Monday Mileage Champion: On The Road Again

Click here to view the embedded video. The 420,000 mile Ford truck. The 420,000 mile Chevy truck. The 420,000 mile Camry. The 420,000 mile Accord. I have covered all of these brands and models to the point now where I just hope, wish and dream of a different vehicle to highlight. A few months ago I finally had a pair of Saturns make it to the top. A little before that there was a 90′s Altima that handily beat nearly 7000 other cars and trucks.  This week… No such luck. Although there was one surprise. This is how the Top 5 looked this time around out of 6863 trade-in contestants for the week. 1. 2003 Ford E-350 XLT:  426,776 miles 2. 2000 Honda Civic EX:  387,915 miles 3. 2001 Nissan Xterra SE: 377,966 miles 4. 2000 Ford Crown Vic:   353,951 miles (TAXI!) 5. 1999 Toyota Sienna LE: 341,630 miles   The Xterra was a welcome surprise from the usual Toyota, Honda, Ford, and Chevy domination. A Manual. 4WD. The engine needed service but that won't matter given that it will be fixed up and exported in short time. Almost every older, high mileage, Japanese SUV with four-wheel-drive and a handshaker winds up on the export side of the ledger. Like many of the exported vehicles with gonzo mileage, I'm sure this one will also be given an 'exempt' recording of the mileage on the title and a nice healthy 200k mile rollback. They sell better that way. So the big five here are more than likely highway oriented vehicles. Livery and transport companies usually favor domestics for their continuous travels, and we can argue the reasons why until Ford finally builds a suitable Panther replacement. High mileage is fun to categorize, but let's face it. There is bias. The fleet world is Ford and Chevy happy. So let's look at the high mileage list from a more aged perspective. What about vehicles that are at least 20 year old? What brands and models registered the highest mileage this time around? Number one would be this 1992 Toyota Paseo with another handshaker and sun faded racing stripes on either side of the hood. Toyotas from the mid-80′s thru the mid-90′s have a notorious tendency to have their paint streaked and speckled at the points where the sun and debris hit em' the most. Still, even the worst Toyota paint jobs are far better than the wafer thin domestic paint-jobs of the time. But if I can offer one universal weakness to early-90′s Toyotas, it would be paint fade. This 21 year old mileage champion was followed by a 1990 Lexus LS400 (290k), a 1990 Honda Accord (279k),  a 1993 Ford F150 (278k), and a 1992 Camry (277k). So it seems like we're stuck at the same point as before. Well, maybe not folks. I'll throw in a few factoids given that today is tax day. . After 64,049 vehicles tallied, the brands with the highest percentage of models with over 180k are… 1. Honda  2. Toyota 3. Lexus 4. Acura and a surprising 5th… 5. GMC The first four have 20+% of their trade-ins with over 180k. GMC is at just over 17%. Now for an even bigger shocker… 13% of Mitsubishis are now traded in with over 180k. I happen to finance an awful lot of them these days with a clear conscience. So this is no surprise from where I sit.  Meanwhile, Mercedes tallies a mere 6.9%. BMW yields 5.9%. Audi barely hits the mileage pedal with only 4.5%, while VW does little better, even with dozens of TDI models, at 4.9%. To further crown the European propensity for penurious plentitude when it comes to all things mileage related, the two absolute worst marques for mileage are Jaguar at 2.6% and Land Rover at 2.8%. Porsche is even worse at 0.52%. But since a Porsche daily driver is an exception rather than the rule, we gave it a bye. On the homefront, we have one other surprise. Cadillac is barely beating the bad old Kias of the 90′s and early 2000′s. 3.8% for the former Northstar division vs. 3.7% for a company that brought us shitboxes such as the Sephia and the early Kia Rios. Do you have free time today? Or happen to work for an OEM? Click here and have fun.         from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com

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