Is low-mileage a poor criteria for car buying?

[fsdork]

Can you explain what you mean by this? I'm not sure I understand..

I think others have touched on it already, but:

• If I lived in a place where the climate/salt wouldn't eat the car away based on time, then low mileage would be more meaningful. As it stands for me, it is not probable that I will wear out a car with mileage before it crumbles in my driveway.
• If, even in my current location, I drove a car a lot - say 50K km/yr or more, I might be more concerned that I would end up using the car up with mileage before it deteriorated as mentioned above. Then the balance shifts and buying a car which is 1/3 to 1/2 "used up" by mileage might not make a ton of sense.

Of course all of this varies with the used market. If vehicles just aren't depreciating much due to mileage, then it doesn't make sense to pick the higher mileage vehicles. If you're getting compensated by way of a lower purchase price, then it might. I haven't bought a vehicle on the used market for over a decade (aside from semi-accidentally buying the Crown Vic at auction), but it seems one doesn't get much of a deal on a 2-3 year-old half-ton pickup with 100,000 km or so on it. If I needed to replace the F-150 tomorrow, I would probably be looking for a deal on a new 2020 if I could find one. The used market for trucks is ridiculous right now. Of course that's not relevant to buying a used Fit in NY.

 

[Silver]

It is a great criteria statistically. Just watch for those outliers. Good low mileage cars are common. Good high mileage cars are not, regardless of desperate hope and one's effort to justify a bad decision. Vehicles wear out.

 

[wag123]

Here is a video that shows an example of what you are asking. And it's only one example, not gospel. It is just one way to look at this.

This guy is right on the money. I have been preaching this concept for years. Personally, on two vehicles that are priced the same and are both in good well maintained condition, I will take the newer vehicle with higher miles over the older vehicle with lower miles.

 

[doublebase]

I just think it depends on so many things, but when you weigh price to mileage...I do think sometimes it’s worthwhile to go maybe a little higher in mileage for a well cared car to save 5-6k dollars.

It really just depends on price and condition. A well cared for car with 120,000 miles vs a not so well cared for car with 90,000 miles, is something worth comparing...comparing price and needed repairs, because often times that 90,000 mile car may need some major services at that point (tranny, coolant, plugs, some suspensions components) and yet be asking 5-6k more than the car at 120,000 miles that has already had all those services and repairs done.

And things like tires and brakes are huge too, because that could be $1,500 out of your pocket. And then there’s paint, the 120,000 mile car could be all highway and very little city abuse.

So yes, I would prefer the lower mileage car but it really depends on many factors, most importantly price and condition.

 

[FordMan59]

Sure a higher mileage car is going to have a lower initial price but, if you buy one with 150-200K miles already on it how often do you think it's going to be in a shop for some type repair? At $100+hr. labor rate over much of the country and the price of replacement parts now I'd suspect many of those repairs would cost the average person $500-1500 a pop. The reason I say suspect is because I do lots of my own repairs so I don't know. My mom's '99 Grand Marquis had the fuel pump go out a few weeks ago. I was quoted $250 labor to change a fuel pump that could be done in about an hour. This pump is accessible from under the car without dropping the tank.

Between 1993-2011 I had a Ford Escort that I used as a daily driver that had 518K miles when I retired it but there were a number of things that I usually had to replace about every 100-125K miles. I was only able to keep it on the road so long because I was doing my own work and many of the parts that I'd replaced had lifetime warranty on them so all it was costing me was my time to put them on. If I'd have been paying a mechanic to do all this work it would have been retired many years before. The reason I retired it when I did is because I have chronic back pain and it needed quite a bit of work done to it that I didn't feel like doing and I wasn't paying someone $75-100 an hour to work on a car with half a million miles on it. Where I live there's very little salt used therefore I can make a car last many years/miles but when it's going to cost as much to keep a high mileage car on the road as buying a newer lower mileage car I'll go for the newer lower mileage option every time.

In Feb. 2019 I bought a 2016 Nissan Versa with 10K miles on it for $5300 because it had a rebuilt title instead of a clean title. If the repairs are done properly a rebuilt title doesn't bother me a bit. It now has 26K miles and all I've done to it is put 2 tires on it, oil changes, and gasoline. Over the past 20 or so years I've owned 3 or 4 cars with rebuilt titles I'm still driving an '02 Ford Escort with a rebuilt title I bought in 2008 with 80K miles for $2000, it now has almost 207K miles on it. Again I've done most of the work on it myself plus it was involved in an accident about 10 years ago that was another person's fault. When that happened I collected more than I'd paid for the car so, I kept it for a daily driver and pocketed the money. When I bought the Versa I used the money from the Escort accident to help pay for it.

 

[Andrew1972]

Lower mileage cars are easier and quicker to dump.

 

[92saturnsl2]

I'm guilty of giving a mileage preference over age, but that approach has never really burned me.

In my experience, older cars with lower miles seem to depreciate more than newer cars with higher mileage. I've always been able to get a better deal buying a 7-8 year old vehicle with 100k, than a 6-7 year old vehicle with 130k. Or another example, it's usually cheaper for me to pick up a 4-5 year old vehicle with 50k, versus a 3 year old car with 70k. When I'm ready to sell the car, the low(er) miles often make it easier to sell. People get real apprehensive buying a car with 200k, versus something a bit older with 150k. There's some kind of stigma about 200k that will haunt you at sale time.

But my primary criteria has always been overall condition. You can always tell when someone has taken care of a car. Clean interior, minimal curb rash, good condition paint, etc. are all indicators that someone cared about the car and didn't treat it as a disposable appliance. Usually the care of the interior/exterior translates into maintenance.

 

[Huie83]

I think so. Sitting is hard on a vehicle. I'd rather have a vehicle with average mileage and maintenance records than a vehicle that sat most it's life.