Of course it’s a Toyota. The only surprise is that it’s a Tercel instead of a Corolla.
Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
141–150 of 276 posts
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#142When I lived in Germany, in the 90s, I regularly sat in diesel Mercedes Benz taxis with over a million kms under the hood. Private drivers usually. Many had giant mileages. We used to say (tongue in cheek) that after 250k, the MB diesel engine was broken in. I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124? > I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore. You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant. The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every as…
One of my sons drives a W210 that has now got well over 300K on it and is still running like new. You can see the plastics are drying out and there is some minor rust in places but it is still a very solid car and likely will continue to run for many years to come. It's the kombi version, 320.
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#143When I lived in Germany, in the 90s, I regularly sat in diesel Mercedes Benz taxis with over a million kms under the hood. Private drivers usually. Many had giant mileages. We used to say (tongue in cheek) that after 250k, the MB diesel engine was broken in. I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124? > I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore. You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant. The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every as…
The W210 was a very good car, the so-called "Camry" of Mercedes-Benz in terms of reliability, except it had one huge problem: rust.
The true "million mile" Mercedes are probably the W123 diesels. Built very solid, they will still rust if you live in areas where road salt is used, but most cars will eventually.
It's weird how some cars are much more prone to rust than others. I had a Toyota truck in the 1980s and it rusted so fast you'd almost swear you could see it happening. Mechanically it never had any problems.
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#144I grew up in a Tercel family, and we too had a “parts car” in the back yard. Reliable, safe, repairable car the likes of which simply don’t exist anymore.
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124? > I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore. You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant. The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every as…
The W210s did indeed rust badly and the interiors weren't on par with previous generations, but in purely mechanical terms, they were still solid cars. The diesels (particularly E250 TD and E290 TD) could cover 700k+ kilometres without any interventions to the engine or the transmission. The W211 is an improvement to the W210 in almost every aspect, and they are still plentiful on the roads in Eastern Europe.
True, from experience, the E290 TD was mechanically solid. The electronics, less so unfortunately. Ours was plagued by intermittent errors and beeping, together with some parasitic battery drain we could not trace down despite our best efforts.
I didn't have the chance to own a W211, but from what I read and heard, it was indeed an improvement. Even in the looks department!
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124? > I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore. You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant. The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every as…
Yet W210, 211 etc. still sold millions of vehicles and are still on the road in numbers.
The W210 did sell, but they did loose an unconditional taxi-driver base in the process. And a lot of loyal customers were truly unhappy with the downgrade and jumped ship.
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#147There are some calculations that makes replacing a old gas or diesel powered car more environmentally friendly, as compered to buying a new electric car. I do wonder where the tipping point is though, and if there isn't an environmental argument to be made that not only should government bad the sale of new internal combustion engine cars, but they should also ban cars with an expected lifespan shorter than e.g. 15 -…
I'm pretty sure that holding onto my '98 Civic is more environmentally friendly than buying a new EV - especially since I only drive ~3000 miles/year (If I drove 10K+ miles/year then the calculation would likely skew towards an EV). The Civic still runs great and it's easy to repair when something does go wrong. And the mileage is quite good - ~30MPG combined (easily get 37MPG on the freeway).
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#148Kind of a nothing story if everything has been replaced. My car could make it to 1.2M km too if I replaced the engine every time it gave out. Seems like a huge time and money sink for no good reason. Not to judge the man for having a hobby of course, let him have fun, but the news article is misleading.
A much better example is the Toyota Tundra that made it to 1m miles with only a transmission replacement at the ~800k mile mark https://www.motortrend.com/features/million-mile-tundra-the-... Toyota gave the guy a new truck so they could study the one he had. As a Toyota fan boy myself (still driving a 2000 4Runner into the ground), those 2000s builds were such a great era of engineering. That being said, I think the…
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Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
This kind of mileage is unusual with cars but it's pretty normal for semis. But even with those, engines get overhauled and there's lots of cumulative maintenance over the years. There are still trucks build in the sixties in service in some places. With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. Maybe not with nmc batteries. But some lfp batteries seem to have enough charge cyc…
One of the big questions is going to be, can you still find the battery packs 15 year, 20, 30 years later. The problem is that rebuilding battery packs is not a joke (and expensive). Assuming the same cells can be found / are not some crap 3th party manufactured in the future. Lets also not forget that battery packs are full of electronics, BMS, and other items that may be less forgiving on a rebuild where batteries…
Whether or not suitable battery replacements exist in 10 years is probably a function of demand. If there's a large demand for replacements, the market will provide. It's probably worth buying a popular model if you plan on keeping your EV for 20 years. For example, you should probably stay away from the Fisker Ocean [1], but I bet Tesla Model 3s will be well supported 20 years from now.
My metaquestion is: is it even rational to keep a car for 20 or 30 years? To me, the subject of the article seems penny wise but pound foolish. Certainly at some point since 1985, an upgrade would have been positive expected value for better safety, mileage, and comfort.
Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can’t wait for tiny engines like on things like weed eaters and leaf blowers to go extinct. Noisy, smelly as hell, generally awful.
A lot of cities have banned them now, at least for personal use. (Last time this was debated in my area, some businesses had justifications for why they couldn't just use electric tools, but none of those applied to regular homeowners.)
A lawn service that is working 8-10 hours a day can't use battery tools unless they buy a lot of batteries and/or have a way to recharge them in the field (from a gasoline-powered generator, most likely). So their complaint has some validity.