Monday Mileage Champion: On The Road Again

What is a more aged perspective? How do you know that the cars that made it to more than 180,000 miles had their transmissions replaced? Why are imaginarily as durable domestic sedans not worth saving when their transmissions hypothetically fail while supposedly as problematic Hondas and Toyotas are 'considered worthy' of said replacements?

@CJinSD The Hondas and Toyotas cars have high enough resale value to make such a repair worthwhile IF needed. None of my posts talk about them not being reliable, other than maybe the V6 Hondas. Don't put words in my mouth. Fact is from this data alone, we can't tell what had an expensive repair what did not. All I am saying is that there are plenty of high mileage examples of all of them to indicate to me that they are ALL capable of such longevity, yet for some reason the number of domestic cars making to the mark is less than that for the trucks. I feel the primary reason is simply economic. The trucks, you know the ones made by the same engineers and beancounters that made those no-good domestic cars, hold their value much better than the cars so they likely get any repair that they MAY need. You really need to get over your 1980's Chrysler experience, which somehow gave me 253K reliable miles....

@golden2husky How did the Japanese get their high resale values? How do they retain them when the Camry and Accord have been among the best selling cars in the US for twenty years? It isn't scarcity. Trucks are more durable than cars for all sorts of reasons. 1. The domestics can sell them profitably. It is easier to win an argument with a bean counter when you can justify the expense by pointing to the success of existing products. 2. All trucks are built to do work. Not all of them are required to do work with much frequency. Being overbuilt for the task actually performed is going to lead to a longer service life. 3. Until very recently, trucks were low tech machines. They don't have transaxles, CV joints conducting all of their power, or independent rear suspensions. Consider the Crown Victoria. Honda doesn't build anything that enjoys the advantages of a cowboy cadillac, but they still manage to top the list. That's indicative of more people having experiences like you had with your K-car while driving Hondas than people having experiences with Hondas like my family had with our Dodge Lancer. The internet has introduced me to lots of people that experienced unexpected longevity from the most maligned cars in history, just as it has introduced me to people claiming to have had the opposite from the most dependable makes. It doesn't change the overall picture revealed by articles like this, one backed up by my time working with cars, by every decent mechanic I've ever talked to, many specializing in other brands, and from being many people I know's resource for buying and maintaining cars.

@CJinSD The second point about trucks being built to do work is key. Making trucks overbuilt for their common task of carrying worthless consumer shit home from the strip mall is a bonus. I think the primary benefit is you can do actual work with them. You can use a truck to earn money. Anything that can be used as a tool to make money is going to hold its value.

@golden2husky If I recall corretly, golden2husky had a K-car built in the mid- or late 1980s. By that point, Chrysler had largely worked the bugs out the design of the basic K-car (Aries and Reliant). Those basic K-cars generally weren't equipped with the turbocharged engines, which also made them more reliable. Chrysler's big challenge was very uneven quality control. You could get one that went for 253,000 miles without much fuss, or one that was in the shop every month after the warranty ended.