This 1996 Toyota Avalon Drove Nearly a Million Miles during Its Long Life
I've found plenty of cars with intergalactically high final odometer readings during my junkyard travels, and it's a red-letter day when I find a new leader for the top spot in the Murilee Martin Junkyard Odometer standings. Generally that's a vehicle that edges out the former Numero Uno by a few thousand miles, but today we've got one that roars past the old record-holder by well over 300,000 miles!
Until I found today's Junkyard Treasure, a 1990 Volvo 240 DL with 631,999 hard miles stood proudly at the top of the Junkyard Odometer pyramid. That sturdy slab of Swedish steel had squeezed past a 1988 Honda Accord LXi with 626,476 miles.
Those numbers have been obliterated by the odometer in this 1996 Toyota Avalon XL, found last week in a self-service junkyard in Columbia, South Carolina.
Carfax says it's a legitimate one-owner car and that the crazy odometer reading wasn't the result of a malfunction. Nearly every service was performed—at Toyota's recommended intervals, of course—at the dealership at which it was purchased new. The final oil change was performed in the fall of 2019, after which it appears to have been parked for good. That means that this Avalon averaged better than 41,000 miles for each of its 23 years on the roads of the Palmetto State.
I was in South Carolina to judge at the Lemons Block Party 24 Hours of Lemons, held at Carolina Motorsports Park. Whenever I travel to don the sacred robes of the Lemons Supreme Court, I try to visit nearby junkyards and look for interesting bits of discarded automotive history. A few weeks back, that meant I ran across some fascinating New Orleans machinery; for my trip to the Carolinas, I had photographed everything from a 1974 MGB to a Cadillac DeVille Tuxedo Collection prior to poking my head into this ordinary-looking Avalon.
The Avalon was the replacement for the old Cressida, which managed to hang on until Lexus shoved it aside in the United States market after the 1992 model year. It was based on a stretched Camry chassis, making it a close relative to the same-era Lexus ES, and production began at Toyota's Georgetown plant in late 1994.
The first generation of Avalon spanned the 1995 through 1999 model years, and these cars have since established a powerful reputation for reliability. I found an early-production '95 with close to 400,000 miles in a Colorado yard last year, and I'll bet I walk right past later Avalons in junkyards with even more miles hidden by their electronic odometers (which appeared beginning in the 1998 model year).
Prior to this Avalon, the highest-mile Toyota I'd ever found in a boneyard was a 1996 Camry wagon with 583,624 miles. That car was built in Georgetown, Kentucky, a month before this Avalon rolled out of the same factory. Assembled with pride right here in the United States, by red-blooded Americans! In case you're interested, the highest-mile US-built junkyard vehicle I've found that was made by a US-based manufacturer was a 1986 Oldsmobile Calais with 363,033 miles, followed by a 1992 Jeep Cherokee with 355,892 miles.
Let's take a look at the current Murilee Martin Junkyard Odometer Top 25, just so you can get a sense of the size of the gap between this Avalon and all the rest:
1996 Toyota Avalon: 949,863 miles
That's nine Hondas, five Mercedes-Benzes, three Volvos, four Toyotas, two Nissans, one Ford, and one Mazda.
The engine in this car is the same one used in the 1996 Lexus ES 300 and the nicer 1996 Camrys: a 3.0-liter DOHC V6 rated at 188 horsepower. The only transmission available was a four-speed automatic.
The MSRP for this car, which was a base-level XL model with bucket seats, was $22,988. That's about $46,502 in 2024 dollars, and cheaper than the king of 1996 Camry sedans (the $24,668 Camry XLE V6). We'll say the owner of this car got their money's worth!
Toyota is rightfully proud of the 2007 Tundra that was sold new in nearby North Carolina and passed the million-mile mark recently, and of course we all know about Matt Farah's Million Mile Lexus LS 400. Let's hope someone rescues the Nearly Million Mile Avalon and puts it back on the road for at least another 51,137 miles.
The car is very solid, which you expect from one that got the kind of regular maintenance needed to get past 200,000 miles (sure, Toyotas are built very well, but plenty of them get worn out early by owners who neglect them). The front seat upholstery is thoroughly worn out, as you'd expect, but otherwise the interior looks pretty good.
The power-window switch on the passenger door is taped over and the latch bezel has been repaired with glue. The owner of this car didn't have the dealership fix every tiny thing that went wrong, but the important stuff got done on the dot.
Just one row over from the Avalon, I found a Mercury Grand Marquis with another interesting (if much lower) final odometer display. You never know what you'll find in the junkyard.
