What is the hardest working vehicle on the road?

The tire treads separate on semis because of the re-treads. While most usually do not re-tread a car tire, the economics make it worthwhile for an 18-wheeler. They do not allow these on the steering or drive wheels as they can come apart. This isn’t a matter of the vehicle, but the way the tires are maintained or “recycled” if you want to call it that.

I still think the garbage truck has the worst life.

I like the mention of golf carts and drivers ed vehicles. It seems that people just run the crap out of golf carts so I would put them in the same category as rental cars which also lead a hard life.

We had 4cyl Ford Tempos for our drivers ed back when I took it. These were the most gutless cars you ever saw and that was probably a good thing in this situation. People would have one foot floored on the gas and one on the brake. I would hate to ever get a used one as I am sure the transmissions will be smoked!

I still go for garbage trucks as far as a working vehicle goes. Heavy loads, dirty conditions, runs no matter the weather conditions, and constant start/stops…

The DRIVER has a terrible life, but I’m not so sure about the truck…

@asemaster she must have an emotional attachment to the car to have spent 25 grand in keeping it going for 8 years.

I don’t disagree that trucks have a hard life, but I think police vehicles get the snot kicked out of them. Some years ago the Sheriff was trying to save some tax dollars and was going to try overhauling the one year old cruisers instead of buying new. Overhaul included springs, shocks, all front end components, etc. etc. Saved a few thousand from new. It only happened once though because the cars got so beat up in a year it was just cheaper to buy new each year than try to repair them. Pretty large county with gravel roads and so on. I don’t know about the guys driving them though, they might have gotten pretty beat up too.

Yeah, you are right about police cars. I seen them get floored and run at high speeds rather routinely. They also jump medians and you see sparks coming off the underside. They do seem to run the crap out of them. One of my cop buddies blew up a brand new Dodge Charger while on duty. It had like 4600 miles and the engine exploded. He ran a Crown Vic hard for like 50,000 miles and it never failed him. I personally have never had a good experience with any MOPAR product.

One of the toughest on a car is routinely going from a cold start to hard acceleration. Police cruisers would not get my first look for a used car for that reason alone. You don’t see police cars routine driven to avoid potholes…

Ah, cwatkin, so down on Chrysler vehicles. I have 260K+ on one of mine and it’s been the most trouble-free of any vehicle I’ve owned, while every Ford I’ve ever owned has failed me at a bad time. I’ve always thought that different people have different luck with different brands. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that Mopars have been decent for me and Fords have let me down. GM vehicles, somewhere in between. Crown Vics are decent cars. I have owned a couple myself. The model has been run for many years and about every bug in the platform has been worked out. The Chrysler LX platform is pretty good and is getting there IMHO, and is a better performing platform than the dated “Panther” platform, at least without doing serious mods.