator. I didn't try until after calling roadside assist - car then started first try & I had to sheepishly call back and explain we were all good.

We're a one car family and neither of us use the car to commute to work. So the odo is only creeping up, maybe 4000 kms per year.  345,000kms is impressive, we'll be happy with anything remotely like that - probably would take until after 2050!! Hoping to keep it going long enough for our next car to be electric...

[poetdereves]

2003 Toyota Tacoma. 2wd 4 cyl. Gets nearly 30 mpg. I don't drive too much and got a smoking deal from a buddy a while back. Doesn't require much maintenance and can carry anything I'd ever need to throw in it. I just now hit 80,000 miles on it, so it will probably rust into pieces before the engine dies. I tell my wife all the time that I will drive it until I have a million dollars or a million miles on it, whichever comes first (fingers crossed that it's the million dollars). People do seem to give me some hate in our neighborhood though because we live in a nice place but I have such an old truck. More than once I have been mistaken for a handyman or someone driving around to pick up scrap metal or sneaking into the neighborhood ponds to fish. No one actually thinks I live here, which is annoying.

[SpareChange]

2003 Toyota Tacoma. 2wd 4 cyl. Gets nearly 30 mpg. I don't drive too much and got a smoking deal from a buddy a while back. Doesn't require much maintenance and can carry anything I'd ever need to throw in it. I just now hit 80,000 miles on it, so it will probably rust into pieces before the engine dies. I tell my wife all the time that I will drive it until I have a million dollars or a million miles on it, whichever comes first (fingers crossed that it's the million dollars). People do seem to give me some hate in our neighborhood though because we live in a nice place but I have such an old truck. More than once I have been mistaken for a handyman or someone driving around to pick up scrap metal or sneaking into the neighborhood ponds to fish. No one actually thinks I live here, which is annoying.

Lol. The ultimate stealth wealth.

[getsorted]

2003 Toyota Tacoma. 2wd 4 cyl. Gets nearly 30 mpg. I don't drive too much and got a smoking deal from a buddy a while back. Doesn't require much maintenance and can carry anything I'd ever need to throw in it. I just now hit 80,000 miles on it, so it will probably rust into pieces before the engine dies. I tell my wife all the time that I will drive it until I have a million dollars or a million miles on it, whichever comes first (fingers crossed that it's the million dollars). People do seem to give me some hate in our neighborhood though because we live in a nice place but I have such an old truck. More than once I have been mistaken for a handyman or someone driving around to pick up scrap metal or sneaking into the neighborhood ponds to fish. No one actually thinks I live here, which is annoying.

Lol. The ultimate stealth wealth.

Is it stealthy? Around here, the joke is that a 25-year-old Tacoma indicates you're in the presence of somebody who really has their shit together. My brother-in-law constantly jokes about his never-ending quest to get his hands on a 25-year-old Tacoma!

[JLee]

He thought it might be the fuel pump. Turns out is was the power train computer relay.

Side note as this is one of the things that I've noticed over several decades now...  While I'm sure fuel pumps do fail sometimes.  Not once ever has it been the fuel pump on any of the great many non-start incidents I've been involved with.  Yet, that always seems to be the first assumption of what it is.  Power windows are the same way, the motor gets blamed first, but I can only remember one case where it actually was the motor.  Usually the switches, sometimes relay, sometimes wiring.  :)  OK, I feel better now.  :)

I had the fuel pump in my Tacoma die at around 270k miles - fortunately it was polite enough to fail in my driveway!

[scottish]

2003 Toyota Tacoma. 2wd 4 cyl. Gets nearly 30 mpg. I don't drive too much and got a smoking deal from a buddy a while back. Doesn't require much maintenance and can carry anything I'd ever need to throw in it. I just now hit 80,000 miles on it, so it will probably rust into pieces before the engine dies. I tell my wife all the time that I will drive it until I have a million dollars or a million miles on it, whichever comes first (fingers crossed that it's the million dollars). People do seem to give me some hate in our neighborhood though because we live in a nice place but I have such an old truck. More than once I have been mistaken for a handyman or someone driving around to pick up scrap metal or sneaking into the neighborhood ponds to fish. No one actually thinks I live here, which is annoying.

Lol. The ultimate stealth wealth.

Is it stealthy? Around here, the joke is that a 25-year-old Tacoma indicates you're in the presence of somebody who really has their shit together. My brother-in-law constantly jokes about his never-ending quest to get his hands on a 25-year-old Tacoma!

Yes, I have an 04 Tacoma with 285K on it.   Whenever I bring it in for maintenance/repairs, there's someone who wants to buy it.

[poetdereves]

2003 Toyota Tacoma. 2wd 4 cyl. Gets nearly 30 mpg. I don't drive too much and got a smoking deal from a buddy a while back. Doesn't require much maintenance and can carry anything I'd ever need to throw in it. I just now hit 80,000 miles on it, so it will probably rust into pieces before the engine dies. I tell my wife all the time that I will drive it until I have a million dollars or a million miles on it, whichever comes first (fingers crossed that it's the million dollars). People do seem to give me some hate in our neighborhood though because we live in a nice place but I have such an old truck. More than once I have been mistaken for a handyman or someone driving around to pick up scrap metal or sneaking into the neighborhood ponds to fish. No one actually thinks I live here, which is annoying.

Lol. The ultimate stealth wealth.

Is it stealthy? Around here, the joke is that a 25-year-old Tacoma indicates you're in the presence of somebody who really has their shit together. My brother-in-law constantly jokes about his never-ending quest to get his hands on a 25-year-old Tacoma!

Yes, I have an 04 Tacoma with 285K on it.   Whenever I bring it in for maintenance/repairs, there's someone who wants to buy it.

I get offers all the time from people to purchase it. I can't say I haven't toyed with the idea before since a lot of them offer twice what I paid, but I wouldn't be able to get into anything as useful/reliable for the price.

[PathToFI]

The mileage isn’t so high but I think my 2007 4 cylinder Honda Accord might just be getting old enough to qualify for the list. 
It just hit 150,000 miles.   
I bought used in 2011 for $10k cash. 
I do my own maintenance so except for having Walmart install new tires once it has never needed a shop.  I’ve done oil and fluids on schedule. Spark plugs, battery, brake pads and rotors all just once.  Shocks & struts don’t leak but eventually will be needed.

In 2018 I added the goal to my written financial plan to try to keep the Accord until it reaches 300,000 miles or we reach $3M invested.  I hope I can stick to this goal.  I drive under 6,000/yr so it will take 25 years to reach the mileage goal and hopefully much, much less time to reach the money invested milestone.

The road salt of the Wisconsin winters is going to be the demise of the Accord.  The rust has started but isn’t bad yet. If we lived someplace without road salt it could be my car for life.

My wife drives our newer car a 2012 Toyota Highlander with 138,000 miles. 2 kids who like to take friends along and our Golden Retriever prompted us buy this 7 seater used a couple years ago. Oil, fluids and plugs done at home so this Toyota has never needed a mechanics since we’ve owned it.   This Toyota is probably too new/ low mileage to brag about.

At annual family gatherings it seems like there is always someone with story about a new Chevy that burns oil or a Ford that needed a transmission.   I know they all can break and have problems but I will probably stick with a Honda or Toyota when we get another car.

[zolotiyeruki]

The road salt of the Wisconsin winters is going to be the demise of the Accord.  The rust has started but isn’t bad yet. If we lived someplace without road salt it could be my car for life.

I have plans later this year to jack up all of our cars and give them a liberal coating of Woolwax to help keep the water and salt off the body.  Hopefully it'll help stave off the rust a few extra years, and slow down the spread of the rust as well.

[getsorted]

I have plans later this year to jack up all of our cars and give them a liberal coating of Woolwax to help keep the water and salt off the body.  Hopefully it'll help stave off the rust a few extra years, and slow down the spread of the rust as well.

I have thought about this as well, after going to a car show and seeing painted undercarriages. I spring for the undercarriage wash at the car wash through the winter, but salt really is a killer.

[scottish]

Up here we can get the undercarriage and inside the body panels sprayed with oil in the fall.     It keeps the rust at bay and the vehicles don't seem to be catching fire...

[sonofsven]

1990 Toyota farm truck with hd lumber rack, 288,567 miles and counting. It hasn't gone highway speeds in a while, but I drove it to town recently and it has a stumble under load that a dose of sea foam hasn't cured so cap/rotor/plugs/wires/filters are in the works.

[Must_ache]

DH's old beater truck finally met it's end. 200,000 miles! We bought it for $2000 in 2012 and it lasted 10 years - about 8 more years than we'd expected! It was old, rusty and sad when we bought it, and even worse when we sold it to a scrapper.
 Technically it was still going and still drive able at lower speeds, but it would have cost $800 to fix some transmission issues, and the truck was only worth about half that amount.
  Pretty impressive!

I think it’s safe to say you got your money’s worth out of that truck!  Out of curiosity, how much did you get from the scrap yard for it?  Even if they gave you nothing for it, your purchase cost was less than $17 per month of use.  That’s like 1/30th the amount the average person with a car payment spends per month on purchase cost

 Yes we sure did get our money's worth out of that truck! Definitely didn't expect it to last that long, and we worked it really hard the last two years too! DH hauled home stone for a retaining wall (50ft L x 3ft H) in multiple trips - what amounted to several huge pallets worth. Plus loads of gravel, landscaping rock, dirt, sand, furniture, you name it! So not only was it drive able, but it also moved a LOT of heavy things.

  The scrap dealer gave us $450. :)

Wow, you almost got 1/4 of the full purchase price back lol, too good

$2,000 in 2012 had the same purchasing power as $2,564 today, so you really only got 1/6 of it back in today's $.

[SpareChange]

Checking in after a year. Put 10.7k miles on my '07 Focus. Now at 130.7k. Got a ways to go to hit some of the inspirational numbers in this thread. Looking forward to it.

[JAYSLOL]

Can we start a Rant On Your High Mileage/Old POS Car thread?  Lol.  I’m a big fan of driving older cheap vehicles and doing the maintenance myself to spend a small fraction of what the average person spends to get around, but the diy part does come with the occasional headache.  Went to use the 16 year old hyundai last night and discovered all the 3 brake lights weren’t coming on.  Bulbs are good, fuse was blown, so I replaced that.  Fuse blew again instantly.  As per my philosophy, I will now spend my Sunday tearing my old car apart to figure out what’s up.  A temporary pain today that still beats an extra decade of working career to afford a life of financing a new car every few years habit. 

[JAYSLOL]

Can we start a Rant On Your High Mileage/Old POS Car thread?  Lol.  I’m a big fan of driving older cheap vehicles and doing the maintenance myself to spend a small fraction of what the average person spends to get around, but the diy part does come with the occasional headache.  Went to use the 16 year old hyundai last night and discovered all the 3 brake lights weren’t coming on.  Bulbs are good, fuse was blown, so I replaced that.  Fuse blew again instantly.  As per my philosophy, I will now spend my Sunday tearing my old car apart to figure out what’s up.  A temporary pain today that still beats an extra decade of working career to afford a life of financing a new car every few years habit.

Okay, so a couple hours in and I’ve discovered the cause, one of the pairs of wires that go to the tail lights ran under a plastic trim panel that was held on with a couple screws and a bunch of metal clips that hold it to the interior bodywork and one of the clips was slightly pinching one of the wires.  I spent yesterday cleaning and vacuuming the inside of the car, and must have put enough pressure on that clip when I was climbing in and out to finally break through the wire insulation and it shorted the whole brake light circuit.  Another 30 min to put everything back together and it’ll be back to working as new.  Not sure what a mechanic would have charged to find that but I’ll bet it wouldn’t have been cheap

[JLee]

Can we start a Rant On Your High Mileage/Old POS Car thread?  Lol.  I’m a big fan of driving older cheap vehicles and doing the maintenance myself to spend a small fraction of what the average person spends to get around, but the diy part does come with the occasional headache.  Went to use the 16 year old hyundai last night and discovered all the 3 brake lights weren’t coming on.  Bulbs are good, fuse was blown, so I replaced that.  Fuse blew again instantly.  As per my philosophy, I will now spend my Sunday tearing my old car apart to figure out what’s up.  A temporary pain today that still beats an extra decade of working career to afford a life of financing a new car every few years habit.

Okay, so a couple hours in and I’ve discovered the cause, one of the pairs of wires that go to the tail lights ran under a plastic trim panel that was held on with a couple screws and a bunch of metal clips that hold it to the interior bodywork and one of the clips was slightly pinching one of the wires.  I spent yesterday cleaning and vacuuming the inside of the car, and must have put enough pressure on that clip when I was climbing in and out to finally break through the wire insulation and it shorted the whole brake light circuit.  Another 30 min to put everything back together and it’ll be back to working as new.  Not sure what a mechanic would have charged to find that but I’ll bet it wouldn’t have been cheap

I'm right there with you...the running lights on my trailer plug don't work.  Fuses are good, relays are clicking (though admittedly I haven't multimetered them out), and brake/turn lights work.  Everything works except running lights, and I get a quickly diminishing 3 volts on the relevant harness wire.

I really don't want to chase down the entire trailer harness, so I built a jumper harness that plugs into the trailer wiring and into my aux 12v plugs in the back, so on the rare instance I tow I can just plug the jumper harness in and manually have running lights.  ~10 min vs untold hours...

[Sugaree]

Not mine (though it was sitting in my yard up until a week ago) is my FIL's VW.  He bought it, new, in 1967 when he was fresh off the boat coming back from Vietnam.  He's driven it cross country multiple times and has rolled the odometer at least 4 times (so, 400+k miles?).  He doesn't drive it long distances anymore, but does use it to drive around town.