High Mileage Vehicle Repair

Ours is a 2005 Dodge Durango, with 167,000 miles on it. Can't buy a new one, due to high monthly payments and will get very little-to-nothing out of ours. It's a must to have a vehicle that can pull the boat/trailer. But, until a job comes along, we can't buy a used one either. We love our Durango and it pulls our 20' boat on 27' trailer very nicely.

We've got a few oil leaks, that are apparently from valve cover gaskets, front crank seal, transmission cooler lines and possibly the rear main seal. We had a mechanic look at and confirmed. We plan on replacing the gaskets and seals, but will wait on the rear main seal due to the expense of dropping the transmission for that repair. Fix from Dodge Dealer would be around $1,500 or more. Fix from local repair shop, down the street from us: $931...…...already looked at and quoted/written down. So, next week we go to the local repair shop.

I absolutely know that I can't do this repair!

Then, a little later, front and rear brake job done. Brake Pads on all, new calipers on rear, and, if needed, new rotors. Rotors can only be resurfaced so many times and we may have hit those times. Cost: approx. $600 total (front/rear).

When owning a "high mileage" vehicle, these repairs are an absolute necessity. IOW, we love our Durango!

 

Yep, ya gotta do what ya gotta do as far as upkeep and maintenance. My car is getting older but is still in great condition; it's a 2012 Lincoln MKX that is garage kept and hasn't got 20k miles on it yet. Seems like when we go anywhere we take my husband's Jeep because it's always sitting in the driveway.

 

Well, we sold our old 1997 Dodge RAM 1500, before leaving Florida. It had high mileage on it as well (over 150k) and we knew more and more repairs would be coming. It can be fairly tough having only one vehicle, especially when it comes to leaving it at a repair shop. Either have to wait hours for a major repair or, hopefully the shop is close enough to home that a mechanic can use a company vehicle to drive the people home. This is especially true with no family or friends to call.

Right now, until we can clear more things out of our garage, our Durango has to sit outside in the winter weather. But, most of the parking spaces here are taken, so there are many residents that have to do the same. Anyway, our Durango would barely fit into the garage we have here. These garages are made for smaller vehicles.

 

Yeah, I often think we could do fine with one vehicle, but it's handy to have two on occasion.

We have a large 2-car garage with a workshop area, but my husband prefers to leave his Jeep out on the driveway for some reason. Of course we don't get snow; he'd probably choose covered parking if we did.

 

My son leaves his Jeep in the driveway year round and he wraps it.

 

What does that mean... "wraps it?"

I wish my husband would trade that Jeep for a pickup truck, but it's set up for towing behind our motorhome so we keep it.

 

Like one wraps a boat in the off season.

 

Leaks are just leaks if they don't affect operation of the vehicle. Couldn't you just add fluids when necessary?

 

Nope, want to get them fixed, before they get bigger and bigger. There are oil leak products, like Blue Devil Rear Main Sealer, ATP and Bars Leaks, but they are band-aids for oil leaks.

 

You can do a heck of a lot of fixing before you approach any where near the cost of a new vehicle. As long as it's not rust, nothin beats rust. Rust sucks!

 

I had a 2005 Subaru that I put 210,000 miles on in 6 years and sold it for $2500. Just did normal maintenance and tires on it.

 

I drove a Toyota Carina Station Wagon for 10 years, had three accidents that made the car virtually unsaleable, had put 157,000 miles on it and wanted to trade it in for my next brand new car.
Asked the sales assistant: How much will I get for it? He goes: "Get? You'll have to bring $500 if you want to trade it in." Eventually got $500 for it.

 

I had a boss who ran his Chevy until almost dead and then wanted to trade it. He suffered the same fate as you Tom.

 

Well, Yvonne, not totally sure if the boat will be sold this year. It can depend on how "physically" able we still are to use it. On top of that, being the boat is a 1992, even with low hours on the engine, we just won't get much out of the boat and the same goes for the Durango, which is a 2005 with 167,000 miles on it now.

The Durango really isn't that big, compared to a Dodge RAM 3500 and has a smaller V-8 than the V-8 in our boat. A smaller vehicle just isn't for us and, with my long legs, I still have to put the drivers seat all the way back in order to drive.