Overheard a guy at the salvage yard say 'that car still has 50k miles left' about a 1998 Taurus with a hole in the block.

I was at Pull-A-Part in Nashville last Saturday picking up a mirror for my truck. This dude was staring at this beat up Taurus with rust holes you could fit a fist through and tells his buddy it's got 50k miles left. I almost laughed out loud but then I thought about it. Has anyone else ever actually driven a car after declaring it totaled just to see how far it would go?

3 comments

3 Comments

paigep2019d agoMost Upvoted

Oh, I've definitely done that before. Had an old Buick with a rod knock that the mechanic told me was done for, and I drove it another 10 months just to see how far it would actually get. Got about 13,000 more miles out of it before it finally gave up on an interstate on-ramp.

simonp4719d ago

A 1998 Taurus with a hole in the block isn't going anywhere. That's not a car with 50k miles left, that's a parts donor. I've seen people drive on rod knock for a while, sure, but a hole in the block means the engine is done. No oil pressure, no compression, just metal on metal until it seizes. The guy was probably messing around or just trying to talk up a worthless car.

xena_fox392d ago

My buddy Mike had a 2000 Civic that threw a rod through the block on the highway. He just kept driving it for about 15 minutes to get to his house, and it sounded like a can of rocks shaking around under the hood. By the time he pulled into his driveway, the engine was smoking like crazy and it finally just locked up solid. So yeah, you can technically move a car with a hole in the block, but you're really just grinding metal until it stops forever. That Taurus is definitely a parts car now, not a driver.