It’s the Tercel of Theseus: if every part has been replaced, is it still the same car?
We used to say (tongue in cheek) that after 250k, the MB diesel engine was broken in. I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
> I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant.
The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every aspect. It rusted, the plastics were cheaper, etc.
The follow-up, the W210, is the model that cost MB dearly. Through cost-cutting and greed, they lost a huge chunk of the taxi market. The car itself was also an absolute rust-bucket piece of cr*p, the interior was also worst, with the whole woes compounded by crappy electronics.
MB as a brand hasn't really recovered from that. The engineering excellency, attention to detail, and engineering pride that made those W123/W124 almost unkillable is lost, and won't be found again.
I drove one for years, acquired when they were available as a quite cheap ~15 year old car. I've since switched to a Toyota and been quite happy with that. I don't know how long the current Toyotas will last, but the golden era Toyotas I think probably last about as well as the legendary MB diesels (with the bonus of not having to track down vacuum leaks).
Emissions systems on diesel engines have made the reliability pretty abysmal. That's not to say improving emissions isn't a good goal, but it was implemented terribly.
Between regulators over prescribing solutions and car companies finding the quickest and cheapest "fix" every step of the way, we ended with horribly complex motors that break down much earlier than before. It'd be interesting to see a comparison of total emissions when a 90s diesel is still on the road today compared to a newer diesel that is effectively junk in 10 years or a couple hundred thousand miles.
ICE vehicles just can't go away quickly enough (and we should aggressively get stinky vehicles like everything pre-EU5 and loud vehicles like motorcycles and scooters off the road first).
I'm not huge on regulation, but if anything MIV is underregulated. Even in the EU anything that was street-legal at some point in the past 70 years is grandfathered in, nevermind that illegal vehicle modifications - if caught - at most earn a slap on the wrist. That's enormously dumb and doesn't fly anywhere else.
Someone I knew had it and they drove it 24/7 in 3 shifts and it had over a million kilometers on it. Visually looked fine and ran fine.
To me this makes it less interesting. I would be amazed if the original parts (outside of what gets replaced for maintenance) lasted that long. But it’s hard to judge how durable the car is when everything has been replaced
With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. Maybe not with nmc batteries. But some lfp batteries seem to have enough charge cycles on paper that they really could last that long. 5000 charge cycles at 300 miles per charge adds up to about 1.5M miles. Of course lots of other things might fail. But at least electrical motors are known to be pretty durable. That's not a common failure point on EVs as far as I know. But there's plenty of other stuff in EVs (electronics, cooling systems, suspension, etc.) that can break.
Of course, it will be a while before we'll see EVs that have driven that far as those type of batteries have only been on the market for a few years and even with 100K miles driven per year (which is a lot), it would take 12 years to get to 1.2M. This Toyota took quite a few decades to get there.
According to the article, this car actually wasn't particularly durable (the words 'rust buckets' were used). But if you just keep patching it up, of course it will run fine. And greasing up all the bits that would normally rust seems smart as well.
I doubt it. The components in modern cars are not made to last as long. Neither is the software. Ever tried a 15 year old Iphone? A Tesla won't feel much different.
Everything is meant to be consumed nowadays, and eventually, sooner rather than later, replaced.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/meet-the-man-with-the-250000-m...
Battery is still over 90%. And given that he’s having to do a full charge every day for the amount he drives, that’s pretty impressive. Still on the original brake pads too.
Sounds like all he’s really had to do is put on new tires a couple of times.
Unfortunately, battery tech despite all the lab "super improvements" are not seeing any major gains in the field. And a lot of money has been going into that.
Lets also not forget that battery packs are full of electronics, BMS, and other items that may be less forgiving on a rebuild where batteries may be off in voltage or have a different charge cycle.
The future is going to be "interesting", especially for car collectors.
Getting a old antique car running is often not that hard (as long as it has not been standing where water can enter the engine. New hoses, oil changes, clean filters, and you can often get engines that have stood outside for 15, 20 years going again. Sure, its going to smoke, may need new piston rings, ... and Water being the prime killer.
But a battery pack in those conditions?
> 5000 charge cycles at 300 miles per charge adds up to about 1.5M miles.
Under ideal driving / charge situations...
* Hot areas like Spain. For instance, its know that batteries from EVs in hot area's tend to be much more degraded, then from cooler areas (make sense).
* Did they fast charge those batteries = your going to cycle down a LOT more. Remember, those 6000 cycle for stuff like LiPo batteries are based upon slow charging. General tip for people with solar: Overspec your battery sizes, your going to thank me.
* Did they always charge to 100%? What is the actual hidden reserve on a battery pack? Is it 5%, 10%?
* How many times did they drive below the 20% range.
There is a lot of elements that interact with your battery life. I mean, how many of use have thrown out perfectly good smartphone because the battery life became a disaster after only a few years. And the cost to replace the battery was not in proportion.
Recently people driving to holiday here in Europe had fun times... 15 a 25min wait times at charge stations, and when they hit 80% they got kicked off the fast chargers (because after 80% it becomes very slow to charge up those last 20%). Slow charging was not allowed. So people needed to stop around every 60 a 70% of their battery range on their holiday trip. Wait 15 a 25 min for a charger, then wait another 45 min for their charge. While the guy with his ICE engine, stops, tanks in 5 minutes, goes for another 50% more distance.
As for the factors affecting battery life, it's looking like age above everything else is the primary killer of batteries. Temp is a solved problem, all modern EVs have a cooling/heating system.
Cell phone batteries are also different from EV batteries. You won't find a cell phone with an LFP. that's because cell phones target energy density above all else.
As for travel charging, 15 to 25 waits are typical and charging past 80% is slow. A battery at 10% can accept 350kW of power. Batteries are 80% typically can't accept more than 80kW or less. The 80% to 100% time can take twice as long as the 0 to 80 time.
Waiting for a charger to be available is an infrastructure problem. I've had to wait on gas pumps to be available during busy times. Conversely, the most I've waited to charge has been 10 minutes (and I've traveled every thanksgiving for 7 years of EV ownership).
The 20 minute break is welcome after driving 2->3 hours.
Charging station wait times comes down to growing pains. Not enough stations combined with battery tech not yet having reached maturity. It’ll fix itself as more stations are installed and the technology continues to advance. The only bad thing to do would be to stop.
As far as antique cars go, I’m not too worried because both energy density in batteries and efficiency in motors has been increasing substantially over time. By the time these cars are old enough to be antiques, people will want to do full retrofits with modern batteries and motors anyway because what they came with will look primitive and clunky in comparison. The ceiling for potential on EV tech is much higher than it is for ICE based systems.
My last two holidays in Europe I drove an EV about 1000 km to a holiday destination, and back again. So far I have never had to queue to charge.
I did notice that it is not unusual for a rest stop with only 2 to 4 fast chargers to be fully occupied. But if you use an app like ABRP to plan ahead, then it will tend to guide you to larger charging sites (e.g. 20 to 30 fast chargers of a few different brands). These charge planning apps also have live data about how many chargers are currently in use, so they will not send you to a fully occupied site if there are alternatives.
YMMV and the situation will change every year of course, as more EVs are added. Norway is the most advanced in Europe when it comes to car electrification, so if there are issues I guess they will show up over there first.
The fact that the owner can keep it going is a testament to the maintainability of combustion engines that don't have high tech computers in them.
New engines with modern ECUs are every bit as maintainable.
The ECU doesn’t make an engine less maintainable. Modern engines would have more moving pieces such as variable valve timing but otherwise they’re very similar in concept and maintenance.
I know of at least two cars with 800k km with original engines. Both GM small blocks (Gen 2, multiport fuel injection so computer-controlled). Neither engine has been opened since they rolled off the floor in the 90s. They’re not particularly efficient (only about 270HP out of 5.7L) but if taken care of, they probably will go forever.
Definitely an exception, though. Very little else on those cars is still original. But it can be done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irv_Gordon had a Volvo with over 3.25 million miles (5.2Tm), although it's also had 3 engine rebuilds.
And the conversion is actually fairly simple. 1M km is 600k miles, so you were in the ballpark.
Metric is really far simpler, while Freedom Units are like going back to counting change in Roman-inspired £sd.
If someone says "the only original part is likely the body", then that makes it sound like they've replaced pretty much everything except the body itself, including everything about the engine and transmission.
What if you disassemble all of the car except the wheels and reassemble it but with new wheels?
How about if you also exclude the seats too.
At what point does the answer change? That’s the whole point of the ship of theseus.
More relevantly, I don't think neurons are replaced. There must be some material churn in the atoms and molecules that make them up, but even then different for different molecules - e.g. I don't know how much of our DNA molecules get replaced over a lifespan from the repair or other mechanisms.
Tattoos however, IIUC, sort of "float" between cells, and as those cells are replaced one-by-one the ink is kept in place by the surrounding cells that are still there.
First it's his new car, then it becomes his new car with new tires, and then his car with new windshield wipers, and finally his old car with all new parts and some old ones. None of them are the same car.
I think in cases where it' a major rebuild, like turning a WW2 Minesweeper first into a ferry, and finally into Cousteau's research ship Calypso this outlook is more obvious. Are these ships all the same despite getting almost a full refit at each stage? I would say none of them are the same ship, but completely separate "things" with some old and some new parts.
Because if you get chain timing issues on a 2010 BMW diesel, you ain't repairing that, it's more expensive than a new car.
In the article the guy has 3 whole spare cars for donor parts and he does all the work himself. He’s not paying mechanic rates or even buying new parts (which are no longer available).
The amount of time and effort he’s put into this car is undoubtedly more expensive than buying a new car at this point, unless you count his time and free.
Sometimes we're more connected/sentimental about specific physical items, than the prices themselves. I kind of feel like you have to be a special sort of person to own a BMW, so wouldn't surprise me that same "special" person would pay more to repair their specific car than replacing it with an identical one but without that issue.
Getting those parts used would be less expensive, and a win for the environment, but the labor cost is very high.
aka
This is my grandfather’s axe. My father replaced the handle. I replaced the head.
Tercel of Theseus
My dad once got a used saab 99 (a nice tomato soup color) and we rolled the odometer while we owned it. Great car with proper maintenance, which used to be sooo easy and accessible.
But they aren’t, not even close. Oil is massively subisidised by the military before the environmental costs. Brake particulates and tyres don’t cover the cost of microplastics and lung damage, heavy cars don’t pay anywhere near the damage they cause to the roads and bridges etc.
Due to this you can argue pretty much whatever you want by ignoring certain costs depending what you want to come out with.
My petrol car is 20 years old, it’s done 70,000 miles, it weighs about 1,000kg and burns through 300 litres of unleaded each year to do the 3,000 miles I do in it.
I suspect scrapping and replacing this with even a small electric car would not be globally environmentally worthwhile. There may be improvements to local air quality assuming regenerative breaking etc, that may be offset by increased tyre and road wear though, even ignoring the impact of the co2 to generate the 80kWh a year it would require.
A modern "ship of theseus" paradox.
It’s more impressive that this man has the fortitude and dedication to keep spare parts, constantly maintain it, and even have back up vehicles for all these years.
If the article mentioned the car had its original engine this entire time. I would have seen it as an anomaly and possibly a good testament to Toyota engineering and need to keep up with maintenance.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/mechanic-restores-an-ls-4...
Although the current owner's plan to do a cannonball run in it is something I find off-putting. His previous stupid idea was to put a turbocharger and see how long it will last, fortunately his fans dissuaded him from doing it.
The overwhelming majority of 1980s Toyota Tercels do not make it to a million kilometers. This one didn’t, either. It has had every part replaced, many multiple times over.
The owner has 3 donor parts cars and there’s a photo of his piles of parts like alternators. The original car didn’t last a million kilometers. He’s just been replacing parts constantly.
> My guess is none as they are impossible to fix yourself.
No they’re not. I have a lot of car friends and we all do most of our own work. One of them has now opened a shop and services BMWs including engine rebuilds of modern engines.
This is a myth. Service manuals are available. Even the digital repair tools are widely pirated, but you can generally buy a short term license to use them yourself if you want.
As long as some enterprising pirate (probably a shady Russian forum) keeps hold of all the model-specific software.
120km per day of commuting is crazy to me. I work from home and occasionally do a 14km bicycle commute to the office.
I have an 85 Vanagon Westfalia with a modest 450k km.
That's the kind of thing that inspired us to build a repairable electric battery for ebikes at https://gouach.com !
We want more repair, less planned obsolescence :)
This is the only way to exceed the forging cost.
> When it turned over from 999,999 kilometres to 000,000 kilometres in September 2017
The idea of averaging 31k miles a year is just insane to me. My car hasn't done that since i bought it new 8 years ago.
The car ran fine and was ultimately sold to a taxi driver that apparently brought it to close to a million (no proof though).
I think now days people treat cars like phones. Minimal continual maintenance can work wonders and save you a bundle in the process.