SNIP a bunch of stuff
Larry,
I think you are way off saying a car at 100,000 miles is worn out and
will need to have money sholveled at it. I gave away recently my
Dodge Colt (really a Mitsubishi car) with 273,000 miles on it. It
still runs great, gets great mileage, has good oil pressure and
compression. The only repairs it needed before I gave it away were the
timing belt, water pump, and camshaft seal. The only repairs I had to
do to the car since I bought it new were brakes, ball joints, some
rubber suspension bushings, and a distributer, and the three items
noted above. My Toyota truck with the V6 I bought used with 120,000
miles on it and I have put another 50,000 on it. It has needed a new
radiator and water pump and ball joints. My wife's Camry which we just
gave away still runs great with about 140,000 miles on it. It only
needed a timing belt and a radiator in all those miles. My brother
drove his last Toyota 2WD truck with the 4 cylinder (22RE?) engine for
330,000 miles before donating it to some charity in Guatemala. He and
his wife drove the truck from Northern California to Guatemala to
deliver it. His only repairs since he bought it new were a timing belt
or chain (I forgot which), ball joints and shocks. I was told by my
mechanic that the reason the truck and Camry needed radiators was
because I didn't use the red Toyota anti freeze. I used the regular
green stuff, which was apparently a bad idea. I will only be using the
proper red stuff in my Scion xB. As you can see all the vehicles
listed above are not money pits. And I'm sure my experience is not
unusual these days. Cars are built much better these days, and have
been for the last 20 years at least, with much better materials. I'm
hard on vehicles but changing the oil when I was supposed to, changing
brake fluid and coolant in a timely fashion, plugs, wires, distributer
cap and rotor are pretty much all I did to maintain my vehicles and
over time the cost of the above regular maintenance was more than I
spent on repairs. As they say, YMMV, but not much.
Eric
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