15 Vehicles that can (float on land) from forbes news

There's a problem with the original link - I think Forbes put a load of junk into the address.

Here's a link that works.

15 Vehicles That Can Run For 200,000—Even 300,000—Miles Or More – Forbes

 

I think any car will if you want to put the time and money it it.

 

You have never owned a 1980s Citroen.

 

I'm surprised Priuses weren't on the list. They do last forever.

All I can guess is that the situation in the US is similar to that in Australia and Japan.

In Australia and Japan, old Priuses go to Fiji, Samoa and other Pacific Islands. Some Japanese ones, and lots of ones from LHD markets, go to Cambodia. They're perfect because they're so reliable and fuel efficient in markets where fuel and parts can be expensive or hard to get hold of. Almost every taxi I've got in Fiji, and every car-and-driver service that wasn't a tuk-tuk in Cambodia, has been a Gen 2 foreign Prius.

Do American Priuses go abroad when they get old too?

 

On the Ranger forum I used to visit, one user had a flotation package come with theirs. The parking lot had flooded, and while other cars just sat there in water to the windshield, the Ranger was ungainly bobbing around.

The info is coming from iSeeCars.com, a cars sales and research site. Other reports have been posted here in the past. These reports are usually just from single year of car sales. For this one, it is the top 15 models sold in the year with over 200k miles on the odometer at the time of sale. If few high mileage Prii were sold in that year, they won't make the list. Even if they did, the cars on that list out sold the Prius when new and/or have been around for decades longer. Of potential used sales, the Prius is out numbered. There is the HiHy there that is probably being sold because of good prices for the seller, or the seller is upgrading to a more efficient model.

Most of the cars on the list are full frame trucks, that are very likely equipped with older, but now well tested, engine and transmission technologies. The current 4runner came out in 2009, and its last drive train upgrade was in 2014.

 

iSeeCars is one of the premier research outfits for car statistics, and the Prius is on the list of Longest-Lasting Cars to Reach 200,000 Miles and Beyond - iSeeCars.com but trucks and SUVs dominate when they consider all vehicle types.

 

"iSeeCars.com analyzed over 11.8 million pre-owned cars sold in 2020. Models that were not in production as of the 2021 model year, heavy duty vehicles, and low-volume models were excluded from further analysis. For each model, the percentage of the number of cars with at least 200,000 miles was mathematically modeled."

I wouldn't call looking at the sales of used cars in one year a premier study. Look at the Aqua and Fit hybrid sales in Japan. The Aqua has been the number one selling model there almost since introduction, but narrow the time frame you look at down, and the result will be the Fit as #1.

The Forbes list is for a different year. The Tacoma and Avalon are a lower percentage, and tied with the Navigator on it than the direct iSeeCars link. The Prius is on the list at that link; tied with the Navigator, but at the #16 slot, so may have just missed the Forbes list. The ties probably aren't real ties, but look that way because of the number rounding used.

 

It's not about absolute numbers, though: the report says it's about the percentage of each of the vehicles sold online which had done over 200,000 miles. For example, 2.6% of Avalons sold on this site had done more than 200,000 miles, and 2.7% of Odysseys.

That's why I find it weird. Your explanation makes perfect sense for absolute numbers, because giant trucks and truck-based SUVs sell in huge numbers in the US. But it doesn't explain the percentage thing, and the ranking by percentage just doesn't seem right.

I mean, if it were on straight percentage of vehicles sold that had done more than 200,000 miles, you'd expect a really reliable long-discontinued model to be top, so that there aren't new cars pushing the figure down. Something like the W123 Mercedes: there can hardly be any of those now that have done less than 200,000 miles.

And I don't know whether it's the case in the US, but in Australia the Gen 4 Prius really has not sold well in comparison to Gens 2 and 3, which means (exports to Fiji notwithstanding), that Priuses on the used market skew old, which, combined with their reliability, is likely to lead to a very high proportion of them having done more than 200,000 miles.

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Actually, I'll just have a look on Gumtree.com.au.

There are 68 Priuses for sale.

7 have done more than 320,000km / 200,000 miles. So if we used the methodology of the article, we'd be at just over 10% - way ahead of anything on the Forbes list. The highest is 668,000km, which is barely run in. I got a Gen 3 taxi in Darwin once than had done 750,000km, and the driver told me he had changed the consumables - lubricants and fluids, the brake pads and the wiper blades - and had never had to do anything else to it.

But on Carsales.com.au, there are 70 Priuses for sale and only three have done more than 320,000km, so that would put it at a bit under 5% (which would still rank it fourth in the Forbes article.