How many miles can you expect to get out of a car?

Answer 1

I drove a 1980 Mercury Capri 318,000 miles before donating it to charity. Besides clutches and brakes, I replaced the a/c compressor at 110,000 miles, an a/c hose at 180,000 miles and had a rebuilt engine installed at 210,000 miles. A fine car, but the floor pan was cracked when I stopped driving it.

I currently drive a 1993 Ford Thunderbird. I had to have the head gaskets replaced and the transmission rebuilt between 164,000 and 165,000 miles. Had I not replaced the head gaskets, I would have unloaded the car when the transmission went bad. Currently, there are 180,000 miles on the car, but Ford is unable to get parts to repair the airconditioner. The front brakes have been completely replaced/ rebuilt three times. The rear brakes once. The front bearings had to be replaced at 100,000 miles.

The trouble with keeping a car a long time is that you still have to pay a lot for repairs and you are driving old technology.

I have a 1997 Chevy Caviler and its got 234,000 on her and other than a little oil leak it runs great. I think, as they've said in the other posts, the key thing is keeping up on repairs and maintence, especially when the miles get high.

If you take car of your car and do things necessary to avoid bigger problems, instead of letting it go until it creates a more expensive problem; you can go a long way. 300,000 is not unrealistic. But repairs do cost money, almost always less than the cost to be driving a new one.

Determining Cost per mile to drive your car compared to a new car:

Add all of your repair bills from 36000 miles to the present mileage. Use these numbers because this is the mileage that the majority of the manufacturer�s warranties expire. Subtract the currant mileage from the 36,000-mile warranty expiration point. Then divide the dollars spent on repairs by this to get a dollars per mile figure. It usually comes out to about $.08 to $.25/mile. Which doesn�t mean much at this point. So to get a better comparison to what new car is going to be costing; the purchase price of a new car is divided by the first 36,000 miles that it is under warranty. Since a new car owner is getting �problem free driving� for 36,000 miles the purchase price should not be extended beyond this. Using a purchase price of $15,500 plus the sales tax, tags, title brings it to about $17,000 yielding about $.47/mile. This figure does not include oil changes, tire rotation, interest on a loan or an insurance premium increase. Now that means something. So you can save about $5,100.00 more annually when you drive 15,000 miles. "New Technology is expensive; it is financially foolish to drive a new car. Pukenstein@AOL.com

: I drive a 1995 Tahoe that has 210,000 miles on it, and i haven't done anything major on it, it still runs like a champ to