The 1,000,000 mile Elantra

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500+ miles per day, every day…for five years

To be fair, she is driving in Kansas, where the roads are good, they don’t get much snow/ice or have roads littered with potholes.

i sat in a Hyundai elantra rental car and got out before i even turned the key…i wouldn’t wanna drive that plastic thing even for 5 min…500 mi/day? lol …torture

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10 hours a day/ 7 days a week in an Elantra. I couldn’t do it. I spend 3 hours a day / 5 days a week in the car and thats way more than enough

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If I had to do 1,000,000 miles in five years, I’d get a CPO 2017 Lexus ES 350. Reason being it will still have five years of unlimited mileage, bumper to bumper warranty. And it’s a cushy highway car.

I do wonder what sort of proof of maintenance is required to keep that warranty.

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Wow, I don’t really follow Lexus, and didn’t realize they had such a nice CPO warranty.

It would be my luck though, the engine would die at year 5, day 1 with 1,000,000 on the clock.

I’d say you still got your money’s worth :yum:

I find it extremely hard to believe someone actually drove that much in five years.
I need to see tire purchases and maintenance records.

I wonder what the residual is like on a million mile lease…

In the article it said Hyundai closely examined the car and her records and concluded she actually did it.

I think the reason Hyundai closely examined it is because even the engineers at Hyundai could not believe their POS would last for so many miles. They check all the components which were due to have failed at 100k miles and tried to determine why they hadn’t…

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My favorite part of the story is the SUV style grille guard she has installed. I’m guessing that Kansas gets some large, stupid four legged friends that like to wander roadside?

Her job is in auto parts, so I’m assuming she had some kind of help with pricing on regular maintenance items as well as anything crazy that came up. They never detailed all the stuff that crapped out on the car over those million miles. Plus since it’s for business purposes I’m guessing it all got written off too.

Someone got fired for over-engineering parts and therefore costing them money :smile:

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-150% … the bank would pay you to drive

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Actually all joking aside this is an interesting topic. By definition a true Leasehackr doesn’t have to worry too much about reliability. They acquire and then dispatch the car before the warranty runs out. Reliability only comes into play if you depend on your car for work/school and you worry about your Fiat crapping out too often.

Someone like the Hyundai lady can’t do a lease. She has to worry about reliability. So what makes a reliable modern car?

That 2013 Elantra runs a 1.8 non-turbo motor. The article doesn’t say if it is a manual or automatic but even the auto in that car is only a 6 speed- very well sorted technology. Google up some interior shots and you’ll see that most things have physical controls- no screen required to run the AC. If it was built well (as this one clearly was) it is the automotive equivalent of a cockroach.

I suspect that the move to turbo motors, 8 and 10 speed automatics with or without dual clutch systems, integration of controls into computerized systems without digital and tons of electronic driver’s aids is going to mean lower long term reliability.

If you want true long term reliability you want a car that debuted new in the early 2000’s through about 2010. After that you are at the mercy of turbos and modern electronics.

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Cars are usually past their prime after 10 years…

Isnt Benz advertising the same warranty on cpo’s now ? Only difference is you would actually be putting more miles on their loaners than on your own car so would be hard to hit 1mil miles on it…

That’s a high score on the LH calculator thanks to a new car every million miles xD

Hyundai was skeptical initially, and sent technicians to inspect the veracity of the million claim. According to this report from Carscoops, Hyundai inspected the engine block serial numbers, pulled the car’s diagnostic information, checked the dealer’s service history, and ran a CarFax report, to name a few. They came away impressed. I am, too.