Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

#51

Post by linksnapzz »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #41
bloomingeek wrote: post #10

Really cool story! It's always been my premise that good maintenance means longevity on vehicles. I keep our vehicles with the idea of "driving the wheels off of them", but always end up giving them to my kids after wanting an upgrade vehicle with some modern tech. (One of them has almost 200K miles on it.) As for a Honda Element, I've always wanted one, but my wife thinks they're ugly. ;)

> It's always been my premise that good maintenance means longevity on vehicles. There are myriad examples of manufacturing defects and cost optimizations that lead to early failures regardless of maintenance. I would not trust a well maintained Stellantis vehicle to make it to 200k miles regardless of how well it was maintained.

I'll bet that a Ram 2500 w/ the 392 engine could, if maintaine, (in a climate where there's no road salt...) reach 200K w/ only regular maintenance.

Not much else that they make.

Re: The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

#52

Post by olyjohn »

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #16
Helmut10001 wrote: post #13

Our VW T4 from 2002 has 300k km on it. I consider this half it's total possible mileage, if not less. I wish they would still build reliable cars like these today.

> I wish they would still build reliable cars like these today. How do you know they don't?

https://www.murileemartin.com/Junkyard/JunkyardGallery-300kM...

Check out this list. This guy is at the junk yard all the time. It's possible he isn't checking newer cars for high miles, but notice how all these mega high mile cars are from the 80s and 90s.

And related to the article, note the 500,000 mile Ford Econoline.

Re: The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

#53

Post by hedora »

linksnapzz wrote: post #51
lotsofpulp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's always been my premise that good maintenance means longevity on vehicles. There are myriad examples of manufacturing defects and cost optimizations that lead to early failures regardless of maintenance. I would not trust a well maintained Stellantis vehicle to make it to 200k miles regardless of how well it was maintained.

I'll bet that a Ram 2500 w/ the 392 engine could, if maintaine, (in a climate where there's no road salt...) reach 200K w/ only regular maintenance. Not much else that they make.

Unless they use a completely different transmission platform than the 1500 or Jeeps, I wouldn't bet on it.

The transmission has an integrated computer that controls shifting, cooling, etc. The lines between that and the speedometer are flaky, so every once in a while it'll decide to not cool itself, get stuck in 2nd/3rd, etc, etc.

I have an additional 15 years of cool down I consider another Stellantis product. By then, they won't be selling ICE, for one thing. For another, the current engineers will be long gone.

Re: The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

#54

Post by hedora »

SoftTalker wrote: post #26
jlongr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20+ year old cars are much less safe than modern ones. I would strongly consider a newer car if I were you.

A 2006 car is pretty safe. It won't have gizmos like lane departure warnings or automatic braking but crash safety will be about as good as a new car, especially if you buy one that had good crash safety ratings at the time, such as Mercedes or Volvo.

Fords too. By 2006, they'd pulled all the Volvo intellectual property they could out of the acquisition and ported it to their flagship vehicles.

Re: The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

#55

Post by kalleboo »

olyjohn wrote: post #52
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish they would still build reliable cars like these today. How do you know they don't?

https://www.murileemartin.com/Junkyard/JunkyardGallery-300kM... Check out this list. This guy is at the junk yard all the time. It's possible he isn't checking newer cars for high miles, but notice how all these mega high mile cars are from the 80s and 90s. And related to the article, note the 500,000 mile Ford Econoline.

> It's possible he isn't checking newer cars for high miles

I read a few of the articles, he states the problem is that cars starting in the late 90's have digital LCD odometers that can't be easily read on a dead car

Re: The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

#56

Post by fy20 »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #18
Helmut10001 wrote: post #13

Our VW T4 from 2002 has 300k km on it. I consider this half it's total possible mileage, if not less. I wish they would still build reliable cars like these today.

Can you really or is it like the T1N Sprinters where yeah you technically can take the longblock to half a mil or more but you'll have replaced everything external to it twice over by then?

It's pretty common for this generation of vehicles, especially diesel. This was before all the environmental things were added, which may be good for pollution, but are terrible for longevity. In parts of Europe everyone has diesels, so mechanics know how to fix them, and wearable parts like injectors and turbos can be easily and cheaply remanufactured.

I have a 2007 Fiat Ducato which has done at least half a million kilometres (the odometer only goes up to 399,999). Only issue is the EGR valve is stuck closed (can't get to it without removing the engine, so not worth fixing), and the body is banged up (ex builders van). Still gets 8l/100km (30mpg) on the highway.

Re: The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van

#57

Post by linksnapzz »

hedora wrote: post #53
linksnapzz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet that a Ram 2500 w/ the 392 engine could, if maintaine, (in a climate where there's no road salt...) reach 200K w/ only regular maintenance. Not much else that they make.

Unless they use a completely different transmission platform than the 1500 or Jeeps, I wouldn't bet on it. The transmission has an integrated computer that controls shifting, cooling, etc. The lines between that and the speedometer are flaky, so every once in a while it'll decide to not cool itself, get stuck in 2nd/3rd, etc, etc. I have an additional 15 years of cool down I consider another Stellantis product. By th…

It used to be that the six-speed Aisin HD transmission was an option, which wasn't a Stellantis product. Also, I'd immediately disable the AFM stuff, which has always been a threat to top-end lubrication.

My grandpa used to say that every American ought to purchase a Chrysler product once every ten years (if only to get the urge to do so out of their system) and sell it immediately afterwards. He was a Dodge fan in the same way that some people are Cubs fans; i.e. inured to disappointment.

Post reply on HN