If you buy a 100k plus big car for many thousands of pounds and plan to use it as a 12-14k a year car, then in my opinion, you might as well flush you money down the toilet.
I don't think this is always true. I only do about 5k a year in my car now but I see no reason why it would suddenly explode if I decided to do 20k a year in it. Olly has the same car with similar mileage and he does 30k a year in it. Neither give huge amounts of trouble, infact neither give any trouble that a low mileage example wouldn't also have given. Both cars are immaculate inside and out, have not a single spot of rust anywhere, and perform mechanically speaking as you'd expect from a low mileage example. I feel I am particularly qualified to compare mine to 'low mileage' examples becuase the other two cars in my household are a 5 Series and a Z4 with the same engine. The 530d we've had since 20k miles and it's in nowhere near as good a condition as mine - because it's simply been used, averagely, for average stuff.
You do, however, need to be careful what you buy and fully appraise its condition. I think when you buy matters almost as much if not more than what you buy. Put it this way - if I was buying my car again now I would absolutely not be seeking out examples with 140k miles on them. They are now simply too old to be able to pick up 1 owner, pristine, long distance cars. Once a car passes about 5 years old the chance of a big miler genuinelly having been used just for long trips significantly dimishes.
I'd quite happily take my car past 200k if I drive it enough to do so (Not sure I do) but I wouldn't buy one on that sort of mileage. I want to be able to account for everything thats happened in the cars life. If you cant do that, stupid mileage cars are a big risk.
I'd go so far as to suggest that if you buy a 100k plus big car for many thousands and DONT intend to get plenty of use out of it you are throwing your money away, because the more you use it the more value you get out it because lets face it, you wont be flogging it on for much to the next owner irrespective of what you do with it!
My Mondeo has 153k on it now and to be honest, it's a bit tatty these days. But then so is any other 90's Mondeo, it's a bit tatty becuase it's a 10 year old Ford not because it happened to cover 100k in the first 3 years of its life.
I think the best summary I can make is that there are lots of things which account for a cars condition and life expectency. Mileage is a factor, but no more so than how it's been treated in the past, how its treated in the future, what its used for and how old it is.
Extreme, stupid, ridiculous example to illustrate a point.
2x Focus 2.0. Drive one round and round the M25 for 100,000 miles. Drive the other round and round the London Congestion Charge zone for 50,000 miles. At the end of this which car is going to be in the best nick and which is going to have had the most use? Obviously no car exists that has spent 100% of its life on the M25 nor does a car exist thats spent 100% of its life in London but it does illustrate that not all driving is equal which means blanket statements about a cars condition cannot be made only on how many miles its done - or how old it is.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
gonna have to look into that 
Don't think they were ever used to taking 18 stone 
