Originally Posted by
Petrol & Powder
alamogunr, you are absolutely correct about summer heat killing batteries but 8 years on one isn't bad. Cold weather will expose a weak battery but it's the heat that does the damage.
My girlfriend has a very abused Toyota with over 250K. She did most of that abuse. I'm the one that usually repairs that car and a lessor machine would have died years ago. Despite the poor treatment, that car has stood up well.
The repairs have been things like the starter finally died at about 240K, the alternator died at about 200K (original brushes still in it), and other thing like that.
I've seen many old 22R 4 cylinder engines from the old Toyota trucks go 300K. The manual transmissions will not die along as there's oil in them. The transfer cases will outlast a couple of trucks.
I'm impressed with the engineering that goes into Toyotas. Even a cheap, low end model will give good service.