The lifespan of a vehicle is not fixed but is significantly influenced by usage, maintenance, and driving habits, with the potential to remain reliable for as long as the owner desires, provided the cost of repairs remains justifiable against the vehicle's value.
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How long should your vehicle last? I get
asked this question quite a bit. Um, and
it is one heck of a loaded question.
I've got a vehicle with 300 plus,000 mi
outside that uh has a snow plow on it
that is an anomaly. Some people have
broken their vehicles to the point of
not wanting to fix them at 80,000 mi.
But generally, if you take the whole
pool, the most common 10 to 15 years,
150,000 to 200,000 mi. Now, there's
factors on how long your vehicle is
going to last. Obviously, um why would
one person's vehicle last 80,000 mi,
somebody else's last is lasts
300,000 mi. Uh here's some factors to
think of. The first factor you should
think of is what you use the vehicle
for. Uh let's say you have a midsize
pickup truck. You you use yours to tow a
construction trailer to work every day.
You're stopping and going. You're kind
of in a a dirty lot all the time. Uh
it's it's getting used uh for for work
every day versus let's say I have one
and I just wake up every morning and I
drive 30 miles to work and I park it and
I drive home 30 miles from work and I
park it in my garage and that's all the
use is. I think mine's going to last
longer than the construction guy that's
using his all day long. So, what you use
it for uh is going to be a huge factor.
The second one, and the one that I feel
like is the most important, is how you
maintain it. Uh there's some people that
uh don't believe in maintenance. They
just drive buy a vehicle, they drive it
until something breaks, and then we tow
it in here and we fix whatever broke. Uh
that's great. We need those clients, but
uh my best clients don't do it that way.
Uh and then there's people that uh pay
attention to maintenance schedules and
stuff like that and they prevent things.
U when it comes to maintenance, if uh I
ask my clients, how long do you plan?
What are you going to do with this
vehicle? How long are you going to keep
it? If you're a client that just leases
a car for say three to five years and
you turn them over, we're not going to
be doing a lot of preventative
maintenance because you're not going to
get the benefits of that. But if you're
a customer like me that drives their
vehicles to 200, maybe even 300 if I
really like it, uh I'm going to do all
the all the scheduled maintenance in
that first 100,000 miles because it
really makes a difference on how good
that vehicle drives and how reliable it
is in the second 100,000 miles. So,
keeping up on good, clean fluids in a
vehicle, most the best thing you can
possibly do to avoid uh having to get a
different vehicle and having major
failures and just keeping an eye on
things. Just having my mechanics uh look
at my vehicles every time they come in
for an oil service. And if there's
anything showing up that isn't quite
right, I have them take care of that
before it becomes an issue. before I'm
in the middle of a road trip and having
my my truck getting hot or whatever it
might be. The third factor, honestly, is
who's driving it. Uh some people uh I
don't know, some people are bad luck,
some people are just a little bit harder
on vehicles. Uh uh brakes. Uh we have we
we have about the same three lines of
brakes that we like to use in our shop
for our vehicles and our clients
vehicles. Some people can go
100 to 200,000 miles once we've replaced
their brakes, never have an issue. Some
people can chew through those babies in
about 30,000 mi. You know, the the guy
that's up on the mountain every day in
the winter, he's skiing, so he's going
up and down the ski runs every day and
then he's taking his mountain bike up
and down there most days in the summer.
Obviously, he's going to wear out things
uh a little bit more than say my wife
that just uh gets in her car and drives
10 miles per hour to the Pilates gym in
the morning, right? So, who's driving it
uh and what they're where they're
driving it to makes a big difference.
And flat out, some people are just
harder on stuff. You know, when I was uh
16, 17, 18,
uh I I broke cars cuz I drove pretty
aggressively. Now, I'm the guy that
you're honking at cuz he's going uh 5
miles per hour under the speed limit in
the center lane on the freeway. So, I
don't break things as often. But who's
driving it and kind of what their what their
their
uh what their kind of their driving
actions are like, that does actually
make a factor on uh on how long their
vehicle lasts. So, uh, generally
speaking, when you're buying a car for
your your new driver, you're usually
not, uh, planning to have that vehicle
20 years later, whereas, you know,
nowadays, when I buy a newer vehicle,
I'm planning on driving that thing 10 to
20 years. So, in the end, really, the
final answer to the question, uh, we can
generally keep a customer's vehicle safe
and reliable for them as long as they
want to drive it. Um, it just kind of
becomes this point of diminished value,
right? So, if they're if a customer's
got a car that's 15 years old and now
all of a sudden it needs $10,000 repair,
uh if they love the car, we got
customers that do it, you know, we'll
we'll put $10,000 worth of work into a
car that they could maybe sell for
$7,000 and they choose to do that
because they like it and they don't want
to get a different one and it makes
sense to them. Uh but then there's other
people that are already on the fence of
wanting a new vehicle. So then when it
needs something big, they choose to get
another vehicle. So that's another thing
to keep in mind. You don't have to get a
new vehicle if you're you can you can
almost fix everything for as long as you
want to on most vehicles short of, you
know, corrosion issues and and stuff
like that. But we can keep what if you
really like your vehicle, we can keep it
going as long as you want to own it.
It's just a matter of uh if the costs
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