This Is America’s Longest-Lasting Car

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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This Is America’s Longest-Lasting Car

© Courtesy of Lexus

People are increasingly keeping their cars longer. The average age of a car on American roads is over 12 years. Cars are simply better built and last longer without repairs. The figure will rise because new car prices have hit an average of $40,000 and car loan rates are often above 7%. So, what is America’s longest-lasting car?

MSN’s recent “20 Cars That Will Last Longer Than 300,000 Miles” report includes ratings based on J.D. Power, iSeeCars, CarEdge and RepairPal data. The maximum score a car could get was 100.

Toyota, Honda, Subaru and Lexus (Toyota’s luxury division) dominated the list. Japanese cars have a decades-long reputation for quality, reliability and longevity. None of the cars on the list had a score below 80. (These 11 cars are still mostly made in America.)

The 2017 Lexus ES topped the list with a score of 96, making it America’s longest-lasting car. The ES is Lexus’s midprice sedan. The 2024 model has a starting price of just above $40,000, which for a luxury brand is low. Reviews of the 2017 models are glowing, and it has kept its price better than most cars. Edmund’s gives it a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars.

The MSN report states, “Like many Lexus and Toyota vehicles out there, the ES is a much less troublesome high-mileage car with reasonable ownership cost.” iSeeCars says that the model often goes beyond 200,000 miles of driving without major repair. Additionally, it has a low repair cost.

Lexus models are a good bet for people who want to keep a car for 12 years or longer.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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