Highest Mileage Cars?

[tnord]

do the chassis start to fatigue eventually? has anybody seam welded these things?

[benzthis]

do the chassis start to fatigue eventually? has anybody seam welded these things?

The driftworks e46 v10 was seam welded in the engine bay.not sure about the rest of the car.did BMW seam weld their race cars?

[Redline]

209k on my 2nd driveshaft and 2nd diff (about to rebuild this one now as well)

[Redline]

after delving into Porsche 996/997 ownership, this car feels like a reliable camry. 109k here.

so reliable, i'm debating swapping out my e90/330 for an e90/m3 instead of the P car.

BuT pORsHe SuCH ReLIaBLe

i always laugh when people claim this, of course a car will be reliable when the most of them sit in a garage more then on the road.

[M3mike]

Here's a photo of my odo when I reached 250k. It's at 253k+ right now. On it's 4th set of bearings (OE, recall, PO, and me).

It's been a DD with a few track days.

I'm curious to see how the cylinder bores look like.

what vanos work has been done I assume not still original?

[M3Bob]

200K plus. Have done preventive maintenance like rod bearings, VANOS, replaced suspension a couple of times, cooling system once, etc. Still need to do engine mounts (still original), subframe bushings, and diff bushings in the near future....

[maw1124]

after delving into Porsche 996/997 ownership, this car feels like a reliable camry. 109k here.

so reliable, i'm debating swapping out my e90/330 for an e90/m3 instead of the P car.

These were always better cars than the 996/997... I just never could see what the extra money was for... my car is a relatively low miler so I’m just watching this thread ... but the Active Autowerke car I drove when thinking about a supercharger had 300k on it... it made me look at this car much differently...

maw

[Obioban]

Rolling over 200,000 miles on a backroad in the wagon:

[Icecream]

BuT pORsHe SuCH ReLIaBLe

i always laugh when people claim this, of course a car will be reliable when the most of them sit in a garage more then on the road.

funnier than us claiming all these miles and reliability after performing major "preventive" maintenance so many times?

[erickhoyos]

169,930 miles on 2004 M3 SMG. Haven’t done subframe, rod bearing, or VANOS yet. And she runs like a dream. Only major issues were CPV and more recently slave cylinder.

[zzyzx85]

what vanos work has been done I assume not still original?

Everything in the VANOS has been done but the exhaust hub. PO was gentle on it so the tabs were still intact when I bought it.

[Obioban]

Everything in the VANOS has been done but the exhaust hub. PO was gentle on it so the tabs were still intact when I bought it.

There is no correlation between being gentle on it and intact tabs. Purely lottery based.

[tnord]

funnier than us claiming all these miles and reliability after performing major "preventive" maintenance so many times?

difference being with the M96/97 motors, many of their issues cannot be permanently addressed like we can with the VANOS tabs. Cylinder bores start to get scored and you're looking at a $15-$25k rebuild. Not much you can do about it.

The infamous IMS bearing is the least of my concerns. There are a couple solutions that cost a couple grand to address, and you can get to the problematic rear main seal at the same time. Scored/cracked cylinder liners there's no part you can throw at it that will prevent the issue without a full rebuild. I may just wait for the right car that's been rebuilt by the right people with the right parts, as they don't cost a ton more.

The M3 has its share of problems, and the 996/997 is generally reliable other than the motor from what I can tell. They don't have plastic cooling systems that need regular replacement, gaskets that get brittle and leak, or a commuter car chassis that tears itself apart. But at least with the M3 there are ways to deal with all of that.

[maupineda]

My S54 at 43k is a baby 👶

glad to see I have tons of miles of motoring ahead

and I dint think all 996/7 Porsches have bore scoring issues and there are many 300k+ miles out there too. Is all on how any machine is taken care of.

[tnord]

no, of course not all engines have issues. I think the IMS, if left unaddressed affects something like 6%-10% of cars, as admitted by Porsche in the class action suit, and it's the most common issue. From what I've been able to discern, is that somewhat standard practices of what is generally viewed as caring for the car, like letting it idle for a while to warm up, is actually harming the car. Same thing with OCI, even if you follow the factory recommendation of 15k miles, that's increasing your odds of having a problem. And on and on.

bore scoring, cracked heads, D-chunk, etc individually are probably like a 1-3% occurrence. Which, if I was looking at a $10k repair.....that's one thing....but it's really a $20k rebuild, doubling your investment in the car. I haven't quite mentally got past that yet.

If I can find a car that's been through the rebuild process, had the sleeves replaced, etc, and pay an extra $5-$10k for that particular car, I can get behind that. However, it's not too much more of a jump to get the 997.2 with the 9A motor that doesn't have those issues in the first place.