My 99 astro cargo van has 177k on it. It runs great but lately it is starting to nickel and dime me. Water pump, idler arms,blower and blower resistor...nothing real expensive yet. My question is how long can I expect the engine and transmission to continue not giving me any problems. I understand nothing lasts for ever. I bought a trailer and am heading out west and am a little concerned on taking a high mileage vehicle on the road. I was thinking of adding a transmission cooler to help with towing my 61 avion trailer. Any advice would be very helpful.

I have a 96 with 233K on it, still no major problems. Last year just a waterpump and front rotors.

my 86 safari had over 250,000 miles when i sold it two years ago and its still on the road. it was a conversion and i recognised it on the freeway the other day. the engine on yours should last over 300k but i doubt the tranny will, that was the only major expence i had on mine.

I would definitely agree with adding a tranny cooler. I would add it in series with the one in the radiator, and 'upstream' of it. Thus the hot tranny oil would first go into the aux. cooler, then into the cooler inside the radiator. Bear in mind that the aux. cooler wont help much going up long grades in the mountain states - unless you have an electric fan blowing air into it.

we used to run astros and safaris as oversize escort vehicles on castrol synthec up to 500,000 km with no major issues and the engines were still in great shape when we sold them! just keep up on maintenance.