Lexus: How long can I run my 98 RX300?

> 1) How many miles can we put on this car before the "wheels fall off?".
How 
What 

If you live in an area where corrosion is not a huge issue (e.g, not in the
rust belt), most cars can be driven indefinitely. Maintenance and repair
costs will continue to increase, but for most areas, there is no practical
upper limit on how long you can drive a car.

Except for collectables, cars do reach the point where the cost of repairs
exceeds the value of the car. But most cars hit the junkheap long before
this though - the owner loses interest in the car, stops getting things
repaired, and simply drives it into the ground.

If you take reasonable care of an RX300, perform routine maintenance, don't
get involved in collisions, etc., it should be economically viable to drive
it to 300K-500K, but there are lots of variables. I have a friend with a
Ford Explorer with 500K and it is a reliable daily commuter. But he's got a
long commute and he stacks on the miles - calendar time is often times more
important than mileage. Long-term, things like corrosion, electrical system
deteoriation, accessory glitches, instrument failures, safety system
failures, etc. take more of a toll than mileage wear items that can be
replaced.
 
in 

If you're looking for the lowest total cost of ownership, your best bet is
to buy a new (or good shape used car) and drive it forever, or as long as
you can before something really expensive requires repair. The cost of
routine maintenance and repairs is almost always less than the depreciation
you'll incur on a new car. Having said this, older cars tend to require
more TLC and you run a higher risk of breakdowns,. And today's cars are
vastly improved in nearly all areas. So most people replace a new car long
before it is worn out - they just want something new and don't want to
bother doing the repairs, even if this is the cheaper way to go. IOW, there
is more to car ownership than simple economics.

- Mark

My 1992 ES300 has 246,000 miles on the original engine and trans,and is still running fine.

"markjen" <net> wrote in message news:kcCTc.125026$.. 
How 
What 

If you live in an area where corrosion is not a huge issue (e.g, not in the
rust belt), most cars can be driven indefinitely. Maintenance and repair
costs will continue to increase, but for most areas, there is no practical
upper limit on how long you can drive a car.

Except for collectables, cars do reach the point where the cost of repairs
exceeds the value of the car. But most cars hit the junkheap long before
this though - the owner loses interest in the car, stops getting things
repaired, and simply drives it into the ground.

If you take reasonable care of an RX300, perform routine maintenance, don't
get involved in collisions, etc., it should be economically viable to drive
it to 300K-500K, but there are lots of variables. I have a friend with a
Ford Explorer with 500K and it is a reliable daily commuter. But he's got a
long commute and he stacks on the miles - calendar time is often times more
important than mileage. Long-term, things like corrosion, electrical system
deteoriation, accessory glitches, instrument failures, safety system
failures, etc. take more of a toll than mileage wear items that can be
replaced.
 
in 

If you're looking for the lowest total cost of ownership, your best bet is
to buy a new (or good shape used car) and drive it forever, or as long as
you can before something really expensive requires repair. The cost of
routine maintenance and repairs is almost always less than the depreciation
you'll incur on a new car. Having said this, older cars tend to require
more TLC and you run a higher risk of breakdowns,. And today's cars are
vastly improved in nearly all areas. So most people replace a new car long
before it is worn out - they just want something new and don't want to
bother doing the repairs, even if this is the cheaper way to go. IOW, there
is more to car ownership than simple economics.

- Mark

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 23:26:06 UTC, "Neil Kolban" <com>
wrote:
 
If you're willing to keep fixing them, cars can go a long time-- 20
years or more, or half-million miles. Rust may be what ultimately
makes them unrepairable (or at least not worth the trouble).
 

It's nearly always cheaper to keep driving the car. At least to my
way of thinking, the issue is not the value of your current car, but
rather the cost to buy a new one. By the time a car's 10+ years old
it's probably worth only a few thousand bucks, and most importantly,
it's not depreciating that quickly any more. If you figure that the
capital cost of buying a new car is, say, $500/month (ie what you'd
have to pay in loan payments-- even if you "loaned" the money to
yourself by taking it out of the bank), then as long as you're
spending less than $6000 per year in maintenance it's cheaper to fix
your old car (assuming that a new car doesn't cost anything to
maintian). It's very hard to spend that much in maintenance, so it's
nearly always to keep on truckin'. So the deciding factor more often
becomes 1) whether the car has become unreliable to the point where,
maintenance notwithstanding, you can't count on it to complete a given
trip successfully, 2) whether the hassle of constantly taking it to
the shop is getting to be a real nuisance or (most commonly) 3)
whether you're just plain tired of your current car.

> So the deciding factor more often 

This puts it better than I did.

- Mark