If I in car A where to drive to Glasgow a couple of hundred motorway miles, I would start the car once, it would warm up fully in say 3 miles, I would make say 10 gear selections and 10 clutch depressions. The car would spend say three or four hours cruising at say 3000 rpm. Then later on I return home the opposite way.
Or
I could in Car B do 20 two mile shopping trips of 2 miles there and back in heavy traffic at an average of 5mph (not as ridiculous as you think). I would start the car twice press the clutch and select first or second gear maybe 50 or more times, use the brakes every 10 seconds, the car would never get warmed up, and I might hit 4 or 5000 revs nipping into a gap. and then repeat it all again on the way back.
so now I have two cars
CAR A
Mileage 400 miles
Running Time 7 Hours 8 Hours
Gear Changes 20
Miles Spent on cold Engine 6
Starter Motor Usages 2
CAR B
Mileage 40 miles
Running Time 8 Hours
Gear Changes 2000
Miles Spent on cold Engine 40
Starter Motor Usages 20
So okay its an extreme and contrived example. But you tell me which car is more worn.
What we are saying here is the type of driving is more pertinent than the miles covered.
Remember 75% of engine wear occurs when the engine is started, its cold the oil hasn't circulated metal grinds on metal.
Ask yourself why lots of newer cars now use a service indicator rather than having a fixed schedule.
A Mercedes will light up the tell tale sign anywhere between 7 thousand and 19 thousand miles. So in terms of wear and tear a 35k model might be exactly as worn as a 95k model. After all its had the same number of services.
The use of Mileage to judge quality is a strange phenomenon related only to Cars. Most other forms of Transports, Aircraft, Boats etc don't quote mileage. They tend to quote a much more useful figure - hours running time.
The other question is how do you verify that low mileage. If a car is displaying 100,000 miles its probably correct or close. If a car displays 20,000 is it correct, are you sure , can anyone prove it.
