High Mileage Toyota Club

[MB Life]

Just saw this on a website.
All these cars have 200,000 miles or more.
Not sure if anyone had problems along the way.
I was just suprised that other non mercedes can acheive such high mileage.

http://footbridge.net/toyota/200.htm

By the way, I am not trying to start a war.
I have a W210 MB with 141,000 miles on it now with no major problems.
I hope to make it on the Mercedes 200,000 mile club.

As far as being in a car besides a Benz that can go many reliable miles, Toyota is my number choice. My wifes 4 Runner has 166,000 miles and has been as reliable and trouble free as my 240D's.

That doesn't mean that these cars don't have a downside, but they do run long and reliable.

Now as far as reaching 533,000 miles like my latest 240D, I don't think so. 200,000 miles is really not high mileage these days. There aren't many cars that, if properly maintained, won't go 200,000.

Have a great day,

Most MB owners know the importance of regular maintenance and how in the long run saves dollars and extends the life of their MB. These very same owners also apply this to their other vehicles.

I have a chevy S10 pickup with 245K miles and the drive train is all orginal. However while I have received good service from my chevy, there is nothing like a ride in a MB.

[blackmercedes]

Early 90's 4-Runners are popular in my neck of the woods, and there are more than a couple running around with seriously high odo readings and little major mechanical work. When I had the electronics shop we had a 4-Runner come in for a new radio that had a little over 600,000kms on the clock. (about 375,000 miles)

The clutch had been replaced a couple times and the AC was not working, but otherwise the thing was in surprisingly good shape. I imagine other components had been repaired/replaced, but the engine ran great and it had held up very well.

Can you imagine if MB and Toyota merged and MB designed drivelines and body strutures and Toyota did electronics? It would be the downfall of the automotive business, as we'd only need to buy a new car every 30 years.

[wolf_walker]

I've gotten excessive mileage from every vehicle i've ever maintained. Almost anything that isnt chronicly *bad* will last for two or three hundred thousand miles at least. I've observed that MB owners maintain there vehicles, on a whole, much, much better than most. I imagine this has as much to do with there longevity as anything else. You can run anything into the ground in 100K miles with negligent maintanance practices.


Heck, I've never had a VW with less than 200k on it..

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with this thinking about the reason MB's last longer is because they are better taken care of.

It might be true that the typical MB owner takes better care of their car. Often the original owner is well heeled enough and typically not a DIYer, so they take it to the dealer for everything.

That sad, there is much more to a car than the items that wear out due to neglect. There are zillions of items on a car that will last the same amount of time whether the oil is ever changed or not.

Face it, there are some cars that are just made better than other cars. By and large MB's are built solid and reliable. Yes, there are those achilles heels like a 124 evaporator or a 104 wiring harness, but the vast majority of subsystems and components on an MB are just superior in solidity and LONG TERM durability.

A Toyota is similar in a different way. In 166,000 miles my wifes '98 4 Runner has had two failures, the expansion valve in the a/c and the starter. That's it! How many cars go that many miles with that few problems REGARDLESS of how well they're cared for.

I have had 123 cars that are this care free, but very few cars ever built can fall in the "just change oil and drive it" category.

Another thought that I have about this is something that is hard to put into words. I guess I would call it rebuildability or repairability.

Most cars in the world are built like a dollar watch. That is, they just weren't designed to be rebuilt and when you repaired something they just wouldn't stay "fixed." This is where an MB really shines. If you drive one long enough to wear out a major component, there is enough left of the rest of the car to make it worthwhile to repair or rebuild and go on.

I've seen lots of makes, a lot of them being American and Japanese that even after being well cared for were junk when it came engine rebuild time. Every MB I've ever done major work on was really worth doing so. The bodies and chassis were still solid and rattle free. There weren't trim items broken and falling off and cosmetically they still looked great.

The Toyota does not stay looking great like an MB, but mechanically they stay solid without nuisance items breaking all the time. Except for the low quality raw materials that a Toyota is built out of, like the plastics, paints and trim, the mechanical integrity of a Toyota is very much like an MB.

IMHO,
PS Don't get me wrong. I don't consider the 166,000 miles on the 4Runner to be high mileage. LB

[engatwork]

I dropped the '81 off at the windshield place today to get new seals in the front and rear. Caught a ride in with my boss in his 1986 Corolla with 330k miles on it. Front suspension needs rebuilding (lot's of noise over bumps) but otherwise it is a pretty sound car. He spends the least amount of money maintaining it as he has to.

[wolf_walker]

Larry, I don't disagree, nor did I figure that comment would slip past you guys . But I do see a lot of cars put up with a whole lot of abuse that the typical Mercedes never will, and live to fight a lot of days after..

Not that they arent crap in a million ways and disposable transportation in a lot of cases, but there are simple examples.

[MB Life]

As Larry Bible mentioned, there are good and bad cars.
Reading all the posts on this board you realize that everyone has had good and bad experiences with just about any make and model.
I use to only buy Japanese cars because I thought that they were more reliabile and durabile than other manufactures.
But after buying my first Mercedes, I realized that it is worth every dollar I put into it. Maybe I have been lucky to have a car that is somewhat trouble free. I know that if I had lots of trouble, I would not hesitate to sell it and buy another car. But the feeling I get when I drive my car lets me know that it's worth it.

By the way, Prior to reading all the great posts on this board, I thought I would have to sell my car after it got to 100,000 miles,
but seeing that there are many cars with 200,000 + miles gives me hope. Now I plan to keep it till I can't drive it anymore and she has to go to the junk yard.