Are long trips good or bad for your car?

[California Beach]

Just wondering if trips that are over say 500 miles good or bad for the car.
I know lots of people drive their cars cross country without any problems but due to the extensive drive and long hours of use at high temps, can this actually be bad for your car?
Will this cause parts on the car to fail faster than they should?

Please give some of your examples if any.

[G-Benz]

Excessive consumption of tires, fuel, and odometer displays! Facetious, of course.

But unless there is a cooling system problem, the engine should be operating at nominal, not high temps.

Actually, short trips and frequent engine start-ups contribute more to overall wear and tear than long extended drives...

G-Benz is exactly right with his explanation. Highway miles are ABSOLUTELY the easiest duty your car will see. With an MB especially. These cars are designed with wide open autobahn duty in mind.

My 240D went a half million miles with probably 98% of those miles on the highway about as fast as the 67HP would let it run. Brakes, tires, engine, trans lasted incredibly long periods. The car went over a half million miles before I ever replaced any suspension components other than shocks or a u-joint or flex disk.

Again, highway miles are the easiest duty.

Enyoy your trip,

[Duke2.6]

Many studies over the years lead to the conclusion that that over the life of an average driven automobile, about 80 percent of engine wear occurs during warmup. Once the engine is at operating temperature wear is virtually unmeasurable. It's too bad that cars don't remember the number of cold starts and service history. These data are much more relevent to engine life than mileage

Long trips at normal freeway speeds are about the easiest service that a car can get. Even in warm to hot weather there is sufficient air flow to keep coolant, and particularly oil temperatures at near ideal levels.

Thus, when looking at 15 year old cars, the high mileage salesman's car may have a better engine than the "little old lady's" car, but the latter will always look better cosmetically because it spends most of it's life in the garage. Yet, all those cold starts and short trips take a real toll inside the engine.

Duke

[Mr. FancyPants]

I live in the north and see winter's cold. I drive a 87 300DT currently less than a year. Last car was a 84 300D and never spent a winter's night unplugged, otherwise you could forget about starting it!

I never took a temperature reading while plugged in and wonder how high the temp gets in the block overnight. Warmth must be good for the engine, as ice cold engines at start-up must wear a lot more!

[jeff-abalone]

High mileage is no problem for a car unless the driver never change engine oil. hehe

[bobbyv]

aside from the lower stresses and continuous cooling and lubrication that the steady-state conditions of long-distance driving provides, the engine wear per mile is lower for highway-driven miles because these are performed in the car's top gear, where there are less engine revolutions per vehicle mile.

there is also less opportunity for condensation of the acidic byproducts of combustion in an engine/exhaust system that is maintained for long periods of time at elevated (operating) temperatures, resulting in less internal corrosion.