A Keeper Is Cheaper

With a little care, your car can last for decades—and save you thousands of dollars

By WILLIAM JEANES

“I miss my car and just want to see it back sitting in my drive-
way,” says Irv Gordon, 68, a retired schoolteacher who lives in
East Patchogue, New York. The average car on the road in this
country is nine years old and logs 15,000 miles a year. Gordon has
driven the sporty red Volvo P1800S he bought back in 1966 a lot
more than that—an astounding 2. 7 million miles. Just now the car
is in the shop. Gordon says he has learned to get the carburetors
rebuilt every 900,000 miles, whether they need it or not.

The secret to automotive longev-
ity turns out to be no secret at all: it’s
maintenance. “Do what needs to be
done when it needs to be done,” says
Gordon. Sounds too simple to be true,
doesn’t it? Yet in talking to the un-
crowned kings of the road for whom
a quarter-million miles in a vehicle is
just a beginning, the same advice keeps
emerging: read the owner’s manual
and stick to its schedule.

Irv Gordon CAR: 1966 Volvo P1800S MILEAGE: 2,700,000 TIP: “Check the fluids at every stop.”

show signs of wear. Start paying close attention at 50,000 miles and every 50,000 thereafter, he says.

A lot of trouble? Maybe. But the alternative can be costly, as Pete Biro learned the hard way. A longtime photographer of auto races (he retired about five years ago), Biro, 76, drove well over 200,000 miles in his 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee while following the off-road racing circuit.

“It’s been through rough use on dirt roads, gravel, river crossings, all that,” he says. “But I had another Cherokee that I didn’t pay attention to, and the engine froze up at

60,000 miles. So
I now religiously
take it in for ser-
vice every 3,000
miles. That’ll soon
be a hundred oil
changes.”
Keeping your car
in shape pays. In
fact, you can end
up saving more
than you spent on
it in the first place. Think about it: how
much does it really cost to maintain
your car? Let’s say you drive 50 percent
more than the average, or 22,500 miles
a year. In five years you’ll cover 112,500
miles. In that time you can count
on up to 30 oil changes at $40 each,
or $1,200 spent; miscellaneous service
costs (filters, hoses, tire rotation) of,
say, another $1,200; and maybe a ma-
jor item or two—such as a timing belt
replacement, and new brakes and