I put over 80K miles on my Kompressor using it as a daily commuting vehicle. It was reliable, economical, comfortable and quick enough for the job. Was it as stone cold dependable as an Accord? Probably not. Would I have rather had a Honda for the commute? No.

I like old cars. But, because of time, mileage and service history they do require more maintenance than newer cars. I will say that most of the issues that I've had occur were not surprises. They often show some sort of warning signs that I did not act upon before soiling the sheets. My experience with newer cars, on the other hand, is that they just stop working. With computers adjusting engine parameters automatically, you may not know something is happening before that CEL flashes. Hopefully the code it flashes is descriptive enough that you can act upon it.

I have heard stories of cars that only needed periodic payments and fuel to run reliably for 100K+ miles. I've never owned one.

The vehicle I have that has the most mileage is the one that has needed the least amount of maintainence. At 350k miles my diesel truck has only needed the things attached to the motor replaced: alternator, water pump, vacuum pump, fuel pump, injectors and pump, glow plugs and relay, and a tach sensor, none of which seemed to fail early. Fluids, brakes and tires are regular maintenance, and this has been over the last 17 years, so my return on this vehicle pretty good, since I've done all the maintenance myself. The paradigm it creates is the longer it last, the longer I expect all my vehicles to last with relatively low maintenance.

Our Benzes have been fairly easy to maintain. The '79 300D was gone though very meticulously by its PO, and has needed just an alternator (one of the 2 things the PO didn't replace), some a/c work (due entirely to my heavy handed approach charging the system), and a master cylinder (the other thing he didn't replace). He bypassed the climate control, so that, while not as refined as the original, hasn't caused any headaches. The '85 300D has been my teacher, needing all the steering components replaced, the suspension rubber sooner rather that later, and the ubiquitous A/C work, but has been a solid DD for the year and a half that I've had it, ie. it has never left me stranded, and only failed to start when the 7 year old battery I bought it with quit mid-winter. But I like the old car, and these things that make it closer to properly maintained only enhance it in my eyes. I have to say not bad for 32 and 26 year old vehicles.

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1985 300D-189k The 'UD', Ivory and Pinkamino
1979 300D-211k Dark Gray, Parchment
A 1980 Harley-~166k and
A 1994 Ford diesel pickup-349k and
A 1990 gasser Volvo wagon-145k