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Comment by borkt | Hacker News Reader

I drive a 30 year old vehicle at times, replaced the engine with a japanese engine at around 60k on it, at a cost of around $2,000 with new timing belt and associated accessories/pumps/etc. The engine is rock solid still pushing out about 450 HP but the suspension, frame, and body are pretty beat at ~200k miles on the car. I would say you really aren't going to have an enjoyable car at much more than 130-150k miles, whether or not the drivetrain is replaced. I did a good amount of work in college on fatigue cycles in metals, and with our roads and infrastructure deteriorating this is only going to decrease the usable life of an average frame/suspension.

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I'd dispute the idea that a car with 130k-150k miles can't be enjoyable. I've had multiple BMWs with more than that many miles that were plenty enjoyable. None of them had any drivetrain replacements though all of them had suspension replacements as should be expected as those are all wear components. I've even had other BMW owners remark that my 200k+-mile car drives better than their own with ~60k miles due to the recency of the suspension component replacements on mine.

There's certainly degradation that occurs to a car with lots of mileage, but it's generally with the interior and the electrical systems. There may be some exterior corrosion, too, if you live in the appropriate climate though corrosion resistance has improved a lot on cars lately. And, of course, all bets are off if you don't properly maintain the car.

I drive a toyota at 180k and it's fine. It's not pretty or perfect, but it gets me to and from work with no issue.

I should get around to replacing some suspension components to make it more comfortable to drive, probably will later this year when I get some time. They're not terribly expensive.

In Belarus there are quite a few of BMW and Audi approaching 30 years or more. According to a person that works in a shop specializing in their repair the biggest issue is rust. The engine and other parts are mostly original with minimal repairs. In Belarus a good mechanic earns 700-1000 usd/month and his time is cheaper then getting replacement parts.

Yeah, that's a fascinating technical question if someone were to try for a "car for life" model. My college car was still driving fine when I sold it (at about 13 years in its life and something less that 70k miles), but the interior plastics were deteriorating faster than I would have expected to the point where pliers were needed to be used to adjust the a/c as the knobs broke off and probably the window cranks were about to follow.

The other side of it too is accidents are likely to always be an issue with cars (even in a world of self-driving cars, I suspect), and there are plenty of other safety reasons cars shouldn't be expected to be driven for too many years without replacement.

Yup. I've got a 20 year old BMW with 150k miles on it, and it's a fantastic car. But things wear out.

Electric or ICE, as you hit 150-200k, you'll have long since worn through all kinds of rubber bushings on virtually every part, you'll be approaching the point where you've had to replace starter or alternator, you'll have (hopefully) replaced your suspension a couple of times, and so on. As the value continues to decline, the 'value' of spending parts+labor money on any of these replacements starts to decline.

Can I ask what parts you're referring to specifically when you say "replace the suspension"? My car is past 100k at this point and I'm looking forward to what might need to be done to keep it reasonably nice.

Usually, you'd be talking dampers (often called shock absorbers in the UK), and often the springs will have broken.

Having said that, I remember that 20 years ago, those kinds of parts would need to be replaced after maybe 60-80k miles. However, everything seems to be better built now - my van has 214k on it, and no sign of needing replacements - same goes for all the cars I've bought and sold (20 or so) in the last 3 years.

Primarily the shocks / dampeners and their rubber bushings.

You at least need to do struts and shocks, probably springs if they're separate. You'll want to check the strut towers are still decent, or if they need reinforcement.

Going a little deeper, probably your tie rods and sway bar links are shot, as are the control arm bushings (which may or may not be integral with the entire control arm).

It's pretty commonly for shocks/struts/dampers to be worn out by 50-80k miles. As early as 30k. Sure, the car will still seem to generally drive fine, but the point is that all of these things get worse over time.

Further on down the mileage line, virtually everything is wearing out. Rubber bushings in control arms. Rubber bushings in all your rear suspension points. There's rubber EVERYWHERE on cars, and it all wears out. Motor mounts, transmission mounts, shock mounts. Again, it'll still go down the road, but it won't drive like new. You might have a lot of slop in steering, slop in cornering. The car might pull one way or another under acceleration. It'll be louder, harsher, clunkier.

The transmission, especially on an automatic, is the thing that often does them in. I just recently had one go on a 18 year old Chevy Imapla and decided to sell it rather than fixing it. The body and interior are in very good condition. The problem is that other stuff is starting to go. For example the AC has never been serviced and will be an issue in the near future, I live in Atlanta where that is needed. I've gone through two EGR valves, throttle position sensor etc.. The car, working perfectly can sell for up to $4500 with new tires, but it has old tires (-$400), plus the transmission rebuild/replace is going to be between $2100-$2500. The engine itself is in great shape with no problems and if I wanted to dump more money into it I could drive the car to 300 plus thousand miles, but it is starting to need to have things fixed more and more....

It helped that I was able to get a brand new loaded Volt for $9,000 off plus an additional $7500 tax rebate. which in the end means that I have the best of both worlds for $25,000 with a full warranty etc..

Most of the parts that degrade in a suspension are replacable. Bushings, stabilizer links, steering links, shocks, etc. are all easily replaced in most cars (n.b. EVs such as Tesla are the same as any other car in regards to these parts -- they will wear over time). The core frame structure is not going to suffer any significant fatigue from normal driving. Rust is another matter of course.

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