The Epic Mileage Question

When you think about high mileage, what's your relative metric?  That is to say: how many miles per year do you think is a lot?  For reference, the picture above is from the odometer of a 2006 Honda Civic, and yes that's 730,490 miles.  Doing some basic math, that adds up to 121,748 miles per year, 10,145 miles per month, 333.6 miles per day, or that this particular Honda has averaged 13.9 miles per hour since it's purchase 6 years ago.  That's insane.  My '97 328i has at the time of this writing, 174,672 miles on it- meaning for each of those particular metrics, it's done 11,644 miles per year, 970 miles per month, 31 miles per day, and an average speed of 1.3mph since it was sold.

Putting this kind of intergalactic mileage on a car takes a lot of dedication and mechanical sympathy.  This particular Civic (you can find the 64-page thread on 8th Gen Civic here) is on it's second engine and transmission.  It goes through a set of tires every 40,000 miles or so - or 4 months.  It's been hit by deer three times, and he's driven it so much he rubbed the paint off the original shift knob.  You usually only see this kind of mileage density on cars driven professionally; courier services and suchlike.  The owner does medical equipment deliveries to nursing homes, usually 660 miles a day during the week and 360 on weekends.  It's not that high mileage Hondas are unusual - I personally have a friend with a '95 Integra closing in on 286,000 miles, still looks and drives great.  "Million Mile Joe" rolled the 6-digit odometer over on his '91 Accord last year, but it's the insanely short time period here that gets me.

Honda doesn't make white shift knobs, 730k of shifting a five speed makes a black one white.

So when you're driving so much you do oil changes monthly, tire rotations weekly and balancing every three weeks, what would you want to be driving?  DeltaTechX (the forum member with 730k+ miles) seemed to have chosen well with the Civic; one engine and tranny in a million kilometers is certainly more than you'd expect from a lot of cars.

Averaging insane mileage like that, the list of priorities shift.  When I look for a car, I think about things like engine performance, luxuries, aftermarket potential, character, etc.  If I was putting 100k+ miles on a car a year, it'd be... different.  I'd be looking for things like reliability, ease of maintenance and low cost of replacement parts, long gearing, comfortable seats, good stereo, and most importantly - a lack of unnecessary complication.

"Yeah man, back in the day, when it was low-mileage."

That would rule out things like gas and diesel turbo Audi/VW's, which are great on road trips, but bad for the long term for a few reasons.  VAG's current direct-injection turbo 2.0L is a nice motor, but the long-term downsides of direct injection - things like gas contamination in the fuel, carbon deposit buildup on intake valves, liability of clogging an expensive and hard to replace injector with bad gas - are more expensive than they're worth.  VW's diesels are great highway motors, too: long gearing, tons of torque, and mid-40's MPG for most.  I would wonder if the cost of maintaining one (higher than a simple gas engine, especially with the more complex 2.0 TDI they're using now) would offset the gas mileage, though.

I'd look for a few things in particular.  Mechanically, I'd want an inline four cylinder with chain-driven camshafts and port injection.  To me, this is still the most reliable, easily maintained layout out there.  Nothing fancy, but port injection is simpler and doesn't have the carbon building and oil dilution issues that GDI has.  A timing-chain engine is a no-brainer for two reasons: you won't be having to dump a grand on a timing belt and water pump replacement every year, and if you have an "interference" style timing belt motor and the belt snaps, you'll be buying a cylinder head too.  Inline fours mounted transversely are some of the easiest to work on for basic maintenance: plugs take 10 minutes, belts take 30, oil changes are easy, you could even change oxygen sensors with relatively little complication.

Apparently you can wear the cloth off an arm-rest.  Holy crap.

It would have to be a manual, too.  Considering how long automatic transmissions have been around, you'd think they'd have come up with one than can go 300k without needing to get tagged out, but as far as I know they haven't yet.  You might have to do a clutch every 200-300k, but I'd rather do that than replace a whole transmission.  I like twin-clutch boxes (efficient and cool) but don't trust them yet either - plus VW's DSG requires a costly service every 40k miles which would cut into profitability.

The car itself?  A small to medium sedan or hatchback, well equipped.  If you're driving for a profession, you want it to be at least somewhat comfortable, fun to drive (relatively speaking) and well equipped.  I'd look for heated leather seats, a sunroof, power windows and locks, and obviously cruise control.  I'd skip navigation (it's a waste of money, just get a Garmin), but a good stereo with USB inputs would be a plus.  The 12GB of music on my iPod would come in handy, as would Pandora.

So with this relatively tight set of requirements, some cars come to mind for intergalactic mileage requirements.

-Mazda 3s Grand Touring hatchback: comes with the 2.5L MZR I4, which is a chain-driven port-injected motor, and a 6-speed manual.  167bhp is fun enough, around 30mpg highway is good, and heated leather seats don't hurt either.  The 2.0L "SkyActiv" 3 hatchback isn't available with a manual in upper-level Grand Touring spec, but the 38mpg and 155bhp is tempting.

-Honda Accord EX Sedan.  For some reason you can't get an EX-L (heated leather) with a manual; just swap in the leather seats and call it a day.  This has the 190bhp "high output" K24, basically the same engine in the new TSX, but it's still a K-series so it's anvil-simple: timing chain, 5w20 Dino oil every 5k, plugs and valve clearance adjustment every 105k, easy to work on (knowing from experience.)  The V6 would be tempting, but you can't get a manual V6 in a sedan - and it's got a belt.  Sure the Accord is an anodyne flavorless car.  But it's comfortable, quiet, spacious and gets 34mpg.

-Scion tC: Wait, huh?  The new tC isn't a looker, but I'd imagine it's a good epic mileager.  The 2.5L I4 is from the Camry, so how troublesome could it be?  It's got a timing chain with balance shafts, VVT-i and some decent poke: 180bhp and a 6-speed manual good for 31mpg highway.  The thumpin' stereos that Scion loves so much would be nice, and the panoramic glass sunroof would too.

-2013 Hyundai Elantra GT: probably what I'd wind up getting.  The Elantra GT is light, gets 40mpg, has a revvy twin-cam 1.8L and a 6-speed manual, and looks good.  It's also got plenty of interior space, port injection, timing chain, and you can get heated leather seats.  Done!

If you were getting a car to put stupid mileage on, what would you think about?  What attributes would you consider important?  Comments and gallery (with various odo shots) below!

Hat tip to Karl S for the link to this insane Civic.