Low mileage - is that good or bad?

Sam Russell

If I am looking to buy a car say 5 years old - should I be bothered by low mileage or bothered by high mileage?

Low mileage means it is generally used for shopping and not for sustained long distance motorway driving and there rarely gets up to running temperature.

High mileage means the car is nearly worn out - and raises the question of service level. Has the major cost items been done and done well? [Belt, clutch, shocks, springs, brakes].

Which way to go? High mileage is cheaper, but what costs down the road?

biko

High mileage is fine on a well maintained car.
Mine is 200K miles and prob will go another 200K.

Aprox 10K miles (17K kilometres) per year (or thereabouts) is "normal".

bazz26

Mileage doesn't paint a full picture of usage or condition on a car. I've seen UK cars that spend most of their time on motorways with considerably high mileage in better condition than some Irish cars with half that mileage.

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

CiniO

It all depends on type of use.

My dad bought a 00 Corsa in 2006. Car was 6 years old and had 25k kilometres on the clock (just over 4k km per year). From first owner.
One would think, that it's been used on short distance city driving, which might not be the best for car (most of the time working not heated up).
But the fact was, that person who he was buying it off was known to him, and she literally used it on weekends only to travel to her family outside the city (about 50km round trip) and going on holidays twice a year. As she worked 5 minutes walk from her house, car was always parked up in indoor garage Monday - Friday.

Car is 16 years old now, had about 110k km, and my dad is still driving it.

billyhead

CiniO wrote: »

It all depends on type of use.

My dad bought a 00 Corsa in 2006. Car was 6 years old and had 25k kilometres on the clock (just over 4k km per year). From first owner.
One would think, that it's been used on short distance city driving, which might not be the best for car (most of the time working not heated up).
But the fact was, that person who he was buying it off was known to him, and she literally used it on weekends only to travel to her family outside the city (about 50km round trip) and going on holidays twice a year. As she worked 5 minutes walk from her house, car was always parked up in indoor garage Monday - Friday.

Car is 16 years old now, had about 110k km, and my dad is still driving it.

Is that treatment of a car bad for the engine i.e 50km round trip journey at the weekends and then use of the car for long trip hols or the odd short spin i.e using the car for no more then 5000km-6000km a year?

landmarkjohn

If everything else is equal I would always go for low miles.

A weekend used car would be fine.... at least as good a chance as anything else. My daughter has a weekend car, kept in underground garage and used couple of times a month for couple hundred KM... I am trying to persuade her to keep it rather than upgrade as it is a good car.

acronym Chilli

billyhead wrote: »

Is that treatment of a car bad for the engine i.e 50km round trip journey at the weekends and then use of the car for long trip hols or the odd short spin i.e using the car for no more then 5000km-6000km a year?

I'm not an expert, but wouldn't think so, especially if it's garaged when not in use. Long periods of standing still aren't great for cars at least from the point of view of moisture and condensation with our climate, whereas when the car gets run properly the heat of the engine keeps things dry on an ongoing basis. But if garaged and run at least once a week well then I'd say it's grand.

PaulKK

biko wrote: »

Aprox 10K miles (17K kilometres) per year (or thereabouts) is "normal".

I would disagree. 15k miles (24k km) per year on a petrol and 25k miles (40k km) per year on a diesel would be what I would consider normal.

maryishere

biko wrote: »

Aprox 10K miles (17K kilometres) per year (or thereabouts) is "normal".

Correct. Some people do less than that though, because they may live say 3 miles from their work. Other people may live 30 miles from work. Give me a low mileage any day over a high mileage.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

Low mileage modern diesel is potentially trouble with dpf etc. Mines relatively high, 175 k km 12 reg but I've just done the belt and have the money for the dmf and clutch when needed. All serviced at regular intervals, all main dealer. I'd take that over a 60 k km with patchy service history. The Irish seem to have some mental block once the odo gets over 100 k.

bazz26

maryishere wrote: »

Correct. Some people do less than that though, because they may live say 3 miles from their work. Other people may live 30 miles from work. Give me a low mileage any day over a high mileage.

It's not that simple as that, mileage is not always a way of quantifying wear or usage accurately. The person living 30 miles from work may take care of their car better and service it more frequently that the person living 3 miles from work. Still think the lower mileage car is better?

For Forks Sake

bazz26 wrote: »

It's not that simple as that, mileage is not always a way of quantifying wear or usage accurately. The person living 30 miles from work may take care of their car better and service it more frequently that the person living 3 miles from work. Still think the lower mileage car is better?

Indeed. If I use my own car as an example, its got 188k miles on it, but a full verifiable service history from day one, and has had everything done that needed doing on time. There are plenty of lower mileage versions of the same car out there that may not see the inside of a garage until something has gone wrong from lack of maintenance....which one is the better option?

endacl

bazz26 wrote: »

Mileage doesn't paint a full picture of usage or condition on a car. I've seen UK cars that spend most of their time on motorways with considerably high mileage in better condition than some Irish cars with half that mileage.

Absolutely. We had a lovely old neighbour growing up, a retired teacher. Single lady. She changed her car every two years, and kept them spotless. You'd swear she'd just driven it out of the showroom when you saw her. She was originally from Galway and would regularly drive there and back from Dublin to see family, and attend events. As often as once a week, iirc. That car never went beyond third gear. Ever. She was afraid to. She thought the car would go too fast and she might crash.

I suppose she might have been able to sell them on at a premium. After all, they had two gears that were genuinely in the same condition as they had been when they left the factory!

maryishere

bazz26 wrote: »

It's not that simple as that, mileage is not always a way of quantifying wear or usage accurately.

Assuming the car has been serviced properly, its a good indication.

bazz26 wrote: »

The person living 30 miles from work may take care of their car better and service it more frequently that the person living 3 miles from work. Still think the lower mileage car is better?

Certainly a driver doing say 50,000 miles a year will service it more often than a person doing say 10,000 per year. Once both cars have been serviced by reputable garages according to manufacturers recommendations, I would still prefer, by a long shot, a 4 year old car properly serviced with 40,000 verified miles than the same make / model of car 4 years old with 200,000 miles.

bazz26

Problem is that a fair share of low mileage drivers don't service their cars regularly because their mindset is that they don't use the car much so it doesn't need a service regularly. They still service them based on xx number of miles instead of xx number of years.

Also people focus too much on what a car's odometer reads which is a major reason why there is so much clocking going on. Take a 3 year old car with 150,000 miles on it in excellent condition and people will be reluctant to consider buying it. Shave 100,000 miles off the same car and all of a sudden people will be interested in it and some will never dream of thinking it actually had more mileage on it. All things being equal a low mileage car is a more attractive proposition, reality is though that all things aren't equal.