in regards to mileage...

murfilein

i have a 2003 micra with around 125000 km.

when i look around today for used cars, i see cars around 5 years old that have 100000km or more.

what is going in? am i the weird one for having an almost 20 year old car with so little milage? i literally cant find i car i feel comfortable buying today. i'm looking at models from 2017-2019, like kia ceed, opel astra, hyundai i30 etc. but all of them have almost as much or more than my old micra.

is this a metric i should go by today? do modern cars just do more mileage in general? should that be a red flag to me? i just saw a kia ceed for 40k kilometers for a reasonable price - the first thought was "there must be something else wrong with that thing". is a car from 2017-2019 with a mileage close to or around 100k a risky buy?

especially considering i could buy a brand new dacia sandero for the same price as those 4-6 year old used kias, hyundais, nissans, toyotas, opels etc

User1998

Your car has averaged only 6,250 kilometres over the past 20 years. That’s less than half the average mileage of today.

And generally Nissan Micras and similar tend to have low mileage because they are small cheap cars. If you want something a bit bigger then its going to have more mileage on it. People don’t spend money on big cars for them to just sit in their driveway. And also the used car market is flooded with diesel cars now which do significantly more mileage than petrol.

But there is not much risk in buying a 4 year old car with 100,000 km compared to buying something with lower mileage. Cars don’t just self destruct after 100,000km. I’ve bought 4 year old cars with 300,000 kilometres before. Just look for full service records and buy from a dealer and get 12 months warranty if your worried about it.

But if you really want something with say, less then 70,000km then you will find it, you will just have to pay a premium for it. There are currently 7,000 cars from 2017 to 2019 for sale with less than 70,000km

bazz26

OP, your low mileage/usage of a car is not the rule of thumb. As said other people can their cars more and tend to change them more frequently. Lots of people still commute a fair distance to their job too while others do small mileage due to working from home or local usage. There is no right or wrong. You will pay a premium for a low mileage car so if you looking/searching the more cheap examples then these tend to have more mileage on them.

cml387

It's often the case that a low mileage "only-used-to-go-to-mass" car will instantly blow a gasket once it's put under stress, whereas a motorway cruiser with USS Enterprise mileage is the epitome of reliability (assuming correct servicing of course).

murfilein

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119882000#Comment_119882000

ok, thats... concerning?

though the car was used for 2 years until the dealer got it a short time ago?

i will certainly stress test the car when i test drive again after its been serviced/fixed by kia, as promised by the dealer.

Wildly Boaring

If you're doing 6000km a year and you're looking at used cars the same price as a new Dacia. Why not just buy the new Dacia?

In 10 years it'll still be barely run in and you'll know you kept on top of maintenance etc from day 1.

FYI i'd have no issue purchasing a low mileage newer car particularly if petrol. Would not subscribe to the above view that'll blow a gasket of any kind. Why would it? A 3 or 4 year old car with 40k, hardly out of the box.......

murfilein

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885515#Comment_119885515

i understand, and a sandero was also an option i considered.

but i just wanted something... nice(r).

and also the warranty of a used ceed will still last longer than the warranty of a new dacia.