Indiana Jones said; it’s not the years, it’s the mileage. All other things being equal (which are things that would be impossible to know for sure), what’s the best choice when selecting a used car? A newer model that has above average mileage on it for a car of that age. Or an older model that has about the average, or less, mileage on it for its age?
In my opinion, lower mileage is better. Higher mileage means more parts/systems are near the end of their service life.
Neither.
Service history.
A high mileage car with a good service history will be a much better can than a low mileage car with no service. I always check service history before I buy a car (unless I am buy a <$500 junker.
Higher than average mileage CAN (not does) mean some sort of fleet owner or high mileage commuter. If a fleet owner (excepting rental) the car should (in most cases) have been well maintained, and most of the miles may be relatively stress free highway travel - on the minus side, the engine may have been worked much much harder.
If from a high mileage commuter, many many of the miles may be “stress free”
For me though, I would go for low mileage, older age (being careful of rewound odometers).
I would tend to go lower mileage, older age… but consider things that can go wrong.
Mileage, of course, affects wear on the engine, transmission, brakes, front-end (tie rod ends, ball joints, etc.), and suspension. These are all expensive things, and of course if they have less wear (low mileage), they’re less likely to go wrong in the future.
Age, though, has affects on other systems. Plastic and rubber can dry out or otherwise become brittle. This means new hoses, seals, and other parts that may be cheap for materials but expensive for labor. Electronics and electrics, too, are subject to age from the environment, and when these go bad can cause problems that are difficult to track down. Some of the drive-train components mentioned above are electronically controlled or have seals that can go bad with simple age, meaning “engine problems” when it’s not really wear related.
I have a 2001 car with over 90,000 miles now – I’m worried more about electronics problems (it’s got a lot) causing it not to work more than anything else. Of course I consider such a car “old” because of the year and the mileage, but honestly (knowing the car) I don’t worry about the mileage at all. All the same, if I had to buy a new car – even the same one – I’d worry about the mileage before the year.
Maybe for the purposes of the OP, the question could be rephrased into bands. There’s a big difference between mileage vs. age depending on the mileage and the age. Yeah, that sounds silly, but are we talking a 1990 car with 5,000 miles, or a 2006 with 110,000 miles? In such a case, I might go for the '06.
Great advice Rick.
Ex-rental cars often have very high mileage, but are (or at least should be) serviced on a very regular basis.
Speaking as a former rental agent, we used to let those cars go a long time between servicing. “It says the oil life is 0%? Here, let me fix that. resets computer”
Depends on the rental agency. Hertz I know turns their cars at fairly low mileages, does the services. As far as the others go, I don’t know.
My father owned two former Hertz cars when I was growing up. One was the best car ever, the other was pretty bad.
[Jeff Foxworthy]Buying a used rental car is like going to a house of ill repute looking for a wife. Anything that has been driven that hard, by that many people, you don’t want to put your key into it.[/JF]
Rick, can you expand on “service history?”
Say an owner is religious about getting the oil changed every few thousand miles.
What else will cause a car to crap out if it has had high miles but not much other service?
Does a transmission, for instance, need servicing other than swapping out the fluid when it’s time?
I think I have an idea of what consumables go bad on average with time and mileage–things like brakes, belts, pumps, lights, tires–but those seem to be replaceable items with fairly fixed and predictable costs. That is to say, when/if they go bad, replacing them will get a car back to good shape.
I’m curious about what services need to be done on a regular basis to make sure the car has the potential for a long and healthy life. As an automotively-incompetent individual, my observation has been that my 50/75/100 mile servicing by the dealership consists of telling me what is crapping out, rather than some type of preventive maintenance that would have kept it from crapping out in the first place…
It’s not just the case that regular servicing means a careful owner who doesn’t abuse the car in general, is it?
Service history is a combination of the following things:
- Did the factory suggested maintenance service get done?
- Did they get done on time, early, or late? (a 5K service done at 10K is not a good thing)
- What warranty repairs were done to the car?
- What consumables have been replaced, and when? If I see two identical cars one got the brakes replaced every 5,000 miles, and the other went 30,000 miles between brake jobs, I can infer that the 5K was driven a lot harder than the other car.
- What non- consumable repairs have been done to the car?
My favorite car to buy is the one where the owner pulls out a file folder full of receipts.
ETA: Chief Pedant I’ll be back later to answer your other questions.
I might suggest an ex-company car. When my Dad was in the bank his manager had a car courtesy of the bank that was well maintained and an easy purchase for him to make when he retired.
I think I answered that one with my last post.
How it was driven would be the answer. Any car will break if driven hard enough. By looking at the car, and the service history you can get an idea if the car was beat like a red-haired step child or it is in fact a good car. Environmental conditions also. A car that winters where they use salt on the roads will have a lot more rust issues than a car that spent its entire life in Arizona. Rust is not just body rust, but that also makes standard repair work harder. For example when I was a tech in California and got a car with a bad muffler, I would use an air ratchet to unbolt the muffler, and hit it with a hammer to slide it off the pipe. In Chicago, they just walk over and get the cutting torch. Also the same muffler that lasted 3 years in Chicago lasts 10 in California.
Generally no.
What you want to try and avoid is getting a car where there is a large backlog of undone work. If you take your new used car in for service and find it needs $2,000 worth of work you may not be real happy.
The people that know the most about your car are the engineers that wrote the service schedule for your car. The best way I know to make a car last a long time (and what I look for when I buy a car) is to either follow the schedule to the letter, or use it as a minimum. Look up severe service in your owner’s manual. A lot of city driving comes under the severe category.
As far as how the dealer is servicing your car, a good shop will tell you not only what is broken, but what is getting close (some things we can tell, other we can’t). For example I was in the habit of testing the battery in cars that were about 4-5 years and 60-75K miles. That was pretty much social security for a battery. sometimes they passed, sometimes they didn’t. I would then inform the customer and leave it to them.
For example if I looked over a car with about 75,000 miles, my notes might look like this:
front brakes 4 mm will not make next service.
Front brake rotors below minimum, need replacement
Rear pad 8mm OK at this time.
Small oil leak at ____ not a problem at this time, but we need to watch it.
Fan belts noisy and cracked will need replacement soon.
Battery tests as marginal. It will not make it though the next winter.
Wiper blades need replacement.
The nice thing about Volvo customers is that quite often when presented with info in such a manner, they would say, go ahead and fix it all. 
Quite often this is a huge part of it.
Many thanks, Rick.
Your kindness in educating me is much appreciated.
My current main car is such a car. My company at the time (but not now) would sell off-lease management cars to employees and retirees. No kidding; we had a dedicated lot full of them. Leadership level employees get dirt-cheap leases which includes maintenance, car washes (not now, though), and even insurance, for a lot less than you’d pay for no-money-down these days. So I got this car off this lot, and it was only 9 months in service, and ~11,000 miles, with every bit of maintenance done (and I still got the balance of the 50,000 mile warranty and the free Lincoln service).
Well… I have every bit of service paperwork and receipt for everything by my car washes. I was especially anal about it until I hit the secret 75,000 mile warranty (you know what I mean; I can’t remember the name of the program). But c’mon, I’ve got 275 ft-lbs of torque – I drive this car hard at times (a better torque-to-weight ratio wold be even better). Even so, the only problems I’ve had have been electronic (bad era for this marque, luckily just the keypad on the door), and tie rod ends and ball joints (crappy Michigan roads). I fully expect the engine to never die (electronic problems aside), and I give the transmission 50/50 to reach 200,000 without problems (electronics aside, again). I just had my first brake job done at 88,000 because one of the rear pads cracked and started digging into my rotor (best brakes I’ve ever had on any car, including the Hondas I drove in my youth).
Pretty much, I know you’ve got all the service experience. Am I just one of those rare outliers that take excellent care of my car but not afraid to use the gas pedal? My car would be a wet dream service wise, but then you’d have to doubt by being in the car when I drive it (sometimes). Of course I’m completely within the use specs, right? If I can floor it, then it’s obviously designed to be floored, right?
Actually I don’t. 
No there are lots of people like you. Now a story.
Well back in the day the guy that built the engines for our off road race truck also built the engines for Rod Hall and Walker Evans. I asked him about those guys and their trucks. Rod ran 4WD Walker ran 2WD. The engines were identical according to the guy that built and dynoed them. However he told me that after a race he could tell which engine was which by how beat it was when he took them apart. Apparently Walker would beat the engine until it broke or the race was over. He won a lot, and he broke a lot. Rod on the other hand, won lots of races, but did not break nearly as often. He knew when to say when.
Driving the car to its limit (or nearly so) is a good thing IMHO. The car likes to exercised. A good romp up a freeway on ramp can clean out carbon build up, and allow the car to breathe better. A real world example. We came out with a new engine in 1992. Beautiful design. Double overhead cams, Pent roof combustion chambers, central spark plugs, 4 valves per cylinder. After it had been in the market for a year or two some customers started having misfire problems. When engineering looked at it, they found that the customers that were having a problem were the little old ladies that “didn’t want to hurt the car” by reving it too high. It seems on that engine the valves don’t rotate and clean themselves against the seats until the engine reaches 4,000 RPM. If the LOL customer never gets above 2,500 RPM sooner or later the valves will get dirty. :smack: The factory fix was a hoot. Change the oil, and go for a test drive. Keep the engine between 5,000-6,000 RPM for 10-12 minutes to clean the valves. 
Salesman’s cars are often very good buys. High miles, lots of freeways, and serviced regularly. I recall we had one salesman that put on 1,000 miles per week just like clockwork. He had a standing appointment every fifth Monday for his 5,000 mile service. He told me when he had 150,000 miles he was going to sell the car at 200,000 miles. I would have bought that car in a heartbeat. BTW that car ran as good as one that had 30,000 miles.
Balthisar you are a car guy, you are more in tune with your car than a lot of people. Whether you know it or not, you know when to say when. There are a lot of people out there that do not have that knowledge or feel. I have had customers that I swear were going to star in a remake of the movie Clueless (the automotive edition)
Cust: I had a warning light come on last week
Me: Which one?
Cust: I don’t know
Me: 
What color was it?
Cust: : I don’t know
Me: :rolleyes:
Do you remember what the graphic looked like?
Cust: No
Me: I don’t know what to tell you, everything appears to operating normally at this time.
Cust: But I had a warning light on!
Me: :smack: [del]Are you this brain dead when you go to the doctor and describe your symptoms?[/del] :smack:
If it comes on again, look closely at it, memorize it, and bring the car back. Tell me which one it is and I will be happy to fix it. Right now there is nothing I can do for you.
Jaguar had an engine like that, if it wasn’t revved high enough, carbon would build up on the top of the piston and start wearing away at the piston head.
Based on the 100,000 or so patients I calculate I’ve seen, absolutely yes. You are not the only one in the diagnosis business who is suffering.
Yes, but your patients tell you where it hurts. 
And you don’t get a new model with all the parts in different places every three years or so.
but the biggest difference is…
The difference is your patients don’t see an ad for vasectomy’s on sale at Sears for $39.95 and leave your excellent service so they can get raped over at Sears.*
*Do you know the problem with having your vasectomy at Sears? Afterwards every time you get excited the garage door opens.
I agree that highway miles are very easy for a car-I had a SATURN that was like new, after 140K highway miles. the “Granny” car (only driven to church0 is the worst kind of used car-oil never heats up, so bearing-destroying acids build up. Age is another big factor-my wife’s 15 year old NISSAN dies at 120,000 miles 9the tranny blew up). I think that rubber seals, bearings, suffer from age and too much operation at below-normal engine temps. I also had an elederly neighbor, who had a 1980 Oldsmobile, with only 16,000 miles-the car needed everything made of rubber replaced-and the exhaust system rusted out.
I had a 94 caprice (9C1). When I took it into the shop for inspections, I’d always be told about he little old lady with the same car who’d complain about the engine “acting up”. The solution? Take it out on the turnpike spur and do a few laps.
I miss that car. 90’s version of the Bluesmobile.
I have a 2003 Chevy 2500HD with 35k, and a 2007 Nissan Sentra with 15k. Shortly the Sentra will eclipse the Chevy in mileage. Which one has worked harder? The Chevy, of course. I plow with it, haul with it, rip out tree stumps, generally work it hard. Come 5 years from now, when I sell both, the Chevy will be highly attractive for it’s relatively low mileage (~70k). But, as several have said here, mileage is not indicative of condition.
I have bought several cars past the 200,000 mile mark. Volvo’s, BMW’s, Saturns, Toyotas. All performed well during their years of service with me.