4 Cars That Made It to 1 Million Miles
Lisa Steuer McArdle
· 4 min read
Most of us hope that regular
car maintenance
will help our vehicles get well over the 100,000-mile mark. However, few expect to add another zero to that figure—especially with our car's original engine
intact. But a lucky and diligent group of drivers has managed to do the seemingly unthinkable: get their cars to one million miles with the original engines.
How in the world did they accomplish such a feat? Let's look at a few of the one-million-mile vehicles that
Autocar
has identified.
One million miles for a 1990 Honda Accord
Maine
resident Joe LoCicero bought his 1990 Honda Accord, which he nicknamed True Blue, when it was six years old and had 74,000 miles. He credits regular oil changes and diligent maintenance with helping him reach his one-million-mile milestone. As a vehicle inspector, LoCicero drove nearly 5,000 miles a month. All that time behind the wheel paid off, though. When he reached the one-million mark in 2011, he was gifted a brand new Accord by Darling Auto Group Honda to celebrate the accomplishment.
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A 2013 Hyundai Elantra also hits the mark
Believe it or not, there's a 2013 car out there that already managed to reach the coveted one-million-mile mark. It's a Hyundai Elantra belonging to Farrah Haines of Olathe, Kansas. As a car parts delivery driver, Haines managed to rack up a whopping 200,000 miles per year on her car, which comes out to 548 miles per day, every day of the year.
Like LoCicero, Haines really lucked out when news of her accomplishment became public. After Hyundai verified that she had in fact achieved the one-million-mile mark, the company surprised her with a new 2019 Elantra. While this kept her from accomplishing her next goal—to reach 1,500,000 miles—she certainly wasn't about to refuse the gift.
Haines credits her success in reaching one million miles both to her regular maintenance habits and to the quality of her vehicle.
A 2007 Toyota Tundra captures the attention of its manufacturer
Delivery driver Victor Sheppard bought his Toyota Tundra pickup new in 2007. When it reached 100,000 miles, Toyota heard about the feat and expressed interest in purchasing the Tundra from Sheppard in order to learn more about how he had kept on trucking for so long.
In fact, by the time he turned it over to Toyota in 2016, Sheppard had driven it some 1,020,130 miles, all with its original V-8 engine.
As a Toyota representative explained to The Fast Lane Truck, the owner had received consistent regular maintenance from one particular dealership. Having a knowledgeable mechanic who was familiar with the truck and how to repair it likely contributed to keeping it on the road for as long as Sheppard did.
A second one-million-mile Tundra got serviced at the same dealership
You know a dealership knows what it's doing when it services not one, but two one-million-mile vehicles. In this case, we're talking about Greg LeBlanc Toyota in Houma, Louisiana.
When Sheppard recommended the dealership to his friend, Aaron Morvant, little could he have guessed that Morvant would also reach a million miles in his 2007 Tundra. Autocar suspects that LeBlanc's is the only dealership in the world to have serviced two million-mile Tundras.
One thing that all these car owners have in common besides reaching a cool million is that they're also clearly careful drivers. None of them lost their vehicle to an accident over the course of their million-plus miles.
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