St. Louis County man drives over 1 million miles in his Volvo sedan
A lot has changed since 1991, but Jim O’Shea’s car hasn’t.
fox2now.com
Another Million Miler
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"Thirty years, two engines, and two transmissions later, "
I have a real Ship of Theseus problem with these stories.
Yea, a million miles is a lot, but if you keep replacing parts when they break, is it really that big of a deal?
I have a real Ship of Theseus problem with these stories.
Yea, a million miles is a lot, but if you keep replacing parts when they break, is it really that big of a deal?
Shel_B
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There's a guy on this forum who has an old Honda Civic that's approaching 1,000,000 kilometers. The situation is described in this thread:
Amsoil 0W-30, 14,198 MILES, 1993 Civic
Miles on Civic- 524,636 Miles on oil - 14,198 Amsoil 0W-30 AZO Amsoil EAo36 oil filter Twin Filtermag CT3.2 magnetic oil filters Dimple magnetic oil drain plug 5 ozs Liquimoly 47 ozs make up oil Blackstone Labs; We're still tracking the possibility of a coolant leak for your Civic, and the...
bobistheoilguy.com
it shows determination.
I have a VW Beetle that I have owned for 37 years. It drives fine, brakes make a little noise from drums getting rusty, but it is our fall back car because when another one of our cars breaks, you can always depend on it to use till your other car is repaired. I do all the maintenance on it and have replaced the motor with a single port 1600 and converted electric system to 12 volts. It is close to turning 100K for the first time. My 3 sons all learn how to drive a stick shift in it. It probably will never make close to a million miles but I would trust it to take me anywhere and bring me back home.
I still have the original motor that it came with. It needs a rebuild at 88K miles since the crankshaft end play was getting too big and it knocked at startup. Have all the parts to rebuild it, but those extra 17 HP are nice. The motor it has now was a broken one I bought at a swap meet for $10.00. Rebuilt it including new valves and guides. Also the 12 volt headlight are much brighter than the 6volt ones were.
My 940 is a '91 but it only has 670K to go before it reaches one million. What is amazing about this story and others with even more miles (Irv Gordon rip) is that the car was never in an accident. Figure the odds of that.
Old Volvos are wonderful cars. They almost seem to be from an entirely different universe. When I get another one it will be like this;
Old Volvos are wonderful cars. They almost seem to be from an entirely different universe. When I get another one it will be like this;
We still have grandpa’s axe. He replaced the handle twice and the head once, but it is still grandpa’s axe. 
Problem is with modern cars the cost to replace those engines and transmissions wouldn't be worthwhile, so it's unlikely to happen for most, other than maybe some trucks.
That's probably true. On Gordon's Volvo, it was probably possible to replace the engine in a half hour.
Sorry, my comments was not intended on your post but was on the Volvo 1 million miler. Sorry for the confusion.
90 miles a day for 30 years is a lot of driving! Impressive that he got there, even if he had to replace some major components. I actually worked at the sister BMW store across the street from where he bought that Volvo in high school.
More about an owner being resistant to change.
Very impressive.
I read an article somewhere recently discussing high mileage vehicles. The article pointed out that the odometer reading on a vehicle is intended to represent the number of miles on the chassis, not the engine or transmission. That is why the odometer doesn't get changed or adjusted when a new engine or transmission goes in. If you put a brand new engine in a car that has 250,000 miles on it, that car still has 250,000 miles on it.
Since the engine and transmission are what make the vehicle "go", the odometer reading has just naturally become associated with those major parts and most people tend to forget about the chassis and all of the other parts underneath them. It is also perceived as the easiest and most readily accessible metric to use for service intervals.
One has to wonder if more automakers should start basing engine and transmission service on "engine hours", and use odometer readings for other parts such as suspension, brakes, etc. Some automakers already allow owners to track engine hours in their gauge clusters and it would be something that should easily be added these days.
I read an article somewhere recently discussing high mileage vehicles. The article pointed out that the odometer reading on a vehicle is intended to represent the number of miles on the chassis, not the engine or transmission. That is why the odometer doesn't get changed or adjusted when a new engine or transmission goes in. If you put a brand new engine in a car that has 250,000 miles on it, that car still has 250,000 miles on it.
Since the engine and transmission are what make the vehicle "go", the odometer reading has just naturally become associated with those major parts and most people tend to forget about the chassis and all of the other parts underneath them. It is also perceived as the easiest and most readily accessible metric to use for service intervals.
One has to wonder if more automakers should start basing engine and transmission service on "engine hours", and use odometer readings for other parts such as suspension, brakes, etc. Some automakers already allow owners to track engine hours in their gauge clusters and it would be something that should easily be added these days.
I'd be impressed if it had the original driver's seat.
The man likes what he likes, nothing wrong with that.
There is absolutely no way that a vehicle is going to go a million miles without replacing parts. There is virtually nothing that well designed and robust that is going to allow that to happen.
This is a simple, quality vehicle. Those have gone the way of the dodo bird.
The economics of keeping the average new car on the road for a million miles just aren't there.
There is absolutely no way that a vehicle is going to go a million miles without replacing parts. There is virtually nothing that well designed and robust that is going to allow that to happen.
This is a simple, quality vehicle. Those have gone the way of the dodo bird.
The economics of keeping the average new car on the road for a million miles just aren't there.
I made over 1/2 a million miles on the original 1.9L/4 speed manual in an '88 Escort. If it hadn't needed work that I didn't feel like doing I'm pretty sure it would have made at least 600-650K and probably even more. Yes, the clutch, struts, fuel pump was replaced a couple times, ball joints tie rods and brakes a few times but overall the majority of the car was original. It was using/leaking a quart of oil approximately every 800-1K miles but as long as I kept oil in it it just kept on running. For the last 100K or so miles when the oil got low I'd been adding oil that I'd drained out of my better cars at OC and doing an oil/filter change every 5K miles.
That's Mr Sheppard's million mile Toyota Tundra. The original seat, engine and transmission.
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