19th May 2010, 11:32
It would really be nice to see any Detroit cars going past the 200,000 miles mark without any major work in the flesh. And the myth of the 300,000 miles Detroit car I hear all the time on sites like this. Do they actually exist? I mean, I've had my driving licence since '76 and I haven't seen that happen since my '84 Chev Caprice Classic.
All Detroit cars I or my family have owned since that have been junk. There's a huge gap between 300,000 miles and no repair, and having major work done before the 100,000 mark, which is my experience on all Detroit cars the last 20 years or so.
But I guess I'm brainwashed by the media. OK, dream on Detroit lovers. I'll stick with documented quality, driving my Toyota.
19th May 2010, 15:11
"I'll stick with documented quality, driving my Toyota."
Ohhhh, you just opened up a whole new can of worms there. Get ready for the recall brigade!! LOL.
Not sure where all of these repair free 300K mile cars are either, as I have never seen ANY car go that far without needing something more than maintenance. If they built them that well, all the dealers would have gone broke by now. Don't you people know that is where the dealer makes most of their profits? Service! If domestics were so trouble free, then dealers wouldn't be surviving...
Oh, but I guess the $1,200 or so I have put into my Trailblazer at now 88K mostly highway miles will help them out a bit. Hardly routine maintenance! If you want a list of ridiculous things that have broken on my truck, let me know... or just check any Trailblazer forum if you want a list of faulty parts 'cause I've had most of the popular ones fail on my truck. In fact if you look up any car there will be a site listing problem areas that will make you think twice about long term reliability. Like I said, you gotta be pretty darn lucky to not have anything go wrong in 75K miles, let alone 200K miles.
19th May 2010, 16:44
16:31. I also share the same durability with our fleet of domestic trucks. We have full size Fords, Silverados, Rams and the field sales people have SUVs. Total of 9 vehicles used daily. The delivery trucks are washed cleaned and stored in our warehouse nights and weekends. We have not had any major issues whatsoever. We have 250000 plus miles on some.
We use to purge our trucks at 150000 miles and buy new. With the economy, we have kept our vehicles longer without consequence. I would tend to value the opinion more of a business owner with many vehicles than a young driver with their economy car with few real life ownership experiences.
We log our maintenance on every vehicle. If you do routine service longevity is not an issue.
Our best vehicle by the way just as info has been a Ford Stake Body with a 460 V8. I feel if you do not overextend routine maintenance, the domestic vehicles are truly outstanding today.
20th May 2010, 09:31
I agree you can get many miles out of work vehicle. Most companies put a lot more into their trucks then most of their line. I worked for a road construction company back in the 80's and we used little two wheel drive Toyota pick-ups. We overloaded them probably almost to twice their listed payloads and drove the heck out of them through mud and on dirt roads. They just ran and ran. They were even 5-speeds and never had a failed clutch with all the extra weight. Amazing little trucks.
20th May 2010, 22:43
Selling a domestic fleet vehicle at a mere 150,000 is wasting half your investment, as they are generally good for twice that distance, so I'm glad to hear that you've stopped the practice. Our personal vehicles are no longer kept for more than 200,000 miles at most (mainly because we get tired of them, not because they have problems) and virtually any car (except possibly Toyota now), can easily go that far without problems. Our current GM has 90,000 miles and has yet to even have a brake job. It so far has had one battery and one set of tires in 8 years. Our import required brake pads every 20,000-30,000 miles and major repairs well before 100,000 miles. Modern domestics can easily go 100,000 miles with virtually no maintenance beyond oil changes at 7,000-10,000 miles, tires, and batteries. I don't plan to do a tune-up on my GM until after it hits 100,000.
21st May 2010, 05:33
Our company does routine maintenance on our full size domestic trucks, not trans and engines. We do not off road or have small Toyotas for play.
21st May 2010, 08:58
My '84 Chev Caprice Classic saw 300,000 miles with no major work done, although the trans slipped badly and it ran rough the last couple of years, even so it just seemed to never die. Things like the A/C didn't work either, but it didn't bother me that much. But it was really dead simple and very robustly constructed. I've seen the same in most nineties Camry. 300,000 miles on a well maintained Camry back then seem to be more of a rule than a exception.
Now cars seem to be much more complex and they last fewer miles. My 84' Chevy cost just over $11,000 new, on the road, fully loaded. A comparable car new now would easily cost more than $30,000 and contain tons of extra stuff that you really don't need, and that will break after a few year and cost you money to fix. Who said that the world is going forward?
18th May 2010, 16:31
"Domestics doing 2-300,000 miles with next to nothing in repairs? It's in no way representative. I hear about these kinds of stories all over the place, but in the real world this seldom happens."
Actually in the REAL world, myths are fueled by billions in ad hype and media manipulation by large companies (such as Japanese car companies).
I'm a mechanic and come from a family of car enthusiasts that stretches back to the 40's. Our family has owned everything from VW bugs (the old ones) to V-10 Vipers. There have been a number of German and Japanese cars (VW, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi) owned by family members. In addition there have been many Ford, GM and Chrysler products. Not one of the imports ever held up and was as inexpensive to maintain as a domestic. No domestic owned by any member of our family since the early 60's has ever required a major repair in up to 300,000 miles of hard driving.
Our family company uses domestic trucks, and 300,000 miles out of Rams, F-150's, Rangers and Silverados has been typical.
I have never actually driven ANY domestic until it broke down. My last high-mileage champ was a Chrysler product that I simply got tired of and sold at just under a quarter of a million miles. In the time I owned it it required less than $50 in repairs beyond routine maintenance. The guy I sold it to now has 310,000 miles on it and STILL no repairs.
I've never found the myth that domestics are somehow less reliable to be anything but just that... a MYTH.