Post those >100,000mi vehicles

[bykfixer]

I finally gave up and as much as it hurt to do it, sold the 97 Honda Prelude I was restoring. It was auctioned off and the $ went to a wounded veteran program. It had 228k on it when I got it and at 237975 it started coming apart. Issue after issue until my goal was to see 238000 on the odometer. The day it crossed over to 238k the head gasket popped. It went away with 238020 miles on it. The guy who bought it was estatic to find an all original equipment version as most by now have been stupified beyond repair. I was restoring it stem to stern with 100% factory parts and a few factory upgrades not available in the US.

It sure looked pretty broken down in my driveway.

My son had always wanted a Toyota Aristo because it was a luxury hot rod. He bought an 03 Lexus GS 300 and set about turning it into an Aristo with left hand drive. Well he found a genuine Aristo recently so he parted with the Lexus. Parted with as in "hey dad you want the Lexus?" My reply was "does a dog bark at the mailman?" So this summer I will be turning it back into a Lexus.

Soon this black n tan will get the spa treatment at my place.
An 03 GS300 with 252xxx on the odo but the major overhaul has already been done.

 

[Bimmerboy]

Some more Bimmer fun. I took this video last summer to celebrate putting exactly 100,000 miles on my car since purchasing it at 49,318.

I didn't realize a neighbor was sitting on her front step trying to talk on the phone... lol. Sorry, Mrs. Neighbor!

 

[bykfixer]

Took delivery of my next money pit today. Already fixed one thing that was annoying. A door ajar alarm was ringing so I sprayed each hinge, and closure with WD40 and let it soak for an hour and yippee!! No more door ajar alarm. Got the radio working and learned via youtube videos how to solve the noises in the dash from climate control actuator motors hunting for the correct mode. A local shop says $800 to fix what may take me a whole day but have 10mm ratchet, ratcheting screwdriver and dental picks……and if all goes well the issue will be solved fairly easily.

Toyota logos gone, Lexus logos back.
My son was morphing it into a Toyota cosmetically with junkyard scores since it seems folks around our area have done that to cars then crashed them.

No logos on the trunk yet.
I want to wax the car before applying factory logos on the trunk.

Custom floor mats to match the interior.
With 250k+ miles on it there's much to do but it's a pretty solid car to start out unlike my previous one that broke down the day it arrived due to slipshod modifications stem to stern. I'm the third owner and aside from a few cosmetic changes this one is completely stock.

 

[raggie33]

never mind

 

[Bimmerboy]

Byk - Interesting stories behind the Honda and Lexus. Definitely cool. Both look really nice.

 

[turbodog]

Years ago, when first married and broke...

Bought a 91 nissan stanza w/ 175k for $900.

Kept it 4 years, added another 100k to it. Sold it BACK to the people we bought it from for $500.

They drove it 11 more years, sold it to a guy we know.

That guy drove it 2 years, during which time it caught fire once (power steering leak).

He sold it to a guy that ran it low of oil and blew the engine.

 

[bykfixer]

Nissan used to make long lasting stuff. I don't know if they do or do not anymore. Same with Toyota. It is my understanding my favorite Japanese brand Honda vehicles don't hold up so well anymore.

91 was nearly the last year of the Stanza that was halted in 92 replaced by the Altima according to wiki. Hmmm, I figured it was the Sentra that replaced it.

We had a 71 Corolla when I was a kid that was a hand me down car to my older sister, then my twin brother. He sold it in '84 and we used to see it on occasion in the 1990's. It didn't have a ton of miles. It had city miles……the worst kind.

I had a chance to see the car fax on that 97 Prelude and boy oh boy that car had some adventures. It started out in December 96 in Detroit, in winter. It was crashed in the first 90 days. I was like the 10th owner with a couple of people owning it just a couple of months. It had been reported crashed 5 times. By the time I got it a few unreported wipeouts had occured. Both tow hooks up front were flattened. I worked and worked on that car until the day I decided to moth ball it. I spent a week detailing it and getting the finish all sparkling until I could see a yard stick in the shine. Then I put it under a high end cover. That's why it still looked great after sitting for 5 or 6 years. It was just time to part with it.

On the Lexus I just bought I put a leftover sticker from the Prelude on the rear window in honor of the 97 Prelude and in typical fashion for that Prelude the sticker started peeling off the Lexus on the first night. The Lexus has its issues but in just the last 48 hours I have learned a lot about fixing modern cars and trucks by reading. The initial goal is to learn normal failures and see about fixing those. Oil leaks, malfunctioning gizmos and the like. And being I had worked on Hondas for a while I had a drip pan left to place under the car so no stains litter the surface under the car.

 

[Nitroz]

Nissan used to make long lasting stuff. I don't know if they do or do not anymore. Same with Toyota. It is my understanding my favorite Japanese brand Honda vehicles don't hold up so well anymore.

No doubt! That Prelude was nice! I would have had to keep that one. Stick or Auto?

I love the simplicity of older cars. I don't want something with the insane amount of bells and whistles.

 

[bykfixer]

The Prelude was just that. A Prelude of things to come at Honda. They got away with a bunch of nifty ideas in plastics, manufacturing techniques and even some performace. Many of the things in use today. The version of Prelude I had was the 5th and final generation. Mine original had a stick shift and what is still being used in some acura cars called atts, which in essence is a front wheel drive car trying to act like a rear wheel car when cornering.

By the time I bought it the atts system had been removed and the drive train switched to a 4 gen prelude transmission rigged to a SH engine. There were a lot of rigs and other deletions that plagued the car the whole time I had it.

Now the fine folks at Honda had this crazy idea to place the filter of the automatic transmission inside the transmission in a non user serviceable way. It was great on the first 4 generations of the Prelude but in the 5th one it was nicknamed auto-tragic transmission. I forget the exact details but it was a gear or something made of a metal that did not take heat well. To this day 5g preludes with an auto-tragic that was never used on the highway for long commutes still hold up. But if your daily was to scoot down the interstate an hour a day those did not hold up well. Honda jumped the gun and used the same technology in lots of Accords as well so all through the early 2000's junkyards across America were littered with nice cars with a busted transmission.

They used the same metal on syncronizers for the stick shift trannies too so even though those largely did not fail, they ended up with that crunching sound we love so much going into second or third gear (or both in some cases).

As a testiment to the 5th gen Prelude though only a bit over 58000 were made and its not unusual to see one on the road here in 2021. Mine was one of the first ones made and my sons 01 is one of the last ones made. When we swapped engines in his we weighed carefully the options of balance shaft delete, after market or stock. Being the car was destined to be a Sunday driver with occasional spirited jaunt down a country road we opted for stock. 6-1/2 half years and about 45k miles it's doing fine. He bought that car with a botched motor rebuild job so we swapped in a more torquey engine from a Japanese station wagon.

I've spent the last two nights geeking out on what goes wrong with Lexus cars. It seems some of the things wrong are pretty common and can be solved without much fuss. Just time and parts swaps unlike my 97 Prelude where I first had to learn what it was in stock platform then figure out how to unrig what had been botched or deleted. Often times taking other things with it when it failed. The Lexus was a family car from new until 2019 when my son bought it and fixed some of the gremlins (or paid a shop to). So no guessing what a monkey with a gun had done to this one so far.

Much of my time will be spent learning what parts Toyota shared with this one since a Corolla door actuator is half the price of a Lexus one. So if it's the same part just in a different plastic bag with a different part number I'll go that route like I did with the Prelude a number of times. My Prelude had Acura parts and Accord parts that were available at a nearby junkyard and were direct swaps.

 

[Grijon]

I love this thread with its stories, pictures and information.

I sold my '01 Civic (that I posted earlier) with 212k+ on it. No new problems and was doing fine, but we had bought my in-laws' 2005 Hyundai Tucson from them and it had working air conditioning, so no longer needed the Civic.

141k on the Tucson when we got it in November and it will share commuting duty with my V-Star 950. The Civic averaged 2,000 miles a year (LOL!), but now my commute is 40 miles 5-6 days a week, so the Tucson is already building numbers.

 

[bykfixer]

Speedo says she'll do 160. I'll likely never know.
Speed limit is 70 max and that's 10mph faster than I like going these days.

252xxx on the odo

 

[SCEMan]

My 2001 Nissan Frontier turns 20 this year. 105k miles and only routine maintenance and normal wear so far. It's been reliable and trouble-free and I enjoy the simplicity of its non-computerized features (even has roll-up windows).

 

[Owen]

Could have probably waited another 5k or so, but I never liked its current Yokohama Avid Ascend Touring S tires, so my 2013 Corolla LE is about to get new shoes again.

-Tires every 60k or so
-Brake pads at 190k('cause I can drive and stuff)
-Battery ~225k
-Oil and filter changes every 10k
-A few pair each of wiper blades and upgraded headlight bulbs
-$0 in repairs or other maintenance

First and only new car I've ever had, and it was "free"(at least before gas prices dropped).
Bought it on New Year's Eve, 12/31/12, when gas was $4/gal here, and I was driving from AL to TN 3-4 times per month to go hiking. I was spending over $600/mo in gas for my old Tundra 4x4. Between a multicar discount on insurance and dropping the Tundra to liability only, a $350 car payment, and saving over $300mo in gas, I pretty much broke even from day 1.
Almost 8.5yrs later, it's certainly paid for itself, and then some, even with lower gas prices in the meantime.

Wonderful little car. Road noise has been my only complaint. Along with upgrading the battery, the "Big 3" grounds, and installing an aftermarket stereo system, I fully sound damped the doors, floor, side panels and trunk within a few months of buying the car. Dang thing is still loud as crap on the highway

 

[bykfixer]

To truely dampen sounds from road noise requires a lot of insulation be added throughout the automobile including the trunk and firewall. Ah, but then wind noise creeps in through the glass.

My favorite cooky mechanic has a few tips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3635GyE_lE

There's also laminates available for glass that not only dampens wind noise but helps prevent objects from penetrating through the glass without adding a bunch of weight.

 

[markr6]

My favorite cooky mechanic has a few tips.

I knew who it was going to be even before clicking the link

 

[Jim Bonney]

I don't think I've ever had a vehicle under 100k. My current 97 F250 is at 165k. It's a 385 series big block so it's not even halfway yet. We just donated my wife's old Acura with 250k and running great. Her current 09 Forester XT is at 175k. My dad had three Cherokee's (96/98/99) all over 300k. We put a 4.6 stroker in the 98 for kicks and the 99 finally lost the original 4.0 at 335k so we did a re-ring. The 96 is still pulling stumps (literally, we pull lodge pole pine) with over 330k, all original.

I wonder how many newer cars made by a company not from Japan and ending in 'A' will last so long. New cars are nicer than they've ever been but the build quality isn't what it was in the 95-05 era. Seems like every major player except Toyota is plagued with transmission issues due to the increased output of direct gasoline injection and far more complication in terms of double the forward speeds. And CVT's have always been questionable.

Then again, I'm sure a Tesla will last a lot longer than any gasser.

 

[3_gun]

1994 Geo Tracker (really a Suzuki Sidekick) w/158K/mi. Still a solid ride but I do have some work I need to catch up come spring. With luck it's the last car I'll own

 

[thermal guy]

100,000 miles on a vehicle is not really a lot at all. My Kia van that I just got rid of " which I miss very much" had 245,000 and only reason I had to let it go was because it wouldn't pass inspection.

 

[bykfixer]

Had the pleasure of driving my son's 012 Acura TL AWD SH edition shortly after it passed 100k miles. Super handling car that rides good and is quiet.

We went to pick up a 92 Toyota Aristo with 78k on it.

 

[Eicca]

My first car was a 1998 Lexus GS400, 4.0L V8. Bought it at 189k. I later discovered just how badly it had been neglected by its previous owners, but I got it running good as new (other than the blown suspension) before it was hit and totaled a few weeks ago at 229k. Resilient old thing. Miss it every day.

But also I don't miss it that much because I picked up a 2006 Lexus GS430 to replace it. Newer platform, basically the same engine but bored to 4.3L, only 132k miles. It's still young and, other than a slight sway bar clunk, it's in impeccable condition. I anticipate many years from this one.

My mom daily drives a 1999 Land Cruiser with 270k on it. Runs flawless. My dad daily drives a 2008 Accord V6 with 260k on it. Also runs flawless.