Featured Prius #4 on List of Cars kept 15yrs

Top 5 from OP all Toyota. 8 of top 10 Toyota. Other 2 of 10 Honda.

One major concern about the methodology/validity of this survey is selection bias. They take the vehicles they have on sale at their organization then use % of cars over 200k miles as a proxy for longevity.

This sounds good, ostensibly. But if we overlay this with the original post iSeeCars study in this thread, it underweighs vehicles that owners keep a long time and therefore those that don't show up in the >200k miles metric - those such as the Toyotas noted. They would be grossly underrepresented in the >200k miles study.

So that >200k miles survey by itself can not legitimately claim that those trucks and SUVs noted are the longest lasting. However, a great many trucks/SUVs also appear in the original post >15 years ownership longevity study. So it is likely still the case, just that most of the longest lasting SUVs and Trucks are perhaps instead Japanese built, and perhaps not so much American made as suggested in the >200k miles study.

 

The mileage based study is only underweighing models that are kept by the original owner until the car is scrapped. The data for the age study came from cars sold.

"The research firm looked at over 650,000 cars from the 1981-2002 model years sold in 2017." - from the OP article

"iSeeCars.com analyzed 30 million used cars listed on iSeeCars.com over the last year and studied the vehicles with models years between 1981 to 2010 and those with over 200K miles on the odometer. For each vehicle model, the number of 200K mile cars as a percentage of the total number of vehicles listed for the model was calculated; the number was then used to rank each model." - the mileage article
(the oldest comment there was from 2014)

The mileage study won't have the OP cars in its data, but the cars it does have data for range from 3 to 22 years old. Some of which were being sold by the original owner. Then a portion of the cars that were 15 years or older had less than 200k miles on them.

 

Agree. To elaborate:

For example, we just don't know how many Toyota original owners "run their cars into the ground" such that their next destination is the scrap yard as opposed to resale and don't get captured in the one year window when "iSeeCars.com analyzed 30 million used cars listed on iSeeCars.com over the last year".

So there may be an issue that the 30 million used cars surveyed during that one year window mistook incidence for prevalence.

For instance, if American cars are more frequently resold, they will have a higher incidence of appearing on iSeeCars during that one year window. But if Japanese cars are more likely to be bought and held a long time or if they are more likely to be bought by a second owner then run into the ground, it will falsely appear that there is a lower prevalence of >200k mile Japanese cars, when perhaps the opposite is really the case.

I'm not much for anecdotal evidence, particularly when it is low "n". But in my higher "n" experiences of commuting over the years, there seems to be a disproportionate number of older Toyotas and Hondas on the road than Fords or GMs. I've not been able or curious to look at the odometers (creepy), so only have an idea of vehicle age, but not a good anecdotal grasp on corresponding mileage.

 

Or the people buying Japanese cars aren't the type to rack up large amounts of miles.

This also applies to the age study. Perhaps more old Toyotas were listed that year.

These studies weren't in depth pieces of research. The OP article called Iseecars.com as a research firm; they are not. It is an aggregate site for car listings, Used Cars for Sale Ranked by Best Deals & Price - iSeeCars.com
These results are trivia without the details. It probably says more about the car owners than the cars.

 

The OP report isn't a measure of longevity. It is one of owner satisfaction.
Yes, the cars lasted a long time for the original owners, but it didn't offer evidence that models that weren't kept by the original owner didn't last as long in the hands of subsequent owners.

 

Neither study is statistically valid to answer longevity.

 

These studies weren't looking at the mileage or age of cars of owners on fan forums, but used car listings from one year of models from multiple decades of model years.

The question posed here was why weren't some of the models from the OP study not represented in the over 200k mileage one(some were)? There are multiple possible answers to this.

• owners holding onto the models for extended periods of time leads to them being under represented in used car listings
• they weren't putting enough miles on the cars, under 13,333 miles annually will mean under 200k in 15 years
• the studies were looking at two different years of listings, so their data can't be comparable

If it was asked why weren't the 200k mile models kept by the original owners for 15+ years, there would also be multiple possible answers, with that last one above being one of them.

Neither of these studies are actual research papers. They could be data points to such. At the very least, they need to look at more than just one year of car listings.

For the longevity question, we need to know the condition of the car. Both of these studies could be including cars that aren't running.

If you want to know the age of these models, you need to compare the cars on the road/for sale back to how many were sold new.

 

I know of the history of the car I drove daily before my Prius. I was the third owner. There have been two after me. Why was it sold so much before its 100k miles point? Owner change of circumstances each time. That car is now 18 years old and still in demand. So length of ownership would be meaningless in projecting longevity/reliability if you included this car. My prior to that car was a three owner, 6 year old car owned by me 6 months. Totaled by driver error. Again meaningless.

Lots of sedans are traded for SUVs or even vans or 4 door trucks as a family ages or expends. Lots of people move and their type of driving needs change. I traded a Grand Caravan for a Porsche and a CRV. The CRV and Porsche for a Prius v wagon. Circumstances change. In each case the move was made irrespective of the reliability of the car.