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How many miles have you driven?

Started by oscar, February 16, 2011, 04:23:17 PM

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Mapmikey

With my trip this past Saturday I surpassed 1,000,000 miles lifetime driving.  I've had a license since late 1985 (South Carolina allowed daytime unescorted driving at age 15.5 back then...teenagers drove school buses too).

Regrettably, about 38% of those miles are solely the daily commute of the last 17 years...

Mapmikey



1995hoo

I don't know how far I drove my first car (a 1977 Ford Granada in high school) nor how far I've driven rentals or family members' cars (e.g., when I was 15 and had a learner's permit my father had me do most of the driving both ways on a trip to New York, and I've driven my parents' cars and my brother's cars periodically over the years).

Adding up just my own cars other than the Granada, I come out with around 345,000 miles, so the total is probably in the 350,000 mile range (perhaps a bit more). It'd be higher except I work out of the home office most days these past few years and thus my overall mileage has dropped off considerably, especially compared to the summer after my first year of law school when I commuted 80 miles roundtrip every day (and it took perhaps 40 minutes each way).
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

Duke87

Heh. I responded here four years ago today and in those four years I've done some work.

The Focus that I mentioned was just shy of 20k then was sold last summer with 96,246.3 miles on it.
Its replacement became mine with 25,253 miles on it, it now has 37,471 miles on it.

So yeah, I've gone from "man, I need to get out more" to "I drove 12,000 miles in six months".

Between those two cars, using my parents' cars, and rentals, I estimate I'm somewhere near 125,000 miles behind the wheel now. If I keep my current pace I'll be nearing retirement age by the time I reach 1,000,000 miles. But who knows.
If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.

J N Winkler

Quote from: Duke87 on February 16, 2015, 11:28:45 PMThe Focus that I mentioned was just shy of 20k then was sold last summer with 96,246.3 miles on it.

Why sell it?  It was just barely broken in!
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

djsinco

My lifetime total falls somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million miles. I drove a truck coast-to-coast for nearly 20 years. I have also run the wheels off of more than a few personal vehicles. I still drive for a living (luxury limousines.)
3 million miles and counting

slorydn1

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 16, 2015, 10:37:09 PM
I don't know how far I drove my first car (a 1977 Ford Granada in high school) nor how far I've driven rentals or family members' cars (e.g., when I was 15 and had a learner's permit my father had me do most of the driving both ways on a trip to New York, and I've driven my parents' cars and my brother's cars periodically over the years).

Adding up just my own cars other than the Granada, I come out with around 345,000 miles, so the total is probably in the 350,000 mile range (perhaps a bit more). It'd be higher except I work out of the home office most days these past few years and thus my overall mileage has dropped off considerably, especially compared to the summer after my first year of law school when I commuted 80 miles roundtrip every day (and it took perhaps 40 minutes each way).


I cut my teeth on a Granada too, mine was a 78 tho. Fully loaded with an extremely weak inline 6, those left hand merges onto the Ike or Kennedy were scary to say the least!


God, how many miles have I driven? If I went by my current daily averages I'd be shorting myself big-time, I'm sure, I'm going to have to do a little math.


I got my licence the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1986, the first full week of my junior year in high school (I'm guessing that would be Sept 2, 1986), having had my learners permit since 6/9/1986 (the first Monday after school let out). As others have stated, back then our licenses were restriction free, and I surely took advantage of it (as long as I wasn't grounded, lol).


I just did a quick figuring from what I could remember of all the cars I have had, plus my parents cars as a teen, going on trips with them (etc) and that came to approximately 465,000 miles, and that doesn't count any the mileage driven in ambulances and fire trucks back in my volunteer fire/rescue days-many, many very short trips add up over a while, I guess.


I'll roll with 470,000 miles as a quick guestimate over the 10,481 days that I have been a permitted or licensed driver (a little less than 45 miles a day). That does sound about right, considering my current 1 job, not a ton of cruising mileage average is just under 27 miles a day (I picked up my Mustang from the dealership on 2/3/14 with 4 miles on it and it has 10,128 miles on it as I type this). I  think I have put maybe 50 miles on my wife's Mustang since then, LOL. I have work to DO, if I am to reach a million before I retire in 10 years, 1 month, 13 days, 14 hours and 33 minutes.
Please Note: All posts represent my personal opinions and do not represent those of any governmental agency, non-governmental agency, quasi-governmental agency or wanna be governmental agency

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1995hoo

Quote from: slorydn1 on February 18, 2015, 09:27:20 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on February 16, 2015, 10:37:09 PM
I don't know how far I drove my first car (a 1977 Ford Granada in high school) nor how far I've driven rentals or family members' cars (e.g., when I was 15 and had a learner's permit my father had me do most of the driving both ways on a trip to New York, and I've driven my parents' cars and my brother's cars periodically over the years).

Adding up just my own cars other than the Granada, I come out with around 345,000 miles, so the total is probably in the 350,000 mile range (perhaps a bit more). It'd be higher except I work out of the home office most days these past few years and thus my overall mileage has dropped off considerably, especially compared to the summer after my first year of law school when I commuted 80 miles roundtrip every day (and it took perhaps 40 minutes each way).


I cut my teeth on a Granada too, mine was a 78 tho. Fully loaded with an extremely weak inline 6, those left hand merges onto the Ike or Kennedy were scary to say the least!

....

Heh, mine was a four-speed manual (but with a pedal-operated handbrake), and I definitely recall how weak that straight-six was. Front of the car would shudder if I tried to push it much above 70 mph (granted there were no 70-mph zones anywhere in the USA when I owned that car).

Part of the reason I can't recall my total distance driven is that when I owned that Granada, I tried to drive either of my parents' cars whenever I had the opportunity because the Granada was such a clunker. Fan belts squealed incessantly regardless of what we did–the whole neighborhood knew whenever that car was on the move. So trying to keep mental track of how much I drove the various cars back then is a losing effort.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

freebrickproductions

I've driven a fair number of miles since I got my drivers license back in July. Not sure how many I've driven exactly so far though.
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Crazy Volvo Guy

I'm at ~600,000. ~350,000 of that in the last 2.5 years.
I hate Clearview, because it looks like a cheap Chinese ripoff.

I'm for the Red Sox and whoever's playing against the Yankees.

Pete from Boston

At least 450,000 miles.

If I pick an arbitrary average speed of 45 mph, that means I have sat behind the wheel of a car for about a year and two months. It is almost surely longer than that.

I'm not sure I feel so good about that fact, but it is what it is.

J N Winkler

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 18, 2015, 10:50:25 AMIf I pick an arbitrary average speed of 45 mph, that means I have sat behind the wheel of a car for about a year and two months. It is almost surely longer than that.

I'm not sure I feel so good about that fact, but it is what it is.

I would like to be able to brag that I have gotten a car to over 300,000 miles with engine and transmission still in like-new condition, but as I get older I find I am less and less willing to put in the seat time required to make that happen.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

Zeffy

If I had to take a guess - maybe around 1000.
Life would be boring if we didn't take an offramp every once in a while

A weird combination of a weather geek, roadgeek, car enthusiast and furry mixed with many anxiety related disorders

Roadrunner75

I have to be well over 400K at this point.  I've watched my last 3 cars (including my current one, and all bought brand new) click over 100K miles.  My current car just hit the 100K mile mark on Sunday, rapidly catching up on my wife's car (which was my last one and is twice as old).  I'm averaging around 20K a year right now.

Duke87

Quote from: J N Winkler on February 16, 2015, 11:40:18 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on February 16, 2015, 11:28:45 PMThe Focus that I mentioned was just shy of 20k then was sold last summer with 96,246.3 miles on it.

Why sell it?  It was just barely broken in!

Keeping it would have meant having to spend time and money:
1) Replacing the sway bars and possibly other pieces of the suspension since they were worn out
2) Replacing the battery, since it still had the original one after 5 years
3) Changing the timing belt, because you need to do that at 100k
4) Changing the engine air filter, because you need to do that at 100k
5) Doing a transmission flush, because you need to do that at 100k
6) Doing a radiator flush, because you need to do that at 100k
7) Diagnosing the specific cause of an emissions issue and fixing it so the check engine light would go off

There are people who enjoy doing work on their cars as a hobby. I am not one of them. When a car gets to the point where it requires significant non-trivial maintenance, I am more than happy to make it someone else's problem since I don't want to deal with it.

I also appreciate having a car that is reliable enough for me to not worry about suffering any sudden critical mechanical failures. The Focus had already failed me once in this regard and after that I wasn't comfortable taking it too far from home for fear of breaking down in a distant location. As a roadgeek who loves going on epic trips, that really cramped my style and was not okay.

Meanwhile I also had an opportunity to get a nice young car for a good price because my father had a lease that was ending. But that was time sensitive, I either made the trade-in then or paid more for a similar car with less known history later.
If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.

apjung

#39
Vehicles that I mostly drove:
1990 Toyota Tercel: over 98000 miles (sold in 1996)
1998 Chevrolet S-10: over 104000 miles (traded in 2005)
2005 Toyota Tundra: over 88000 miles and counting
2013 Hyundai Sonata: over 18000 miles and counting

Rental cars:
1997 Toyota Camry: over 3000 miles
2008 Chevrolet Silverado: over 3000 miles
2012 Nissan Altima: over 1800 miles
2013 Toyota Camry: over 2000 miles
2015 Hyundai Sonata: about 1000 miles

Other vehicles driven by me and other family members:
1981 Buick LeSabre: over 97000 miles (sold in 1991)
1984 Dodge Ram customized van: over 130000 miles (totaled in 1996)
1989 Honda Civic: over 160000 miles (donated to charity in 2001)
1997 Ford Taurus: over 112000 miles (acquired 01/1997, sold in 2008)
1997 Ford Taurus: over 50000 miles (acquired 08/1997, flooded and totaled in 2002)
2000 Ford Mustang: over 88000 miles (sold in 2013)
2003 Buick LeSabre: over 75000 miles (traded in 2013)
2008 Chevrolet Impala: over 49000 miles (traded in 2013)
2013 Cadillac SRX: over 20000 miles and counting

roadman

In just over 36 years of being a licensed driver, between parents', relatives', personal, and work vehicles, I've driven approximately 550,000 miles.
"And ninety-five is the route you were on.  It was not the speed limit sign."  - Jim Croce (from Speedball Tucker)

"My life has been a tapestry
Of years of roads and highway signs" (with apologies to Carole King and Tom Rush)

Jim

#41
Quote from: Jim on February 18, 2011, 09:13:19 PM
I'm looking at close to 400,000 in 3 cars: the '94 Saturn that I took to 135,000 and the '01 Audi that made it to 249,000, and the 8,000 or so to date on my current car.  Plus some mileage in my wife's cars and with previous cars before I had a chance to travel that much, so I'd guess I'm in the neighborhood of a half million in my 25 years of driving.

Inspired to update this after reading that jayhawkco reports having flown the equivalent of going to the moon and back and then halfway there again, and Rothman saying he's driven that much about 3 times over, I searched for and decided to post an update to my guess for miles driven here in this thread.

In the 10+ years since my quoted post, the S60 got up to 189,000 miles and my A3's now over 51,000.  I didn't drive all of those, but I am responsible for driving a good chunk of the miles on various road trips in other cars, whether my wife's or rentals.  Pretty conservatively, I can say that I've passed 750,000 miles driven in what is now 35 years.  With less certainty, the number could be 850,000-900,000 or more.
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Rothman

Quote from: Jim on August 09, 2021, 04:52:22 PM
Quote from: Jim on February 18, 2011, 09:13:19 PM
I'm looking at close to 400,000 in 3 cars: the '94 Saturn that I took to 135,000 and the '01 Audi that made it to 249,000, and the 8,000 or so to date on my current car.  Plus some mileage in my wife's cars and with previous cars before I had a chance to travel that much, so I'd guess I'm in the neighborhood of a half million in my 25 years of driving.

Inspired to update this after reading that jayhawkco reports having flown the equivalent of going to the moon and back and then halfway there again, and Rothman saying he's driven that much about 3 times over, I searched for and decided to post an update to my guess for miles driven here in this thread.

In the 10+ years since my quoted post, the S60 got up to 189,000 miles and my A3's now over 51,000.  I didn't drive all of those, but I am responsible for driving a good chunk of the miles on various road trips in other cars, whether my wife's or rentals.  Pretty conservatively, I can say that I've passed 750,000 miles driven in what is now 35 years.  With less certainty, the number could be 850,000-900,000 or more.
I think I low-balled my number.

I do have a trucker friend that got his 1,000,000 mile award.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

Max Rockatansky

The ballpark figure I came up with are as follows:

Cars I've owned; 551,000 approximate miles
Cars I've rented or were assigned to me at work; approximately 60,000 miles

I once held a job where I actually drove about 81,000 miles for work related purposes in a single year.  I had a 65,000 mile year that followed that up which would account for about 25% overall total.  Apparently that comes out to just a little under 27,000 miles annually since I obtained my learner's permit at 15.  I'm fairly certain I've driven over 10,000 miles in off highway vehicles but much of that was a long time ago.

JayhawkCO

Since I inspired the bump, I figured I might as well come up with an answer, even if just estimated.

First Car - 45,000
Second Car - 90,000
Third Car - 48,000
Fourth Car - 75,000
Fifth Car - 65,000
Sixth (and current) - 17,000
Rental Cars/UHauls - 17,000
Other People's Cars - 6,000

Total: 363,000 miles.  Seems about right.  If you include ridden miles, as I've taken a lot of buses/mini-buses/shared cards when I was overseas, then the number goes up a bit, probably another 15K or so.

Chris

rlb2024

In 48 years of driving (got my license in 1973) I would estimate between 1 million and 1.5 million miles.  About 250,000 of those miles have been on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway alone, with 26 years of commuting to and from work (pre-COVID, anyway).  9 years of soccer trips, 30-plus years of vacations with 1,200 to 2,200 miles per trip on rental cars, work trips, journeys back home after I graduated from college and moved away -- it all adds up.  At least five cars with over 150,000 miles each.

Flint1979

I'm pretty close to 600,000 miles I'm thinking.

Flint1979

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 09, 2021, 05:01:29 PM
The ballpark figure I came up with are as follows:

Cars I've owned; 551,000 approximate miles
Cars I've rented or were assigned to me at work; approximately 60,000 miles

I once held a job where I actually drove about 81,000 miles for work related purposes in a single year.  I had a 65,000 mile year that followed that up which would account for about 25% overall total.  Apparently that comes out to just a little under 27,000 miles annually since I obtained my learner's permit at 15.  I'm fairly certain I've driven over 10,000 miles in off highway vehicles but much of that was a long time ago.
I'm at 45,000 miles since last Thanksgiving.

kphoger

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 09, 2021, 05:01:29 PM
I once held a job where I actually drove about 81,000 miles for work related purposes in a single year.  I had a 65,000 mile year that followed that up which would account for about 25% overall total.

For about 1.5 years, I drove a delivery route that averaged around 300 miles per day, five days a week.  I'm sure I must have topped 100,000 miles in the truck during that time.
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1995hoo

Quote from: 1995hoo on February 16, 2015, 10:37:09 PM
I don't know how far I drove my first car (a 1977 Ford Granada in high school) nor how far I've driven rentals or family members' cars (e.g., when I was 15 and had a learner's permit my father had me do most of the driving both ways on a trip to New York, and I've driven my parents' cars and my brother's cars periodically over the years).

Adding up just my own cars other than the Granada, I come out with around 345,000 miles, so the total is probably in the 350,000 mile range (perhaps a bit more). It'd be higher except I work out of the home office most days these past few years and thus my overall mileage has dropped off considerably, especially compared to the summer after my first year of law school when I commuted 80 miles roundtrip every day (and it took perhaps 40 minutes each way).

Since I posted this in 2015, I really have no idea on miles driven because in May 2017 my wife got an Acura TLX that is now our primary car for trips and I haven't kept track of how far I've driven that. I know I drove it 2499 miles on a trip to St. Louis, another 2600-something on a trip to Florida this year, and over a thousand miles on a trip to Toronto in 2019, but I have no clue about all the shorter-distance trips (including 140-mile roundtrips to our favorite winery). On the other hand, I put very few miles on my TL these days precisely because we use the TLX for trips now. For the entire calendar year 2020 I drove my TL a total of 1513 miles because I now work out of the home office on a permanent basis with extremely rare exceptions.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.



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