Swagg

i am looking at this 96 lexus but i found it has HIGH miles on it... they are almost up to the 300 k range... and im wondering if anyone knows how much longer it would last??

worldforgo

Thats not something we can answer. How long a car lasts depends on how well ut was maintained. If you can get service records on car with high mileage and its had its fluids changed, transmission flushed, timing belt etc. then mileage is fairly irrelevant. If your buying a car with a bunch of unknowns, then I would say avoid the really high mileage cars.

In short, if maintained a Toyota/Lexus will last for as long as you need it to.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

^ can't say it better than that

Trexus

Exactly what worldforgo stated.

I took my 1996 ES 300 to over 400,000 miles but then a week later she was rear-ended. I was so bummed. I was on my way to see how far she really could go but I'll never know...

EEngineer

exactly. my car has over 500k km on it. runs like a champ with almost twice as the power it came stock.
why? i dumped god knows how much time and effort in it making sure it runs right!

3ztwint

Depends on several factors, the main ones you should consider is the relationship between price and how well it was cared for. For example, I would be more willing to buy an ES with high miles like that if it was well below market value (i.e. could get for 1-2K) and/or if it was well cared for (i.e. all receipts, proof of T-belt/H2o pump change, no CEL on, good tires, brakes, rubber around ball joints and CV joints, etc. and if it was in pristine shape I may be willing to go CLOSER to market value, but absolutely not at or above, there are plenty of these out there and you could definitely find one with 120-150K miles on it for less than 4-5 grand if you just look around.
As for reliability, these things are really good, I like them so much that I just bought two of the MCV's (a 97 and 98 ES 300) for daily drivers because they are so reliable, they are actually better than the newer cars I have!! (thats what I get for going outside of the toyota family). Thats not to say that you wouldn't have some that could have issues, some of the problems that are possible are: A/c not working from bad exp valve, transmission issues (not often, but seen some w/rebuilt trannys at 100K+ miles, other than that it is mostly minor stuff; I think a good cared for ES with that engine (from 1994 on) can probably go over a million miles if you care for it (and that would mean just keeping up with oil changes, keep tires up/alignment, and timing belt, NOthing Major) I know of several people that have gone to 400K plus both in person and on these forums and the LOC forums. I think that there are actually several upsides in reliability on the ES's from these years over the GS and SC's (but probably not the LS, pretty much bulletproof all around, ESP the first gens) as the ES does not have the wretched ball joint issues of the 2G GS and some of the other small quirks that some SC's may have (though these are all really minor).
Bottomline, if it is taken care of and a decent price, you can still get many more miles out of it; just make sure you can justify the price/condition when comparing it to other ES's of the same vintage.

J