Getting 300k miles out of a vehicle

Joined
May 5, 2013
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128
Location
Maryland
I've always found it cool to see a 15 or 20 year old truck in excellent condition with original drivetrain because it was taken care of. My goal is to get 300k out of my vehicle minimum. I'm okay with having to do some wear and tear items along the way, but my goal is to get the most out of my vehicle without any major overhauls. I do all the maintenance on it like clock work. Down to greasing ujoints, door jams, you name it. Currently at 50k, so I have a long ways to go. I recently switched to walmarts supertech 5w30 synthetic. I know it's a decent oil, I did some research before buying it and people seem to approve it for being a good oil. It's got all the latest certifications and all should be good to go, right?

Despite going in all "well-informed" and buying the stuff at walmart, the price was so cheap I got this feeling that maybe I should 2nd guess the oil. No disrespect to anyone, but realistically I am just reading all this information on the internet. Who knows what kind of misinformation may get compounded over time, and realistically how many of the so called experts on here have chemical engineering degrees with experience in this specific field? Okay, enough of discrediting you guys. Point is that I'm just trying to go about this with a few grains of salt. What I did is to compare VOAs of premium brands to the supertech. I noticed pennzoil ultra 5w30 and supertech are very similarly packaged. I made sure the VOAs were done sometime in 2018 so the information isn't from some old packaging from say back in 2003. I noticed even though the additive packaging was similar, in terms of what additives they used and what they didnt use, the pennzoil and other premium brands just has a [censored] load more of everything. Is getting more additives worth it or is it just diminishing returns? In other words, is paying more for the extra additive concentration a worth while investment on say 5k OCI, given my goal with the truck? In the long haul do you think the supertech will noticeably dirtier oil rings on the piston? I'm just trying to figure out why brands like mobil 1 and pennzoil feel the need to have higher concentrations of additives. Is the additives whats driving the cost of these premium oils, or is the price just to create the illusion of superiority?
 
I have and had cars (2 as original owner) with near 200K, over 300K and over 400K miles all running conventional oil. I always used more well known brands like Castrol, Pennzoil, Chevron... don't know why maybe marketing ... lol
Just have one car that 0Wx20 is recommended and that got me interested in synthetic oil & bitog
shocked2.gif


I wouldn't worry too much about oil ... One thing is that I always kept the oci near 3K miles especially in the past. Now I'm getting a little lazy and looking for excuses to extend the oci.

Edit:
Forgot to mention LOTS of 10Wx40's and lately 5Wx30's
 
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Theres no second guessing, if you stick with the five majors.... Quaker State, Pennzoil, Mobil-1, Castrol and Valvoline, or dealer brands associated with their vehicles.
Sleep well my friend.
 
How much money are you trying to save in a year? $50? $100?

If my goal was to get to 300K, I'd choose a brand name oil as suggested by Triple_Se7en.

I'd be much more concerned with Transmission Fluid, Brake Fluid, Power Steering Fluid, Diff fluid and Coolant.

My goals are 500K. You can see what I use in my sig.
 
Although I put on ~200K on 2 other cars, I put 340K miles on only one car. I wasn't easy as we live in the salt belt and I had to keep the car longer than any other. This car did require those extra repairs in order to keep it to those miles & 18 yrs. Replacing the gas tank and many rusty lines, and doing lots of body repairs due to rust. However, the drivetrain was original and never an issue, just regular tune-ups and oil/filter changes along with lots of ATF changes as well.

This vehicle in particular('88 Accord/4spd auto/2bbl carb) use mostly store brand oils(going all the way back to the Western Auto & Walmart Tech 2000 days) as well as other oils on the cheap all in the SG, SH, SJ, SL and lots of cheap filter too.

However, this was a known good car and I had a good example of this car and lastly, it had me as the owner with a lot of hiwy miles. And it takes all four of those factors in order to get these types of miles on any vehicle. But don't think for a minute that anyone can put on these type of mile and not repair the vehicle. Had I lived where there was no road salt, I would have been able to keep the car even longer

My BIL just got rid of a 2004 Camry LE 4cyl with >270K miles and did little to it. Very little in fact here in the North. The car had almost no rust and he never changed the ATF. But, finally the car needed more money/reparis(Catalytic Converters) than the car was worth as he did almost nothing along the way. And I'm sure there were items on the car that were broke and not fixed but, as long as the car started and ran, he wasn't investing money into the car at this point.

Here are 5 factors(IMO) that it takes to get extremely high miles out of any vehicle.

1) A known good car(Toy/Lex come to mind)
2) A good example of this car(not the problem car - I've had a problem Lexus that I bought new)
3) Extremely good maintenance(mostly DIY)
4) More highway miles
5) Live where there is no road salt

Others can add to the list.
 
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I think most of the time it comes down to how much you will put up with or just deal with. Sometimes it's just luck.

The last car I racked up miles on got to 297k. This car was owned by my in-laws. It was a 2000 Dodge Stratus, 2.4 automatic that they bought brand new. They were going to junk it. I offered them money for it, they wouldn't take it. I put 30k more miles on it. Original drivetrain, never apart. It was pretty beat up but wouldn't quit running. I sold it still running and driving cheap to someone who needed a cheap car.

Originally Posted by Silk
I usually let someone else rack up the mileage, then I finish it off.


This is usually what I do as well. Current daily driver is a 2005 Ford Freestyle bought with 292k, for $350. Did repairs and now driving it 50-75 miles a day. Will drive this one until it dies, likely will be a CVT Transmission failure. Doing fine so far, but I keep fresh fluid in it. 400k on a CVT Transmission would be quite the accomplishment!
 
@Char Baby

I like your list: #1,3,4,5
Didnt understand #2.
#4 is very important

Also easy on the car. e.g. Don't let your teenage kids or even others borrow your car too much or keep an older car around for that purpose ... lol
 
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An UOA will tell you more than any thing else. I would get one done at the when it comes time to change your oil. From here you can decide if the oil you are using is protecting you for the amount of miles you are doing. I would only do this once unless you want to increase miles between changes or a major formula change in the oil. I bet the Supertec will pass at 5k miles.
 
Our shop truck is a 96 Tacoma. It now has 434k on it. It gets whatever oil and filter is on sale. Usually proline as I get that cheap. It gets changed when I remember to. Often 6-8 k.

Its clutch lasted 369k. I put a water pump,belts, radiator in it just to keep it reliable. No major repairs although the rear axle is getting noisey.
 
The biggest question is how do you and your spouse feel about driving a twenty year + old car? For instance, a 1999 car won't have side air bags, a safety feature that might have come in handy during those winter collision videos that were recently posted. I actually do have one car that is 19 years old, just say'n.
 
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Originally Posted by OilUzer
@Char Baby

I like your list: #1,3,4,5
Didn't understand #2.
#4 is very important

Also easy on the car. e.g. Don't let your teenage kids or even others borrow your car too much or keep an older car around for that purpose ... lol


I have had poor examples of known reliable cars such as a Honda or Toyota. And I bought the known reliable models(famous in fact). I bought them because of their reputation for quality & reliability. But they weren't good examples for me. I've had 2 Japanese vehicle(1 Toyota & 1 Honda) that left something to be desired in terms of their reliability. Problems started from year 2 and continued til I got rid of them.

Then, I have had extremely reliable Hon/Yotas as well,that were perfect examples of what their reputation stood for.

I bought a brand new 2001 Lexus RX300 that well, it wasn't a disaster but, it certainly WAS NOT what it should have been for the Lexus brand and the RX's particular reputation. I am not including this one in my comment above as like I said, it wasn't a disaster. However it just wasn't anywhere near what it should have been. Nor was it as reliable as other RX300s from those in my circle who also owned them at the time(and still do). Which in turn, caused me to sell it earlier than I otherwise would have.

I hope this explains what I meant in example #2

CB
 
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My dads 08 f150 with the 3v 5.4 has 290k on the clock. It has had a straight diet of supertech 10w30 synthetic since the factory fill of 5w20 was drained. It has no phaser knock and on cold start has 4 slaps of the timing chain. So far it has been extremely reliable, nothing on the motor has been touched aside from the sparkplugs. However, Scotty Kilmer clearly claims just about the only cars that go 300k and up will be a Toyota or Lexus.
 
My 1990 Ford Ranger 3.0 was sold for $900 with 354K and the engine never increased in oil consumption in all those miles. 10K OCIs with M1 10-30.
 
My BMW has closer to 300k (broken odo but fixed recently) used 20w50 and HDEO.

My boss' wifes 77' firebird formula has almost 300K on the original 400 engine has used mostly chevron 20w50 and DELO.

The gentleman that supplies my shop gas has a 2007 Nissan Titan v8 with over almost 370K last I checked, it will go 400K and hes used Mobil 10w30.

The real problem is keeping the rest of your vehicle intact and not wreck it.
 
Luck of the draw from the factory is a large factor. Not all cars get the same build quality....which is critical for engine and transmission longevity. And if you buy it used you really need to know the previous maintenance history as well as the owner's driving methods to know if anything has been compromised. My only +200K mile vehicles were bought used from seniors, one of them my Dad.

How often you change fluid is as important as the type/brand you use. Automatic transmissions are particularly susceptible to poor maintenance, in particular long OCI's on so-so quality fluids. For cars that I've lost earlier in life, most were due to automatic transmission failures.
 
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Depends on what kind of car model/mfg are we talking about.

You can have a Toyota till 300K with engine, the suspension usually gave up before that time.
I have a friend's 2000 Camry that goes almost 400K before they wrecked it.
The suspension parts were all bad, engine burning oil, minimal maintenance sometimes oil is very low but it was still running.
 
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