Million Mile Truck

ldapkus · February 12, 2008, 2:21pm

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**Man’s '91 pickup passes the 1M-mile mark **

Mon Feb 11, 11:08 PM ET

Frank Oresnik’s trusty pickup truck — he calls it “the old girl” — passed the 1 million-mile mark with a camera crew filming the event and a public-radio audience listening in. “I can’t tell you how much fun it was,” he said. “It was really humbling, all this interest.”
Recent news stories told how Oresnik had just 1,200 miles to go before reaching the milestone in the 1991 Chevrolet Silverado that he bought with 41,000 miles on it in 1996 and used in his business, distributing seafood and steaks in the upper Midwest.
At the time, he was getting his latest oil change — the kind of regular maintenance he credits with helping to keep the truck going so long.
He said he’s had the truck’s oil changed more than 300 times. It’s had so many changes that the oil pan drain plug had to be rethreaded several times, he said, and “you never hear of that.”
He passed the million-mile mark Friday in southeastern Wisconsin while on his way back home to Catawba, located in the north in Price County, about an hour west of Rhinelander. He was on County Highway V southeast of Fond du Lac.
On hand was a film crew from Chevrolet’s public relations and advertising company, and he was speaking live to Robert Siegel, host of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
A news crew from CBS had been with him earlier in the day.
“I wont say it was relief … it was exhilarating,” Oresnik said later during a stop in Gresham where he has one of his longtime customers. “This truck has been so dependable over the years.” Now that it’s made history, the truck could be headed back to the automaker or Shell Oil. Oresnik said there’s been some interested in GM or Shell Oil buying it.

Information from: Shawano Leader, http://www.shawanoleader.com

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

rwashington · February 12, 2008, 4:11pm

Other than changing the oil I’d like to know what else he did with maintenance. I also did not a mention if the trans or eng had been replaced?

gbell · February 12, 2008, 5:26pm

Several years ago they did a million mile test on a vehicle at the daytona speedway. It was fun driving it around the track. They had 10 cars that we put 100k miles on.

bking · February 12, 2008, 7:25pm

A friend bought a used truck once and the seller told him it had just made it to Atlanta and back with no problems. It broke down a few days later and he called the seller about the problem, the buyer said “I thought you said this truck made it to Atlanta and back?” The seller replied, it did, but not with that engine! We figured at least the steering wheel made the roundtrip ok.