How many miles can we reasonably expect out of our cars?

tax guy said:

Backup camera and parking sensors front and rear, active cruise control, blind spot warning, and automatic braking are among the latest safety equipment on mine. This stuff becomes obsolete and gets improved upon in the next model, which is one of the reasons why I am leasing this one. I am a senior driver and having all of the latest safety assists has become a higher priority to me than it was when I was younger.

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As I get, erm, more senior myself, I'm beginning to think these things are really good to have. I don't have any of them now--other than a backup camera--as mine is a 2016 w/o DAP. My next car, whatever it is, will have at the very least the front collision avoidance stuff and lane change thingies.

I have a 1965 VW Beetle, so many safety electronics, well 8 fuses anyways. Might add seatbelts one day.

My only problem with all the tech is cars these days is that within a year or two they're out of date.

I love the car as is and can see myself driving it for at least 5 years.. I figure by that time i'll be able to buy a (mostly) self driving car for the commute.

ecsta said:

My only problem with all the tech is cars these days is that within a year or two they're out of date.

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Proof that they've become nothing more than rolling cell phones, eh?

Someday, maybe, we'll see more modularity in the electronics and safety suites. That would require forethought--but imagine being able to go in with a mechanically nice 4 year old car and upgrade the electronics to modern levels.

I mean, even offering a newer Android Auto/Apple CarPlay would be of benefit. You just know at some point those will stop working with later versions of the apps as the phones move forward.

I remember back in the late 90s when GM offered OnStar, and their partner was Verizon. Cellular systems were analog back then. Then one day Verizon said, "we're moving to all digital". Bam. That was it. Suddenly, all those older GM cars with analog cell interfaces for OnStar found themselves unable to use the service.

This made the news because a whole bunch of one-year-old Cadillacs were stuck with the older analog tech, and no way for GM to upgrade them to the new digital cell system.

That was insane. Such a system should be modular to the point of letting me, the owner, buy a new module from the dealer to handle newer cellular technologies. Shoot, T-Mobile alone is busy ramping things up hugely fast. If you're buying a new phone every year or two, or are on their "Jump" plans to swap out phones frequently, that's fine. But built in business systems are screwed when things go at that pace.

VW has their Car-Net, which is a Verizon-provided product on the back end. Not only does it not offer much in the way of features and value today, but I just don't trust Verizon. Imagine the look on my face when I hit the "i" button in my overhead to turn on the 6 month trial of Car-Net--and the woman tried her hardest to get me to sign up for 60 months for $851 plus tax, $915 total. !!!! For something that probably won't be useful 2 years from now as cellular tech changes, let alone how bad the product itself is overall.

I opted not to get the DAP package on my 18 that is en route. We have a 16 GTI PP with all the safety stuff. The only thing that is remotely usable imo was the cruise control. It worked very well in construction and two lane roads with heavy traffic that varied speed a lot. Other than that, the lane departure and blind spot stuff along with the parking assist I can live without.

My mk6 GTI had 110k miles with around 60k of those tuned with APR stage 2. Only major problem I had was the water pump but that was fixed under warranty even with the tune at around 65k miles. Drove it down to FL to give to my brother on Thanksgiving. The thing runs like a champ and the interior is still awesome.... I keep hearing how much more solid the MQB platform is so I look forward to having it stand the test of time and mileage. In reality though I'll probably trade it in for the mk8 if it I dig it lol

oddspyke said:

As with most newer cars, I would worry about age more than mileage. Mechanical systems are easy to maintain and fail in predictable ways for mostly predictable reasons. Digital electronics, less so. 8 to 10 years on, I would be surprised if all the electronics still worked, regardless of mileage. Think of it this way, what's the oldest functioning computer you still want to use?

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I don't know about any of you guys but i still enjoy driving my mkIV BT GTI, going on 17 years and the thrill i get from it is just as much fun as in my R if not more.

I’m keeping my car until the CPO 100k runs out, then I’m buying a CPO TT-RS. I freaking LOVE them.

I'll keep my R until the mk8 R comes out. Then it's either a new mk8 R or used rs3!

dynastyss said:

Dang 105k is not a lot...

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I'll bet he never changed the cam follower, then it wore through.
if you take care of your engine you should be able to get 200K easy. it's the other parts of your car that will wear out. plastic and rubber...

ecsta said:

My only problem with all the tech is cars these days is that within a year or two they're out of date.

I love the car as is and can see myself driving it for at least 5 years.. I figure by that time i'll be able to buy a (mostly) self driving car for the commute.

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I have a MK 6 R and it's not out of date. I bought a new phone last month

anyhow I may buy an android entertainment head, $500 instant up-to-date and you can't beat the payments $0.00.

TheWombat said:

Yeah, what oddspyke said. Most cars today can mechanically roll on for nearly forever, in car lifespan terms. The question is, do you want to be driving it at that point? Even since I purchased my 2016 R, the improvements/additions in safety electronics, the digital dash, stuff like that just in this model alone have been fairly significant, and if you look at other models, particularly more upscale models, each model year seems to bring some new thing that often is actually rather desirable. And that's not even counting the issues of stuff like firmware updates, software updates, system interactions, etc.

As cars become progressively more like aircraft--a bundle of integrated mechanical, electronic, and processor-based systems--how we view the age of a car is going to shift. I suspect that eventually we'll be seeing the car as a platform, like say an F-16, where you can do product improvement programs over the years to plug in new parts. Well, that would be the engineering solution; from a commodity/marketing POV, that probably won't happen because manufacturers want to sell you new stuff all the time.

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There are also 50 year old Cessna 150's still flying. it's just a question of how much electronic gadgetry you wan/ need/ are willing to pay for. there are a lot a gee-whiz cool gadgets on new cars, but I don't want to pay for a car that drives itself so I can sit and text on the freeway. That's the tech that will be changing with each new model year.

TheWombat said:

Yeah, the explosion of various sensors and associated processors that make up lane-changing, collision avoidance, pre-crash sensing, etc.

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I'd venture to guess that this gadgetry is adding from $5-20,000 to vehicle costs. The high end stuff is what really works.

bebersol said:

I'll bet he never changed the cam follower, then it wore through.
if you take care of your engine you should be able to get 200K easy. it's the other parts of your car that will wear out. plastic and rubber...

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Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the cam follower wear an FSI thing? I thought the TSI had that sorted out

Previous mk6 gti owner here. I was very active on the forums with it as well and never saw this as a concern. Pretty much just the timing chain tensioner and theyre good to go