Taxis in Germany do 1000000kms before they even think about changing them.

We have a 04 truck on our fleet which is used for trade collections and had done over 650000km. It still runs like new it only showing its age with a few rust spots on the body . otherwise its still a nice truck to drive. The highest milage car I have personally owned was a seat cordoba on 155000 miles.

Some of our trucks would clock up over a million miles in five years running between Glasgow and Manchester.

I wonder what a commercial aircraft will cover over its life of 30 or 40 years.

I had an Audi A6 2.5tdi a few years ago, sold it with 168,000 miles on it. A friend of mine has just bought it a few weeks ago (2 owners later) with 215k. Still going strong

I've only got to 104k and then sold it! I hope my old Mazda 6 is still going strong for the people I sold it to - they were replacing an early 90s Ford Escort with about 300k on the clock!

I got to 113000 in a Mk 2 Golf GTi. Took me 7 years and in that time I had pretty much trouble free motoring. Other than tyres and brakes the only parts fitted were a battery, exhaust and diff bearings/seals.

About 4 years after selling it spotted it in our local Asda. Still looked good but some herbert had painted the black bumpers white and it was peeling nicely and looking total tat. Lady who owned it just happened to turn up as I was looking, expect she thought I was going to nick it. Had a quick chat, car had done 180,000 and was still going strong.

About 3 years ago I spotted that you could check on old cars on the DVLA, all you needed was the reg and make. Basically tells you if its taxed or not. Was stunned to see that the Golf was still taxed. It would have been 22 years old and 11 years had passed since I last saw it. Wondered how many miles it had done and where it was.

Since then I have ocationally checked but it looks like it has finally died. Tax ran out in November and it is now untaxed. Would have been 25 next month.

We have a 2006 Audi A8L 3.0TDI Quattro.
We bought it a few years ago at ~100,000miles, it now has 213,000miles.
It still drive 'like new', but like Trigger's broom it has had any parts replaced that were needed to keep it that way. That is about £1,000 of repairs a year on top of scheduled servicing and consumables such as batteries tyres and brake on a car that was £59,000 new. It's worth it to us as to buy something silmilar new would be ~£600 pcm + VAT.

Passat 2.0GL manufactured over 20yrs ago....Original cambelt too.

Edited by Avant on 04/05/2014 at 21:42

Bought my BMW 323 Touring at 114000 and sold at 165000. The engine and gearbox were still superb, but the rest of the car was showing a few signs of age. Rear arches and the edge of the tailgate were starting to rust, headlamps misted up (they all do that sir), but certainly nothing terminal.

I got a call from the new owner saying he was chuffed with the car and that it was now towing a caravan. Poor old Beemer ;)

Didn't some guy in the US own the same car all his life and cover 1million miles in the news quite recently

Not the highest mileages, but my own experiences showing that that psychological barrier of 100K miles surely ought to be 200K :

1965 Morris Minor I got in 1981 had 73k on it. I took it to 134k and it was still running ok, but after that it unfortunately decayed through lack of use when I got a second car.

99 Mondeo 2.0 petrol, bought for about £1k in 2005 with 91k miles on it, took that to 160+k miles with extremely little expense or maintenance. I didn’t even wash it for the first 3 years I had it! Started doing yearly oil changes after that! It was still running very nicely indeed when I traded it in, with just rusty rear arches.

In fact, the other day, with the “Which would you bring back” thread, I’m getting seriously tempted to seek out a well-kept example and just convert it to LPG (if that 2.0 engine is ok with that?). I probably should have done that to my example, because it would do 43 mpg on a run anyway, and had about all the space, comfort, refinement, handling and performance I could need.

Until recently, a colleague used to do a 53 mile each-way commute (for which there was nothing but A-roads available, and only 25miles dualled) in a 1994 Cavalier with the 1.7 Isuzu diesel engine – THAT had done over 400k miles.