The universe works in mysterious ways.
In late June, I needed to pick up a vehicle from the body shop, so I called an Uber from my house. As an Acura enthusiast (or more so, a fanatic) I was pleased to see that my ride was going to be in a TSX. The car arrived and looked great. “How many miles are on it?” I asked as we got the trip underway. The driver, Randy, paused. I thought he might say it had 100,000 or so, but the car had 495,980 miles on the odometer. When the ride finished, I exchanged contact information with Randy so he could stay in touch when he got closer to the big-five.
He followed up with me only a couple of weeks later via text message and said, “Looks like tomorrow is the day.” We met up at a midpoint (I drove my 585,000-mile Legend, of course) to experience the milestone together.
The Rollover
Being mid-July in Arizona, by 10:30 a.m. the temperature had already soared to triple-digit range so we kept our time in the parking lot to a minimum. Randy had 13 miles left to go, so I hopped into the passenger seat and we decided to drive about six miles up the freeway and then loop back.
Our calculations paid off, as the 500,000-mile mark came at almost exactly the location where we originally started – safe inside the parking lot at Tempe Marketplace so we didn’t have to be pulled over on the side of a busy road taking videos and photos. I shook Randy’s hand and welcomed him (and his trusty TSX) to the half-million-mile club.
Randy’s Mileage Accumulation
The staggering thing to me isn’t necessarily Randy’s mileage achievement, because there have been plenty of vehicles reaching the 500,000-mile mark and beyond. I’m particularly intrigued by the speed at which Randy accrued those miles.
To further illustrate this, I pulled a CARFAX report based on his car’s vehicle identification number (VIN). His car was sold new in May 2010 with 10 miles on the odometer. Randy took ownership in January 2017 at 44,993 miles. Within two years, he hit 150,000 miles. The most recent odometer reading on the report was an emissions check in March 2022 at 391,073 miles. And now 16 months later, he hit 500,000.
Working the math on that data: Randy has put 455,007 miles on his car in just a little over six years of ownership. That comes out to 75,834 miles per year. Divide that by 365 days per year, and his car has been driven on average 207 miles every single day day for the last six years. Wow. Uber over-achiever extraordinaire.
Nuts and Bolts
What is the backstory on this seemingly-immortal car, anyway? The TSX model was launched in 2004 as the gateway sedan to the Acura Division of American Honda. Technically, it was introduced in mid-2003 which is why we recently celebrated a 20-year anniversary. The first-generation model was sold as an Accord in Europe.
Randy’s TSX comes from the second generation of the model which launched in 2009 but carried over similar engineering. It is powered by Honda’s popular (and clearly robust) 2.4-liter i-VTEC inline-four powerplant which was rated at 201 horsepower and 170 lb-ft of torque when new. The engine could be paired with either a five-speed automatic transmission (as in Randy’s case) or a six-speed manual.
Randy’s car is an automatic, and he says that the only major unscheduled replacement during all those miles has been an alternator. The rest has simply consisted of routine fluids, tires, and brakes.
To the Moon (Twice)
The conclusion of our celebration consisted of placing a “LOW MILEAGE” sticker on Randy’s windshield to make things official. We joked about the fact that Randy’s car has driven to the moon and back, and now he’s on his way there again. “I think I left something there, so I have to go back,” he mused.
Thanks, Randy, for sharing your experience with me. I wish you many more happy and safe miles.
Do you have a high-mileage vehicle story to share? Let us know in the comments!
Talk about being in the right place at the right time! It was so fun to meet Randy and be part of this occasion.
Impressive.
I had a Honda Accord… sold it with 140,000 miles.
I ran into its buyer 5 years later. He said it still ‘ran like top’… over 400,000.
Honda makes good stuff…
That’s awesome! No doubt about it. What did you replace the Accord with?
Most cars are eventually scrapped, simply because the current owner prefers to buy something newer, than repairing and maintaining their car. I frequently advise friends and family members to keep their ”wounded warrior” maintain it, rather than sell it.
Totally agreed. We live in an era when many people prefer to lease a vehicle for a few years and then turn it back in. But in reality, most modern cars are capable of 200k, 300k, and far beyond with routine maintenance.