I was reading a post where someone stated a 20+ year old vehicle shouldn't be taken at highway speeds due to the age of the suspension. I have been thinking about this quite a bit since my vehicle is older than the one stated in the post, and I often take mine on the highway and have no major issues.

What types of concerns are there for old suspension systems? Shocks? Leaf spring metal fatigue? General metal fatigue? What are the major concerns?

 

eh, my daily driver is a 1990 and has seen a ton of highway driving, even towing on the highway. anything can break at anytime, even on a 5 year old vehicle. lug studs can snap, brake lines can blow, tie rods can break. i inspect my vehicle monthly if not more for issues. if any tie rod or ball joint has any kind of play it gets replaced.

your probably sharing the road with 20 year semi trucks with 1,000,000 miles. as long as everything is maintained it shouldnt be any worse then anything else on the road. in fact i usually prefer older vehicles, they seem to be built so much better

 

If you are driving a 20 y/o UNMAINTAINED vehicle, I agree, it shouldn't be on the highway. That said with good maintenance, a 20+ year old vehicle most likely has more new parts under it than a 5-10 y/o vehicle.

 

I've had plenty of vehicles way older than 20 years with original suspension, my first two cars were over 30 years old when I was driving them. The only two failures were on my chevelle, one was when the lower control arm tore out in a parking lot, the other was when I broke a rear coil spring.

The control arm was my fault, the bushing had been gone forever, and that's what caused the metal to fail. The coil spring breaking was pretty random.

If the car doesn't constantly try to drive in the ditch, or have huge amounts of play in the steering, I wouldn't have a problem taking it to highway speeds.

 

Same here. As long as it drives OK, stops OK, and has a current safety inspection, it should be fine.