How much does mileage mean to you?

Cookeh

Cookeh

Cookeh

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Hey guys,

Looking at getting my first car soon, got a budget of around £2k max to spend on it (So looking at 04-07 kinda of age Mazda 3s, Corollas, C4s - that kinda vehicle). The advantage of being older than your average first time driver means that whilst Im still being bent over a barrel they are at least using lube.

My question is, how much does mileage mean to you on a used car?

Personally, I am of the opinion that mileage doesn't matter for that much assuming the car has a reasonably clean MOT history, decent SH and some receipts/evidence of 'consumables' like cambelts/fanbelts/clutch/maybe even some suspension components etc etc have been replaced at the recommended mileage.

This, however, contradicts hugely with the view of parents/family/friends who are of the opinion that high mileage cars will always be money pits and there will be a lot more closer to the end of its life and soon need replacing - making for expensive motoring.

What are your opinions? Just how much of a consideration is mileage to you, and if its not a very high considerate at all, how would you argue that to your partner/whomever.

Cheers guys,
Cookeh
 
Your viewpoint is right, parents/family/friends are following a common misconception.

On a lot of cars, low mileage can mean its done a lot of short journeys, which is a lot worse for a car than being sat on the motorway covering reasonable distances. There's also a lot of common jobs which can start to be needed at around the 70-80k mark - clutch and cambelt being good examples. Whereas a 100k car will more likely have had these done already.

I've had quite a lot of cars and without a doubt the most trouble free have been the "high" mileage ones. I put 35k miles on a 110k mile Saab 9-3 in 18 months with not a single issue and had a 130k mile Lexus that looked and felt brand new.

Mileage in isolation is meaningless, use it to understand the cars history and it's story. Something like a 2004 Mazda3 with 100k on it and 2 owners means that it's done 10k miles a year which is pretty much average and normal. Whereas the same car with 4 owners and 40k miles would be appealing to a lot of people, but to me that just rings so many alarms
 
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iaind said:
On a lot of cars, low mileage can mean its done a lot of short journeys, which is a lot worse for a car than being sat on the motorway covering reasonable distances. There's also a lot of common jobs which can start to be needed at around the 70-80k mark - clutch and cambelt being good examples. Whereas a 100k car will more likely have had these done already.
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I more or less follow this as a rule of thumb, more so if it was a Diesel. It's not always the case but if the car was going to have anything major it would have been sorted before reaching say, 100k.
 
Howard said:
Age is more important to me. I'd rather have an 07 car with 90k than an 04 with 50k.
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Yep another thing thats worth pointing out is that quite a lot of things perish with age - rubber especially... so seals, hoses, bushes etc.
 
Cookeh said:
The advantage of being older than your average first time driver means that whilst Im still being bent over a barrel they are at least using lube.
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Lube?
REALLY??!!
What are you trying to get insured and who the hell with?

I'm older than the average driver (new or otherwise, it seems) and have been riding motorcycles for quite a few years previously, yet am still finding just basic insurance on any kind of car is in the £2-3,000 range!!! :eek:

Cookeh said:
My question is, how much does mileage mean to you on a used car?
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As with bikes, it depends greatly on the car.
190,000 miles on a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4LS is far more of a concern than a '92 model Mercedes C-Class 250 Elegance - The Merc is barely broken in at that point and will do moon miles with little more than a simple service, while the Corsa is likely dead well before that mileage.

Cookeh said:
if its not a very high considerate at all, how would you argue that to your partner/whomever.
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"My car, my insurance payments out of my pocket, therefore my choice. If YOU don't like it then YOU can buy me the car YOU want me to drive..." :D
Said with a smile, depending on how much you like said person, of course!
 
Age and/or millage don't mean all that much to me. It's all about the character! I have always fallen into the trap of buying with my heart and not my head. That and I tend to always have a couple of cars, one which is 'reliable' and another which is a toy.

@ttaskmaster - Really 2 to 3k on insurance? Do you live in the ghetto or something? I'm 31 and insurance on my old car is down to less than £200, in fact I pay less than 1/3rd of your upper end insurance rate to insure 2 cars and one of them has a driver on (my mrs) who is 26 and has been driving for about 1 year with 2 fault accidents.
 
ttaskmaster, I'm 22, insurance of around £700-900 on the aforementioned cars, all 1.6-2.0 engines. Off-street parking at 'home', 10k per annum, played around with excess. Bell seems to be the cheapest for me, by some margin. Most seem to require a 'blackbox'.

iaind, your original point rings true imo. I personally would have though that around 80k mileage+ most perishables or anything requiring work would have been done - if there is a reasonable amount of service history/a service recently.

In Motor's experience, is this something that's quite commonly seen or even true?
 
My car is a 2003 car with 183k on the clock, it's never had anything go wrong with it that stopped me getting home or cost me more than 3 figures. Find one that's got history of being looked after and you're onto a winner (usually)
 
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I prefer lower mileage on petrol than on diesel, I bought my current diesel car on 94k and it didn't bother me in the slightest.
 
I only care about miles on my current car because the mileage impacts value so drastically. considering I only drive it at weekends though I would say it doesn't matter so much in my case.

If I had a more sensible car, I really wouldn't give a hoot anyway. Any decent modern-ish vehicle worth buying will be perfectly fine well after 100k with the correct maintenance.

Buy based on condition.
 
Cookeh said:
ttaskmaster, I'm 22, insurance of around £700-900 on the aforementioned cars, all 1.6-2.0 engines. Off-street parking at 'home', 10k per annum, played around with excess. Bell seems to be the cheapest for me, by some margin. Most seem to require a 'blackbox'.

iaind, your original point rings true imo. I personally would have though that around 80k mileage+ most perishables or anything requiring work would have been done - if there is a reasonable amount of service history/a service recently.

In Motor's experience, is this something that's quite commonly seen or even true?
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900 is far from lubbed up! :) my mate with 5 years on his license still pays 1k for 1.6 focus! no crashes, accidents etc!

me on the other hand, london + 24 yo = 2000+ on everything
 
Vince said:
@ttaskmaster - Really 2 to 3k on insurance? Do you live in the ghetto or something?
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Nope.
Quiet rural area, with parking in a secured garage on my own property. Doesn't even matter if it's a zero value old banger...

Thing is, my Mrs had vastly cheaper insurance when she first got her car licence - It was about £600 for her back then... Here's me even older, with far more road time.
I can only assume it's purely a New Driver thing and since I'm way too old to be merely named on a parent's policy, they're trying to fleece me for every penny of my salary... and possibly angling for my pension as well!

Cookeh said:
Bell seems to be the cheapest for me, by some margin. Most seem to require a 'blackbox'.
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I can't recall if they were on the list, but will check.

Just shocked at the quotes, when my bike insurance costs me less than 8GB of DDR3!!
 
This can get complicated but also knowing the cost of service parts and what goes wrong regularly on certain models (helps knowing someone who's owned a garage for 30 years!) plus the ability or knowledge to do the maintenance yourself does influence my choices.

So yeah those pesky VWs may be a bit tarnished currently but I know some of the earlier generation cars with say the TDi engines can be bullet proof and also cost peanuts to maintain for example if your willing to source parts direct from Ebay.de
 
I'm with the majority here - buy based on condition and usage.

I have a VW Lupo that only has 40,000 miles on it despite it being 13 years old, but I've had a whole heap of issues with it (HT Leads, Brake light Switch, wiper mechanism). The pedal box was actually starting to split in half at one point. It's far from a money pit, but it's a bit of a pain.

It probably had a tough life as it was on Guernsey used as a runabout for very short journeys, but thats easy to ignore with 40k on the clock.

Lesson Learned :p
 
I just bought a car 07 plate with over 100k on it drives sweet so far car was in exceptional condition been looked after, looking thru the mot history it did 30k in one year guy who owned it had it serviced twice in that paticular year done less miles since annually it's got good history a grands worth of recent reciepts new tyres new clutch some repairs ect..so i decided to take a punt on it. so far so good touch wood fingers crossed ect..:p.
 
i dont really take mileage into consideration. its how they have done the miles that is most important and the maintenance. if a car has been driven at 80mph on the motorway and has 100K+ and been looked after then it should be in great shape. if it has been driven around a city in stop start traffic and been out for a blast every weekend then it's not going to be great after 100K. its like when you buy an ex demo car and you think you are getting a car with low mileage at a massive discount. The massive discount is because its been broken in by people test driving or sales/mechanics driving it around from cold flat out :p
 
Buy on condition particularly if it's a cheaper car. Although apply that principle with reason, if it's a 1.0 Corsa with 100k+ then I'd stay clear as some engines do expire a lot earlier than others.
 
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