Over 300,000 miles!

Who has over 300,000 miles on a Volkswagen car (diesel or petrol)?

Troy

Jeff the Custodian at the Deer Isle Elementary School in Maine is a guy that I met about 3 years ago while teaching up in that area. Back then, he had a beige '82(?)Rabbit Diesel Pickup that was running strong with 327,000 miles on the ticker. He bought it new, was on his 2nd waterpump, his third clutch, and had recently replaced the valve cover gasket. I'm fairly certain that it was a stock five speed but he may have converted it from a four speed. Given his attention to detail, I am confident that this rig is still on the road today. A thing of beauty!

Good maintainence aside, it's impressive a car could last that long without being clobbered by and SUV! That guy is probably running on borrowed time with respect to crashing, theft, hell, he could get hit by a meteorite! We better find out what oil he's using that car ward off all that danger.

430,000 miles

but it's not a VW.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/NonCGI/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=35&t=001157

[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Little Duramax ]</p>

The Golf diesel I bought to tide me over between Passats was sold to my neighbor when it had in excess of 275,000 miles. It is still running, but I haven't seen the odometer.

I had an 84 turbo d jetta that had 325k on it when i sold it(trans problem). I saw it on the highway everyday for about a year after that(then i had a diferent comute).

I do work for a forum member who has:

83 Rabbit Diesel: 250,000
86 Golf Diesel : 370,000
97 Passat TDI : 88,000

and another..

83 Mercedes 300D: 472,000

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jonathan Bartlett:
The Golf diesel I bought to tide me over between Passats was sold to my neighbor when it had in excess of 275,000 miles. It is still running, but I haven't seen the odometer.<hr></blockquote>

You've got to be pretty close to 300K, Jonathan. Didn't you have 260K on your passat the last time I saw you?

EAR

*this reply is completely not related to this post*

Bawlsy: holy ****, I love BAWLS. I have the shirts! I haven't ever known anyone else who drinks it regularly. cool!

Interesting. Every 300K+ car was a diesel. Not a single gasser!

I know a former coworker who has a Saturn gasser with 260,000 miles. But, only 3 of the 4 pistons is firing, so I doubt it will live to see 300,000.

Troy
http://geocities.com/videonovels/cars

Troy,
If there's a will, there's a way for that Saturn owner...and a simple equation to calclulate longevity probability and it goes like this: 1 Cheapskate Saturn Owner + Fear of losing one's pride + Unbelieveable Luck + 260,000 + Several Cases of Restore = 300,000. And there you have it. -mickkirk

Troy, was your former coworker's name bob? I know a guy with almost 300,000 on his saturn.. who commuted from VA to MD.

i bought a 71 ford f-250 in washington state with about 250k miles on it and drove towing a bug and a ton of junk from there to houston to detroit and then to newport news, va back in 93, only needed a water pump and link pin and sold it for 200 bucks because it was half rusted out. engine was a 352 big block and it had the 3 speed plus granny gear tranny.

There is a courier who did nearly 1 million km in a diesel mk2 Golf here in the UK. He died before he got to 1 million, and his wife got a driving licence specifically so that she could finish the job, and got the car over 1 million km.

I believe that the car is now kept as a display item by VW of UK.

The problem with gassers is that when they are cold a rich mixture is needed just to keep the things running. This results in a excess of petrol which is quite a good solvent, dissolving lubricating oil from the rings resulting in accelerated wear.

Diesels simply do not suffer from this problem.

In my experience many old diesels blow up due to abuse, or a split coolant hose, or a leaky injector etc long before they actually wear out.

I have also read of a Peugeot 305 diesel van that did 1 million miles (not kms). This did 1/3 of the mileage on one engine, another 1/3rd on another and finally the last 1/3 million miles on the original engine reconditioned.

I saw a 1983 Diesel VW pickup with almost 400K miles on it's original engine. it was running pretty well and didn't smoke all that much either.

85 turbo jetta 323000 still runs, but dont drive every day

86 turbo jetta 125000 daily driver (just bought)

01 tdi jetta 21000 (wifes car)

00 2500 cummings dodge 82000

OK troy_heagy,

Here is a Gasser. 1976 Toyota Corona Wagon.
330,000 miles. Origional engine no head work or rebuild. It hardly burned any oil. 3 Clutches and 2 transmissions which were a little unreliable as toyotas go on this model. The engine (the 4T I think) is legendary. The car ended up succumbing to rust and the new strict Massachusettes inspection. Had it remained in CA it would have lasted much longer. I like the body warantee on my new Jetta.

The highest I've ever personally dealt with on a VW is 220K miles on a '87 Quantum Syncro Wagon. It is waiting for a new distributor (went to istall a new cap/rotor/wire set and the HET fell off...pulled the distro and there is stuff falling out of it and the vac advance seems to be dead) but it ran very well before that.

The highest I've personally dealt with in any car is ~380K miles in a BMW 733i. The AT died. Could've had it back on the road in a weekend (and a kilobuck or three, ha ha), but I hate automatic transmissions, so I'm shopping for a manual transmission to replace it with (I've been told it is almost a drop in swap, w/very little cutting/welding required). The body is nearly perfect (needs paint), and the original engine works fine...though it has had the head worked on twice.

My '83 has 365,000 kms on her now. A new rebuild for the engine (1.6 turbo diesel) and a minor bit of work on the tranny - she's good as new. New bushings in the front end and I'll be doing the axles soon too. Regular parts replacement: brakes etc have been done as well.
I am impressed with the quality and longevity of this car. I bought it a year ago and am restoring it to new condition -not much further to go now just paint and trim.

Cheers

Haven't had that much experience with high mileage VAG models, but know of a few other models, and I doubt US users will know most of these anyway.

2000 Seat Leon TDi - 31,000 miles
1986 MG Montego EFi - 180,000 miles
1990 Rover Montego 1.6 Estate - 600,000 miles (yes 600,000)
1988 MG Montego 2.0 EFi - 342,000 miles (ex Taxi)
1991 Rover Montego 2.0 TD Estate - 176,000 miles

Neil -

The Montego was the butt of all jokes (well,, OK, not as many as the Marina...!) but I'd always reckoned that in principle, it was a damned good car. Your reports bear that out. 50+mpg with the 2.0 Perkins diesel version. (TDi before anything else was, maybe no Intercooler, though... as I recall...?

Perkins-engined Maestros & Montegos are apparently highly sought-after by thieves - they whip the engines out and export them to India by the containerload to use with irrigation-pumps.

1983 Rabbit GTI (gasser) ... 309,283 miles.
4th alternator, 3rd water pump, 2nd starter, 2nd clutch ... and I can't count the number of clutch cables. Starts right up and still runs like a champ.

L. B Fazio of Cochraneville, PA has >>430K on a diesel Rabbit. His success with diesel VWs and available skills as computer h'ware engineer convinced me to get my NB TDI.

My personel vehicle experience since 1978
1978 Corvette 27K Original Owner (Garage Hog)
1979 VW Camper 67K (sold)
1985 VW Vanagon 83K (sold) Waterboxer head leaks
1987 Toyota Camray 87K No problems (Accident total)
1990 Toyota Camray 37K No Problems (Accident total)
1991 Honda Accord 180K Minor Problems (Trade in)
1998 Honda Accord 100K Minor Problems Son 1 Drives
1993 Eurovan 110K Minor Problems Son 2 Drives
2000 Eurovan 23K No Problems wife Drives
2001 Jetta TDI 22K No Problems (purchased May 01)
All the above cars (with exception of Vanagon) have had no engine related problems. 01 Jetta is decidedly the most fun. With the 48 mile OW commute its nice to run 1.5 weeks between fill-ups.
A co-worker has a 86 Honda Accord with 347K. Original engine 3 clutches and accessories changes. His biggest problem now is rust.
Its hard to beat Honda for longevity, but if the TDI can hang in there W/O costly repairs for at leats 150K its worth it.

My personel vehicle experience since 1978
1978 Corvette 27K Original Owner (Garage Hog)
1979 VW Camper 67K (sold)
1985 VW Vanagon 83K (sold) Waterboxer head leaks
1987 Toyota Camray 87K No problems (Accident total)
1990 Toyota Camray 37K No Problems (Accident total)
1991 Honda Accord 180K Minor Problems (Trade in)
1998 Honda Accord 100K Minor Problems Son 1 Drives
1993 Eurovan 110K Minor Problems Son 2 Drives
2000 Eurovan 23K No Problems wife Drives
2001 Jetta TDI 22K No Problems (purchased May 01)
All the above cars (with exception of Vanagon) have had no engine related problems. 01 Jetta is decidedly the most fun. With the 48 mile OW commute its nice to run 1.5 weeks between fill-ups.
A co-worker has a 86 Honda Accord with 347K. Original engine 3 clutches and accessories changes. His biggest problem now is rust.
Its hard to beat Honda for longevity, but if the TDI can hang in there W/O costly repairs for at leats 150K its worth it.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by car 54:
Troy, was your former coworker's name bob? I know a guy with almost 300,000 on his saturn.. who commuted from VA to MD.<hr></blockquote>

No, his name is Juan and he commutes between Washington (his home) and Baltimore (his job) every day since 1994. His next car will likely be a Honda Civic Hybrid. He wants its ~55mpg economy.

When I was at Jiffy Lube, I met a guy with a V8 gasser and >400,000 miles. He had two separate businesses: One in Maryland and one in California (bit odd) that required him to commute back and forth a lot. He said he could do it in only 1 and a 1/2 days.

(1) I was surprised it had so many miles. (2) I couldn't believe he did it with Jiffy Lube's junk oil!

Troy

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by chopchop:
Neil -

The Montego was the butt of all jokes (well,, OK, not as many as the Marina...!) but I'd always reckoned that in principle, it was a damned good car. Your reports bear that out. 50+mpg with the 2.0 Perkins diesel version. (TDi before anything else was, maybe no Intercooler, though... as I recall...?

Perkins-engined Maestros & Montegos are apparently highly sought-after by thieves - they whip the engines out and export them to India by the containerload to use with irrigation-pumps.<hr></blockquote>


The Montego was not a TDI by the definition that most of use, because it had purely mechanical injection, whereas as a true TDI is electronically managed, direct injection, and turbo charged.

That said, the Montego was a pioneer. There were three contendors for the title "first direct injection passenger car", these were,
The Audi 100 TDI
The Montego turbo diesel
The Fiat Croma diesel.

The Montego was interesting in that the early version that had the high ratio gearbox was advertised at the time of being capable of 100mph or 100mpg (imperial, and at a constant speed), which was amazing for Passat sized car.

My father had one, and it really went well. It was a comfortable and safe car too.

The engine was very, very noisy at lower speeds, but I actually quite enjoyed the noise that it made, it sounded powerful. The faster you went, the quieter it got, and by about 80mph it seemed to "leave the noise behind".

They were quite smoky though, and I'm sure that the NOx emissions are a nightmare.

The worst problem was that the damn things rusted so badly. My father's car was garaged and well looked after, but at only 5 years it had rust.

have 300k on my 'Stealth Rabbit' '81 -D
no rebuilds or head work, one head gasket
original injectors and pump. Just took it in for an alignment at "bear", they said it was in fine shape, and didn't need a thing, charged me $20 for rack time and they were Impressed. (it's the Tokico's)

It's only getting 46 mpg, so I sprung for some new nozzles today ($11 ea) bummer... really breaking my up.

The rest of my fleet (10 VW - D's has almost infinite miles, but most are in the 250,000 range)

Have had 2 Dodge trucks w/300K and original engine (360 gas, just head work) current one is 1 ton 4x4 dump (now that's amazing!!, full time 4x4 and all) It's hurting, especially when I make it tow my bulldozer (22k # comb)

The Studebaker diesel truck that I drove through college (weekend job) had 3 million miles.
Denver - Rapid City, SD daily for 15 years, sometimes via Buffalo, Wyo! Talk about driving in the snow! It never left me stranded, but it did stick in 5th gear one night, and generator blades did the machine gun disenagration through the hood, resulting in a 300 mile drive in the dark (full moon on the praire)thx

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by christi:

The Montego was not a TDI by the definition that most of use, because it had purely mechanical injection, whereas as a true TDI is electronically managed, direct injection, and turbo charged.............
<hr></blockquote>

I've never been clear exactly what the Tdi label on the back of my Discovery actually means!

LR had a "Turbodiesel" (POS!) pre the Tdi days - sans Intercooler - so I had always been led to believe that Tdi, as on a Disco, actually was to be interpreted as Turbodiesel, direct-injection, intercooler. At that time ('89/'90), I seem to recall that there were only 2 manufacturers in the world with TDi engines - VW and Land Rover, but Fiat was obviously in there as well, although the Croma was never much of a seller in the UK. Perkins seems to have been forgotten about, since they are an engine manufacturer only, and when Rover ditched the Montego & Maestro, they went IDI with the PSA engines until they produced that excellent 2-litre DI engine of their own.

Just for interest, I'd be interested in what you believe the LR Tdi was deemed to mean.

Anyway, there's no-one else out here with two TDI-badged cars, one of which ain't a VW!

- Richard

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by troy_heagy:


When I was at Jiffy Lube, I met a guy with a V8 gasser and >400,000 miles. He had two separate businesses: One in Maryland and one in California (bit odd) that required him to commute back and forth a lot. He said he could do it in only 1 and a 1/2 days.

(1) I was surprised it had so many miles. (2) I couldn't believe he did it with Jiffy Lube's junk oil!

Troy<hr></blockquote>

I can't believe he did it period... not in 36 hours. He would have to average 75 MPH to make the ~2700 mile trip. And not stop to nap.