Re: recommendations for cars/suv
Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2024 10:06 am
Total mileage achieved before the vehicle's demise doesn't mean much anymore, because people drive lots more now than 40 to 50 years ago. It is commonly said that "newer cars last much longer than they did 50 years ago". The thing is, however, that the average miles per year driven back then was around 6 to 8 thousand, and generally that was for a family that was a single-car family when it was purchased. A vehicle would typically be 15 or more years old before it reached 100,000 miles, because by then it had usually been replaced as the primary "family car", and made a 'work car', as the family moved up economically. (At least that's the way it was in my parent's case. The 53 DeSoto that my parents bought in 1960, incidentally, before my mom even had a driver's license, only made it up to 115,000 miles or there abouts. It was 19 years old when it was retired. It would have been repaired had it been only 7 or 8 years old, the age it would be according to the high end of average annual miles now-a-days (around 16K/year).
Many sites will say the average is around 13,500 miles/year. But that is an average of the average for all age groups, separately for men & women, then an average of those separate averages. But in a single car family, those two figures would be added, not averaged. (On-line sites say that the two-car family became common in around the late 50’s to early 60’s, and this correlates with my parent’s case, as my Mom began driving in the early 60’s, after my Dad bought a pickup as a work vehicle.)
The US Dept of Transportation – Federal Highway Administration site shows a chart with the averages broken down by gender and age.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
EDIT: I don't think that the first age group, 16-19, should even be included, at least in respect to a family, or to adults in general.
All of that doesn't answer your question, but I think that it is pertinent information, so there it is....
That said, I come from a MoPar family. Historically that means Chrysler Plymouth Dodge DeSoto, but I guess now it just means Chrysler, Dodge, Ram. We own 2 Dodges, and a Ram pickup. The 2 Dodges I need to sell, something I'm really terrible at, because in my family, a car was run until it's retirement, then "put out to pasture" - literally. (My younger brother still has the 53 DeSoto, and the 62 Chrysler that replaced it as the family car in 1966, after which the 53 was my Dad's work car until 1972, when it was retired. The 62 Chrysler was later my own first car, which I took over when it was 15 or 16 years old, and finished it off so to speak several years later through a stupid thing I did, when it was at a bit over 112,000 miles.)
Our family car is now a 2019 Honda CR-V. I like it OK, but the automatic take over of driving choices by the electronics drives me batty. (For instance, if we're on the freeway with the cruise set, and someone pulls into our lane close in front of us, the car applies the brakes, even though the car in front is continuing to pull away from us. So I have to turn the cruise off every time that happens, if I want to continue to control the vehicle myself.) But I WILL say, it gets fantastic MPG, even with a small 4 cylinder engine. It has a Turbo Charger. (Now I'm thinking that I should figure out how to install a Turbo on my 46 Plymouth....)
Many sites will say the average is around 13,500 miles/year. But that is an average of the average for all age groups, separately for men & women, then an average of those separate averages. But in a single car family, those two figures would be added, not averaged. (On-line sites say that the two-car family became common in around the late 50’s to early 60’s, and this correlates with my parent’s case, as my Mom began driving in the early 60’s, after my Dad bought a pickup as a work vehicle.)
The US Dept of Transportation – Federal Highway Administration site shows a chart with the averages broken down by gender and age.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
EDIT: I don't think that the first age group, 16-19, should even be included, at least in respect to a family, or to adults in general.
All of that doesn't answer your question, but I think that it is pertinent information, so there it is....
That said, I come from a MoPar family. Historically that means Chrysler Plymouth Dodge DeSoto, but I guess now it just means Chrysler, Dodge, Ram. We own 2 Dodges, and a Ram pickup. The 2 Dodges I need to sell, something I'm really terrible at, because in my family, a car was run until it's retirement, then "put out to pasture" - literally. (My younger brother still has the 53 DeSoto, and the 62 Chrysler that replaced it as the family car in 1966, after which the 53 was my Dad's work car until 1972, when it was retired. The 62 Chrysler was later my own first car, which I took over when it was 15 or 16 years old, and finished it off so to speak several years later through a stupid thing I did, when it was at a bit over 112,000 miles.)
Our family car is now a 2019 Honda CR-V. I like it OK, but the automatic take over of driving choices by the electronics drives me batty. (For instance, if we're on the freeway with the cruise set, and someone pulls into our lane close in front of us, the car applies the brakes, even though the car in front is continuing to pull away from us. So I have to turn the cruise off every time that happens, if I want to continue to control the vehicle myself.) But I WILL say, it gets fantastic MPG, even with a small 4 cylinder engine. It has a Turbo Charger. (Now I'm thinking that I should figure out how to install a Turbo on my 46 Plymouth....)