"highway miles"?

[75lemans]

My neighbor is trying to sell his 98 Jeep Cherokee and he used it for business travel a lot, all over the province, and right now it has about 300,000 kms on it. Whenever someone who's looking at it cringes at the mileage he perks up and says "oh they're all highway miles" and goes on to explain his long hours on the road between cities.

Is it true that highway miles on a vehicle don't wear it out as fast as city miles? Obviously it depends on the driver, but stopping and starting, idling a lot and not warming up the car gathers carbon that wouldn't get built up as much if it was on the highway, but if you keep your vehicle tuned up how much does carbon build up actually do? Would carbon on your piston and valve heads really mess stuff up that much? I might also be missing a vital point involving city driving (we're not talking about the clutch or anything, just the engine) so please tell me if i am!

Thanks everyone

[lincoln]

It is true that highway mileage is typically less strain on the vehicle then stop and go city driving. That said mileage regardless of how it was accumulated still has an effect and things wear out. What's more important then how the mileage got there is how the vehicle was maintained. Was the oil changed every 3-5K miles, was tranny flushed every 60K miles OR less, was the coolant flushed every 2 years, was the brake fluid flushed every 2 years, rear diff, fuel filters, air filter, chassis lubed, etc.

My neighbor is trying to sell his 98 Jeep Cherokee and he used it for business travel a lot, all over the province, and right now it has about 300,000 kms on it. Whenever someone who's looking at it cringes at the mileage he perks up and says "oh they're all highway miles" and goes on to explain his long hours on the road between cities.

Is it true that highway miles on a vehicle don't wear it out as fast as city miles? Obviously it depends on the driver, but stopping and starting, idling a lot and not warming up the car gathers carbon that wouldn't get built up as much if it was on the highway, but if you keep your vehicle tuned up how much does carbon build up actually do? Would carbon on your piston and valve heads really mess stuff up that much? I might also be missing a vital point involving city driving (we're not talking about the clutch or anything, just the engine) so please tell me if i am!

Thanks everyone