Wednesday 29th July 2009

High-Mile Club: One Million Miles In A 3-Series

PH takes a spin in a million-mile 325i that's never been raced or rallied

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Not many cars come with their own info stand...

A million miles is a long way. It will get you to the moon and back a little over four times. It will take you around the world almost 40 times. And it would take you 83 years to clock up if you stuck to the 12,000-mile national annual average.

It is also fewer than the number of miles that has passed under the wheels of an unassuming E30 BMW 3-series that was recently delivered to PH Towers as my weekend wheels.

There are some leggy cars out there, and surviving examples of the E30 3-series are far from immune from big miles, but how many of them have clocked up seven figures? A quick trawl through the classifieds failed to turn up any E30s showing more than 200,000 miles. The closest I got to the million was a younger E36 318i that had, according to its advert, amassed 610,000 miles, although I suspect the uploader had hit the '0' key one too many times.

Bodies in white - three generations of BMW

So the million-mile BMW is a rare beast indeed, but it's at this point that I have to confess to a bit of a cheat. As you'll no doubt be able to deduce from the stickers, this car is a promotional tool for Mobil oils, and so all is not quite what it seems.

This particular car, a US-market 325is auto, was bought by Mobil back in 1990, its engine was filled with synthetic oil, and the car was plonked unceremoniously onto a rolling road. Where they ran it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For four years. It was serviced according to BMW service intervals and run at speeds varying between 45mph and 85mph.

Okay, so a million miles in lab conditions isn't exactly representative of the wear and tear that a car goes through during its lifetime, but it's still an impressive feat, and we wanted to see how the venerable straight-six felt.

Riggers feeling special, but not over-indulged,,,

First impressions are of an extremely tight car - albeit a rather tappety one. The sluggish four-speeed auto 'box does rob the straight six of some of its enthusiasm, but the car still pulls strongly and smoothly - that synthetic oil it used on the rolling road has clearly kept the motor singing sweetly. (Are you on the blag again Riggers? Ed)

The rest of the car is also a bit of a time-warp. According to the odo, the car has done around 40,000 'real' miles, so it's rather like driving a three-year-old car, just one that's been around for 20 years. It reminds you how good the 1980s 3-series was. It's taut, compact, lively, and is possessed of just enough luxuries to make you feel special without being over-indulged.

It's the sort of sporty, compact car that BMW no longer makes (though the 1-series coupe gets close) and, as well as testing the longevity of the old 325i, Mobil's million-miler has proved to me that I really, really want an e30 of my own. If only I could find a lower-mileage example...

[Insight]

What a complete con, we all know that engine damage is done when the engine is cold and warmed up from the start. So doing this many miles under those conditions, is as impressive as having a three year long shower, at home, but getting out every day, and just leaving the water running.

[G_T]

Crap scientific method or not I remain impressed.

[russellwatson17]

Was reading in a bike mag not too long ago that a guy in the states had done 1,000,000 miles on his harley (i think) so they gave him a brand new one for a bit of advertising.

Surely running the car constantly on a rolling road wouldn't do much as i would imagine most engine wear comes from revving it too high when its cost and constant slowing down / accelarating that you get in everyday driving

[Working class]

Didnt nissan run one of thier 2 litre engines on a test bed for 100,000 miles at 100mph or something like that?

[porka944s]

What a waste of fuel, obviously being 'green' wasnt that important back in 1990!

[Great Pretender]

Oh look, another non event.

[/sarcasm mode]

[LuS1fer]

They did some interesting tests with US taxis and synthetic oil and it seems some of these vehicles can rack up 300,000 miles.
http://www.synthetic-motor-oil-change-and-filters....

The thing about most million mile cars is they tend to be a bit of a "trigger's broom", maintained regardless of cost.

[collateral]

I guess they must have stopped to refuel it? Still a bit of a con, considering it's possible the brake pedal might not have been touched the whole time it was on the rollers

[The Wookie]

Dooshbag said:

This is not representative of real life is it ? I reckon even a French thing could do that many miles in the same conditions.

I reckon a French thing would do a million miles under real life circumstances, it'd just end up looking like this

[Tony*T3]

Hmmm, not impressed.

My Audi A4 1.9tdi now had 224k on the clock without having regular servicing. Current oil in its done around 50k I think. Mpthing 'mechanical' has gome wrong with it so far, touch wood. Probably saved myself £2k on servicing, although obviously if I wanted to sell it I'd be hit hard by lack of service history, but with this milage I'd probably have to pay someone to take it anyway.

And I intend to run it to 500k if possible.

[V8mate]

russellwatson17 said:

Was reading in a bike mag not too long ago that a guy in the states had done 1,000,000 miles on his harley (i think) so they gave him a brand new one for a bit of advertising.

Surely running the car constantly on a rolling road wouldn't do much as i would imagine most engine wear comes from revving it too high when its cost and constant slowing down / accelarating that you get in everyday driving

And no speed bumps/potholes etc for the suspension to cope with either.

How come the odo only says 40,000 miles?

[duffman]

porka944s said:

What a waste of fuel, obviously being 'green' wasnt that important back in 1990!

I dont think Mobil are short of fuel...

[Gridl0k]

V8mate said:

How come the odo only says 40,000 miles?

How many digits on a 3-series odo?

Ie, could it be 1,040,000?

[ZesPak]

Insight said:

What a complete con, we all know that engine damage is done when the engine is cold and warmed up from the start. So doing this many miles under those conditions, is as impressive as having a three year long shower, at home, but getting out every day, and just leaving the water running.

Indeed, complete non-event imo.

Much more impressed with the million-miler Mercedes cabs...

[BoRED S2upid]

A Tappety E30 engine well I never! didn't they come out of the factory tappety?, believe me that noise is nothing and once its warmed up you hardly notice it.

I would love to own a massive mile car the mere 125k in my current BM is nothing.

[Traveller]

I remember reading about Ford doing something like this in the 1950s, with Ford Galaxies, ran them round a banked track 24 hrs a day for a few weeks, 100 000s of miles, only stopping for fuel, tyres and driver changes, took the engine out and they showed virtually no wear. Pretty pointless really, but makes a good marketing splurb.

[oagent]

Lucky they didnt try it with an e36 auto or they would have to stop every 140K miles to change the "sealed for life" auto gearbox.

[ZesPak]

oagent said:

Lucky they didnt try it with an e36 auto or they would have to stop every 140K miles to change the "sealed for life" auto gearbox.

But it wouldn't, as it's travelling at fairly constant speeds and not accellerating from 0, the gearbox won't be worn at all.
In fact, even if it accellerates, it doesn't push it's own weight, only the friction on the rolling road (which I presume would be close to nothing?).

[W00DY]

My E30 318is had over 140k when i crashed it and it felt as tight as any brand new car i've ever driven. It did have a ridiculously comprehensive service history with specialists replacing all bushings etc. but it made me wonder why anyone would want a new car. I miss it a lot and regret not buying it back from the insurers. I suspect most cars could do 1 million on a rolling road though.

[///Mike]

I think its a remarkable achievement personally. Yes the wear and tear on the rest of the car is not genuine as there are no pot holes or idiots that pull out on you at high speed on the rollers but they are not talking about the rest of the car. This is an advert/promo exercise for Mobile 1 oils not BMW suspension components.

I saw the car on stand at Goodwood and stopped to take a look as I thought it was very interesting.

The article has been written with a view to sharing information with a petrol head community on a petrol head based subject that if nothing else is designed to be a form of informative light entertainment.

Why is it that there are negative responses to such articles these days? I am not spoiling for a keyboard fight but it gets tiresome after a while. If you didn't enjoy the read why comment?