Which is more important When Buying A Car?

neonitrix

Is it the age of the car or the millage of the car?

I know the age of the car could mean NCT implications.

tks

Neonitrix

DMC

For me, mileage.

If the car is old, but its mileage low, could could nearly say for certain that it has been not used much and/or well maintained.

Dr. Dre

In my opinion, none of the above.
Two words "Service History"

Borzoi

Taking service history as a given requirement, what are the implications of age and mileage? Well really it's the chance that problems will develop with the car. The unfortunate thing is that some are dependant on age some on engine run time (mileage).

For instance, this year I've replaced a few hoses on my cars water system, this is purely down to the fact the the hoses are eight years old and rubber perishes.

But I've had no mechanical problem associated with high milage because there's only 60K on the clock.


Most cars do an average mileage of 10-15K per year, anything up or down of that will effect the value of a car.


As a personal preference i would be happier with a car that was a year older with 30K (2 yrs running) less on the clock.

neonitrix

The reason I am even asking is that I have seen for sale a:

Fiat Punto 1.2 Petrol Year 2000
22,000 miles on the clock
2 Owners


For €5,950 but I can probably knock 500 off the price by paying cash


Neonitrix

P_Doddy

That's a reasonable price for a 2000 punto.

Mileage is very good for a 3 year old car! Cars nowadays are made to run for 100k+ miles so mileage wouldn't worry me too much. As long as the car is running well, well kept and serviced regularly then you should have no problems!

As regards NCT ... every car will eventually have to be NCT'd after a while so I wouldn't wory about that too much ...like I said .. as long as it's well kept!

P

Andrew Duffy

If there's any way to cheaply check the cylinder head gasket on that before buying, do it. They are well known for failures there. Other than that, it's an OK car, if a bit basic in the lower models.

mike65

The only way to check the gasket is to look for related matters like low compression, overheating and use of water, oil in water/water in oil etc. If none of the above are present its okay. There is a test kit BUT it wont tell you much that is'nt already evident by the above symptoms.

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/pro_det.asp?search=true&item_ID=11389&PartNo=YA2000&group_id=1505&store=snapon-store&tool=all

Mike.

Gmodified

mileage!! specially for Punto which falls apart after 35K