Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong • Hacker News Board

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#181

Post by potato3732842 » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

cpursley wrote: post #62

Title could just be "Toyota has more than 1.2 km on it", as we already all know it would be a Toyota.

Nobody who isn't fairly ignorant would've been surprised if it was a 4cyl 5spd Ford Ranger, an old Volvo 240, an 2000s diesel dodge or GM, a crown vic cop car, a Honda Accord, a Ford E-series or Chevy Savannah etc, etc. Somewhere there's probably a rusted out '99ish Grand Caravan that's close to a mil and on it's 6th transmission.

Pretty much every vehicle that isn't equipped with some achilles heel or highly engineered to a price point can go a mil if you take reasonably good care of it and don't mind throwing 0-1 engines and 2-4 transmissions in.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#182

Post by bigstrat2003 » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

burnt-resistor wrote: post #41

mykowebhn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Customary units"? I hate to break it to you, but most of the world uses the metric system. And the conversion is actually fairly simple. 1M km is 600k miles, so you were in the ballpark.

Metrication will happen after Americans give up ICE vehicles like the Ford Expedition, ICE gestapo, ultraprocessed hamburgers, and climate change denial. Metric is really far simpler, while Freedom Units are like going back to counting change in Roman-inspired £sd.

> Metric is really far simpler...

For the common, everyday use case it isn't meaningfully simpler, which is why the US hasn't switched. The conversions are certainly harder to memorize, but by the time you're an adult you have memorized all the common ones (12 inches to a foot, and so on) so that downside only applies to people who have to learn this stuff (largely children, who don't get a vote). The math is also harder than just moving decimal points, but when you carry a computer in your pocket that isn't actually making life harder for anyone.

So, the two big downsides of the imperial system (conversions are harder to learn and the math is harder) aren't actually a problem for the vast majority of adults in the US. But switching to metric would cause a ton of friction as you have to relearn how to estimate measurements for everything all over again. And those two factors combined are why the US doesn't switch. Most people will not gain any upside, while they have to pay significant downsides. It's perfectly rational to not switch when that is the case! You could argue that it's selfish (because future generations of kids have to learn the conversions, so they would benefit from metric and they don't incur the downside either), but it's not stupid. As much as people like to go "haha people in the US are so stupid for not switching to metric", that simply is not the case.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#183

Post by potato3732842 » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #176

Are there any new cars today that are considered as long-lasting as some of the old favorites like the Volvo 240, Benz 240D, etc.? Lexus? Subaru Outback?

Pick a flagship "would be bad for our reputation if we f it up) product from and spec it out so that it gets well proven and ironed out major assemblies.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#184

Post by Delk » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #16

SilverElfin wrote: post #2

> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it. To me this makes it less interesting. I would be amazed if the original parts (outside of what gets replaced for maintenance) lasted that long. But it’s hard to judge how durable the car is when everything has been replaced

1M km (Tm?) is less than 750k miles, for those more familiar with customary units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irv_Gordon had a Volvo with over 3.25 million miles (5.2Tm), although it's also had 3 engine rebuilds.

Gm, not Tm. A kilo is a thousand, and a million kilos is a billion. So giga, not tera.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#185

Post by potato3732842 » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #115

63 wrote: post #104

Kind 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.

It becomes a human story, yes. He maintained a durable system rather then junk the whole thing after ten years. Would he have been better off buying four new cars in the meantime?

There are marketability factors at play here.

I know a guy down south (i.e. no rust) who's got comparable milage across his personal "fleet" of '99 Town and Country minivans that he's been running since the 00s. Kinda hard to put a mil on any one of them when he's only one guy but whatever. I know another guy who's got >500k on a Jetta that he runs on waste motor oil from his job and removed all the seats from because utility vehicle.

Nobody will ever write a story about them because "hur hur hur, well kept Toyota" is considered admirable and bending a crashed Town and Country back into shape because you're invested in the platform and learning the ins and outs of diesel combustion the hard way so you can use "free" fuel are considered trashy.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#186

Post by bigstrat2003 » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #86

epolanski wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it depends on the kind of work to be honest. Has he ever had to replace the whole engine or something? Because if you get chain timing issues on a 2010 BMW diesel, you ain't repairing that, it's more expensive than a new car.

> Because if you get chain timing issues on a 2010 BMW diesel, you ain't repairing that, it's more expensive than a new car. In the article the guy has 3 whole spare cars for donor parts and he does all the work himself. He’s not paying mechanic rates or even buying new parts (which are no longer available). The amount of time and effort he’s put into this car is undoubtedly more expensive than buying a new car at th…

> unless you count his time and free.

Which you generally should, because unless he was going to otherwise be paid for that time there is no actual opportunity cost. The "cost" of one's time is only a meaningful metric inasmuch as one is giving up something which would be more profitable.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#187

Post by iknowstuff » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:30 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #127

formerly_proven wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, a EURO5 diesel still makes quite a stink. Of course, even an EU6+OPF gasoline car still puts out air akin to a dying dog's fart. ICE vehicles just can't go away quickly enough (and we should aggressively get stinky vehicles like everything pre-EU5 and loud vehicles like motorcycles and scooters off the road first). I'm not huge on regulation, but if anything MIV is underregulated. Even in the EU anything t…

> ICE vehicles just can't go away quickly enough We do have to either replace them with something else or stop owning personal vehicles. The end goal may be better, but that transition will be long and it will break plenty of things along the way.

It really doesn’t have to. I’d say look at Norway but you’ll dismiss it as a rich country without looking up the actual reason behind their transition’s success. I’d say look at China but you’d say yeah but that’s China.

We can make the same decision and move fast in the direction, we just choose not to

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#188

Post by iknowstuff » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

jcgrillo wrote: post #117

physix wrote: post #57

When 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.

I had a 1984 W123 300TD Turbodiesel I bought with 356k miles on the odometer (which was broken, total mileage unknown). I drove it for over 100k more miles before I sold it. It had no blowby and no perceptible oil consumption between changes. The OM617 with MW pump was a fantastic engine. The Garrett turbo had something to be desired though so I replaced it with a much more efficient Holset HX-30 which worked great w…

Quite the monologue you got there bud

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#189

Post by potato3732842 » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

The Toyota fanboys in these comments are a really great illustration of how human factors, cliche's and circle jerks degrade discussion

Nobody who doesn't have some bias derived ignorance would've been surprised if it was a 4cyl 5spd Ford Ranger in fleet service, an old Volvo 240 or Honda Accord in commuting service, an 2000s diesel Dodge or GM in work truck service, etc, etc. There are a lot of "good" vehicles out there that can get close to half a mil with fairly cheap work, from there it's just a matter of having an owner who cares to make the investment, something much more likely to happen to a "cool niche car" for which there aren't a ton of like-priced replacements available like a Tercel Wagon than a more boring vehicle.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#190

Post by senorrib » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #150

cperciva wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

BS. Gasoline is just more convenient and cheaper for them. 40V batteries last long enough that you only need a handful of them to last a whole day.