New Zealand man’s 1993 Toyota Corolla hits two million kilometre milestone

A New Zealand man’s 1993 Toyota Corolla has clocked more than two million kilometres – and the car is still running efficiently to this day.

Graeme Hebley, 72, noticed he had hit the milestone mark in March of this year and believes his car will likely run ‘forever’ at the rate it’s going.

He purchased the workhorse vehicle back in 2000 when the Corolla only had 80,000 kilometres on the odometer.

Mr Hebley, who has worked as a newspaper delivery contractor since 1968, accumulated the mileage quickly through his job.

Kiwi Graeme Hebley, 72, realised his trusty 1993 Toyota Corolla had crossed two million kilometres earlier this year 

He drives from Wellington to New Plymouth in the country’s North Island and back six days a week for work. 

It takes four hours and 45 minutes to make that trip one way. 

His Toyota Corolla, which still has the original engine and transmission, travels almost 5,000 kilometres every work week. 

To keep everything in check, Mr Hebley gets his car serviced at Guthrie’s Auto Care in Whanganui every fortnight.

Mechanic John Sherman confirmed the record after years of servicing the Corolla.

‘If I hadn’t worked on it, I wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it could do two million without something going wrong,’ he told the New Zealand Herald.

Mr Sherman chalked up the car’s impressive run to the reliability of older Toyota vehicles, frequent servicing and Mr Hebley’s constant maintenance of the vehicle.

He claimed he had never seen anything close to the distance the Corolla has gone, recalling that the closest was a car that had done 700,000 kilometres.

Mr Hebley travels almost 5,000 kilometres per week as part of his job delivering newspapers. He gets his car serviced once a fortnight at Guthrie’s Auto Care in Whanganui

‘But nothing like this. In my whole career, that is the highest I have seen,’ he said. 

Mr Hebley is still making his long journeys across New Zealand’s North Island every week, saying he has no plans to stop driving anytime soon.

‘How could you not love this car? Whatever you do, it just bounces back,’ he said. 

Mr Hebley believes the Corolla ‘might outlast me at this point’.