Wow, amazing highmileage car pictures in this thread, and the discussion is great!

Im hoping my SC can last well into the 300k as she is currently at (216k miles MOSTLY highway.)

 

As far as I know there are several documented cases of European cars with extremely high mileages (in the millions). I believe the car with the highest mileage ever recorded was a particular Volvo model owned by a Swedish man (in Sweden) with something upwards of 9 million (!!!) kilometers in the 1960s or 1970s. It's in the Guinness Book of World Records by the way.

Next up you have a load of Mercedes-Benz cars beginning with that 240D taxi from Greece which had something like 4.2 million kilometers on its odometer purely from stop-and-go-traffic in the city. Oh wait, those cars never cost $100K+ so you must be right!

You are missing a very important point in your analogy. A European luxury sedan with a price upwards of $100K+ will generally have a large and powerful engine with a high torque output and this means wear and tear on the vehicles components over time, especially if the vehicle is driven hard. A $14K Civic? No torque, no problem.

 

Like you say, though, it depends on how they are driven. A high-torque engine (especially high torque at low RPM's) will often be driven only at low or partial throttle openings (it doesn't need any more), which lessens stress on the engine itself. An engine with wimpy torque (especially at low RPMs) will often be driven at higher or wider throttle opeinings just to keep up with traffic....that, of course, will place more stress on the engine. The transmission/final-drive gearing ratios also play a large role in how hard you actually work the engine getting up to speed.

That is why large V8's, in EPA mileage tests, often achieve highway mileage as good or better than smaller V6s, and even some fours.

 

Very true. A 500 hp car is barely ever going to stretch its muscles. Most drivers will never take it beyond 3000 RPM.

A 4-cylinder econo-box will have its muscles stretched all the time just to merge onto highways or pass, ect.

 

That Volvo isn't German.

Check this out. The '07 Yaris turning 304,000 miles with the peddle to the metal topping out at 115 mph (fast forward to 3:30).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt7xsPSkCDQ



He has done this numerous times. Talk about abuse! 106 hp car being red-lined with over 300,000 miles on it and it still runs perfect.

 

concerning european high mileage cars, absolutey....but it's almost always the entry level versions, or the diesel versions. the high output modern engines from amg, or the M series will amost never make it that far because of hte reasons noted in above posts. hell my dad had an old 240D years ago with nearly 300k miles on it, never had the valve cover off and still ran great. 0-60 could have been timed with a sundial. would i trust a new S550 or whatever they have now to get to 300k without anything other than oil changes? nope. of course the heyday of german reliability was definitely the 70's, 80's and early 90's. now they are just too electronic and complicated to go that far without work being done.