'Only' 117,000 on my 54 plate Berlingo. Uses no oil even on 5w/40 and chugs along well enough. Usually loaded up full of tools as well as the built in seats and once it's warmed up I'm not shy with the loud pedal. Can't be when driving one of these! :-D

I used to know a guy who had a large-ish fleet of mini cabs. At any one time he owned and ran about 40 vehicles. i remember asking him, in conversation what sort of mileages he expected to get out of his cars before they reached the end of their useful lives.

He told me that most things from the mainstream manufacturers eg Fords Nissans, VAG, GM etc would get to 400-500 thousand miles before they became uneconomical to keep and that a few, ( particularly the Mercs interestingly enough ) had managed to get to a million miles before he felt he should bin them.

His attitude to what should/could be classed as "consumables" was perhaps wider reaching than most private motorists of course, he was quite at peace with replacing clutches, shocks, steering racks etc as required.

I then asked him to say then what was his "acid test" of impending end of life to which he replied that it was the diffs ( differentials ). He felt that once they started rumbling the thing probably "only" had another 50-100k miles in it !

Sort of makes you think when most of us might ( possibly reasonably ) feel that a car with 100k miles in total was starting to be tired and that by 200k it was probably getting near to the end of it's useable life. To that guy I knew, those cars were but youngsters !

Aye, maybe there's something in what you say. I've run a number of cars up to approaching 200k without too much grief but many if not most of my journeys are long ones.

Well, funnily enough, I was only thinking today that the family across the road might not be doing their cars any favours.

They have a long but narrow drive and have to park their 3 cars one behind the other. The lane between our houses is too narrow to safely leave cars parked on. They seem to be constantly shuffling them depending upon whether the mother, the father or the young adult son wants the use of their car. Goodness knows how many times a day they are all started and moved a few yards without necessarily going anywhere else.

Can't imagine it's the best way to treat them but I guess they haven't a lot of choice.

It's a combination of little things that see a car off. Air Con and ABS, electric windows and door locks, electric power steering.

The extended servicing shedules meant for fleet accountants cannot be recommended to private owners.

What if one is not insured on all the cars?