I've got about 170K on my 99 Contour SVT; needs a tune and some other odds and ends. Hopefully I will get an arfcommer to take a look at it in a couple weeks. Still on the original clutch.

Wife's got only 40K on her 2006 Liberty CRD. I hope that truck lasts 250K.

I figure my car should last until 250K plus and then I will find something else.

TR

My commuter is a 98 Neon two door. It just hit 130K this week, but it is still a baby. I sold my brother a 96 Neon four door and he drive it daily until somebody hit him and totaled it with 225K on it. My commuter before this Neon was a 95 Dodge Neon, it was hit and totaled a few years ago with 180K on the clock. My wifes current car is a 96 Neon, 160K miles.

I know, everybody you know tells you that Neons are junk, and I guess they are. Of course I have had good luck with them, but that is surely a fluke. Of the four one has needed a head gasket, and that one is the baby that I drive now, at 120K it started overheating, I ran every test known to man, and determined that it needed a fan relay, but noticed that it did have a small head gasket leak, that wasn't causing the over heating but figured it was better to take care of it than run it knowing it had a bad gasket, the radiator was fine, until I hit it with a pocket knife and broke it, no sense repairing a radiator with 120K on it when a new replacement is only $100.

None of them have ever had any trans problems, none of them have ever had any internal engine problems (well the 95 with 180K had a little piston slap when it was cold, but it had that when it was brand new, and it never bothered anything). None of them have ever had so much as a speck of rust anywhere on them. Other than my wife having no concept of what keeping a vehicle clean means and letting the carpet in hers get really nasty, all of them have interiors in great condition, no busted door handles, no window regulators broken. I haven't had much trouble from any of them. The 96 I sold to my brother developed a nasty oil leak, but it turned out to be a bad seal on a cam position sensor, cost $5 and 10 minutes to fix, saw the same problem starting on my current commuter, and nipped it in the bud.

None of these cars has been particularly well maintained, other than the one I sold to my brother, he takes much better care of his cars than I do. I don't think any of them went more than 8-9K between an oil change, but I could be wrong about that. The auto trannys seem to be less troublesome than the manuals in the Neons, the 96 my brother bought from me and went 225K was shifting strong and smooth when he drove it to the lot after the wreck, the auto in my wifes 96 is shifting smooth and stong at 160K, on both of my five speeds I have had to replace either shifter cables or bushings at around 100K. I have never had to replace a clutch in a Neon, the 95 that had 180K was starting to grind a little going into 3rd gear, but that may have been the shifter bushings starting to fail again.

All in all, I have no doubt that any of these cars could easily have made it, and my current commuter may make it to 250K without major issues, probably well beyond, but I don't know if I will keep it that long. My wife wants something larger and nicer to drive, I am starting to want something different, I have been driving a two door five speed Neon daily for fifteen years. I just don't know what I would buy that would give me that kind of reliability.

One further note on my luck with Neons, all of these Neons are Belvidere cars, they were built in Illinois by union workers. I am no fan of the UAW, but they did right on the Neons, I don't think the Mexican built Neons fared nearly as well.

ETA: My work truck at ICI/Worldcom was a 96 F250 super cab 4x4, I got it with only 40K on the clock, and it was retired two days before I was laid off, it had 296K on it. I had the suspension rebuilt at 200K, and other than that it just ran, it got oil changes every 5K once I started driving it, and that was pretty much it. It only failed to start one time on all of those miles, and that was when a neglected coil wire had burnt through, otherwise it started up every single morning, and every single evening, no exceptions, no failures.