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Hi,
We have a 98 Caldina with nearly 200,000ks on it. It has never given us an ounce of trouble, touch wood. We have owned it since it had just over 100,000ks and it is running as well as it ever has. I would love to keep this car for a few more years yet but I understand auto boxs can be a source of expensive problems when the ks get up there. My question is how many k's can we reasonably expect to get out of an auto transmission on these cars? It is a standard 1.8 litre, no tow bar so has never towed anything, still changes and selects all gears smoothly and last had the transmission fluid changed about 40,000k ago and the fluid still looks good.I would love your thoughts re industry knowledge, experience with these cars and their tansmission lifespans.
Thanks very much.

It’s the big unknown question. It’s not just the transmission that is expensive to repair as cars get older and the mileage increases.

There are many stories of cars travelling up to and over 300k’s and are still going strong while some owners simply sell their vehicles for scrap a lot earlier because of an overheated engine or transmission failure. In many cases the repairs outweigh the cars value.

Body work is also important the older a car gets. Any structural weaknesses picked up at warrant time can also almost turn a car into a write-off.

The big thing in your favour is the make/model you drive which has the proven name for reliability.

Don’t forget also, the one downside of keeping an old car is the safety factor. Japanese vehicles built in the late nineties were built more around reliability, safety become more important some time later.