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I find it hard to imagine a conventional petrol powered car only lasting 200,000 miles. Which manufacturers only build cars to last 200,000 miles? I can't thin

I find it hard to imagine a conventional petrol powered car only lasting 200,000 miles. Which manufacturers only build cars to last 200,000 miles? I can't think of a car I, or my family, have owned which hasn't lasted at least twice that long. My current car is a 2002 BMW E39 530D. It has almost 900,000 kms on the clock and is still going strong on the original engine. The cloth interior is still in quite reasonable condition. There has of course been the need for minor maintenance (rear shocks were required at the last inspection). Right now I need new door seals and there is some minor rust attended to. However, at a consumption of approximately 7 liters per 100 km on the autobahn, I don't see any need to buy a newer car for quite some time yet.

yetihehe 11y ago
I had 2001 Suzuki Swift MKII 1.3. I think it had 65,000km on odometer in 2007 when I bought it, but can't be sure because odometer was only going to 99,999km. Now at (1)24,000km it's still going but I had to weld chassis or it would snap in half. Engine is still in very good condition though, only minor expected fixes were required. But yes, Suzuki DOES make cars which are not expected to last more than 100,000km. I've also recently got 2004 Opel Astra H which had already 209,000km and it's in perfect condition both engine and body, so YMMV.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
In some sense, if a vehicle is well built, properly maintained, and driven gently, it will last forever. You just replace the car part by part over time. The issue is if it's poorly maintained or it's abused, or if it's not well built. And a sizable percentage of cars in the fleet fall into at least one of those categories. The number that we need to worry about from a policy perspective is not the life of the car in the best case scenario, it's the life of the car in the expected scenario.

yetihehe 11y ago

I had 2001 Suzuki Swift MKII 1.3. I think it had 65,000km on odometer in 2007 when I bought it, but can't be sure because odometer was only going to 99,999km. Now at (1)24,000km it's still going but I had to weld chassis or it would snap in half. Engine is still in very good condition though, only minor expected fixes were required. But yes, Suzuki DOES make cars which are not expected to last more than 100,000km. I've also recently got 2004 Opel Astra H which had already 209,000km and it's in perfect condition both engine and body, so YMMV.

erikpukinskis 11y ago

In some sense, if a vehicle is well built, properly maintained, and driven gently, it will last forever. You just replace the car part by part over time. The issue is if it's poorly maintained or it's abused, or if it's not well built. And a sizable percentage of cars in the fleet fall into at least one of those categories. The number that we need to worry about from a policy perspective is not the life of the car in the best case scenario, it's the life of the car in the expected scenario.