When looking to buy a used car, a priority is to find a vehicle that can still travel thousands of miles without causing any problems. Common sense suggests that the fewer miles a used car has, the longer it will serve its owner faithfully. However, if you’re willing to consider one with a few more miles than you originally intended, you may end up making a good purchase that fits your budget better.
But is buying a high mileage car a good idea? And since higher mileage often means an older vehicle, how old exactly is too old for a used car? Is “the lower the mileage, the better the car” an unbreakable rule of thumb? The answers to these questions are a little more complicated than you might think; there are exceptions, and they are not always obvious.
Let’s consider some key aspects when deciding which used car to buy.
Use and abuse
When it comes to cars, the line between use and abuse is very thin. Some owners are so meticulous that they keep all their receipts, whether it’s for oil changes, refueling or even washing. Others only realize their car needs service when the check engine light starts flashing on the dashboard.
When two similar vehicles have different mileages, the better maintained car should be chosen over the lower mileage car. Of course, there is a limit to this: a car with 30,000 miles is better than one with 200,000. But if the difference is only ten or twenty thousand miles, which should you choose?
To get an idea of the maintenance and service history of a car from its previous owner, the best sources are the actual receipts for services performed or a record of its repairs, if available. If these maintenance records are not available, a CARFAX report will reveal the vehicle’s service history.
These reports also include any previous accidents, something else you should avoid at all costs, regardless of mileage. Feeling confident about a car’s history is probably more important than any other factor, including the odometer reading. Of course, a full inspection of the car should not be ruled out.
Unused cars
The other side of the coin is in disuse. Sometimes a car is barely used, spending most of its life gathering dust in a garage. When this car comes on the market, its owner will probably try to use its abnormally low mileage to try to get the best price.
This vehicle may be worth it at first glance, but there is a problem. When a car is parked for a long time, some parts break. Rubbers, seals and gaskets are a perfect example: over time, these flexible components become brittle and lose their effectiveness, regardless of use. It is not uncommon for a car with unusually low mileage to leak when it begins to be used daily, due to the failure of these rubber parts.
The irony is that if the car had been driven regularly, this wouldn’t be a problem; the process of thermal expansion and contraction that occurs when the engine is running, along with the light lubrication of the fluids passing through, tend to extend the life of these rubbers.
Excessive use
You should also be wary of a newer car that has racked up mileage well above the average, which is 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year. Such a high mileage means the driver has spent a lot of time behind the wheel; racking up miles at this rate means more maintenance will be needed sooner.
You may be able to buy a car with more mileage for less, but it will also mean you’re that much closer to important service for things like timing belts, cooling systems, and brake pads. Maintaining these systems isn’t cheap, and it’s an expense that can be deferred if you buy a car with fewer miles.
How old is too old?
At the aforementioned average annual mileage, a five-year-old car is likely to have 60,000 to 75,000 miles under the hood; in the same vein, a ten-year-old car will show between 120,000 and 150,000 kilometers on the odometer.
At a certain point in a car’s life, unexpected repairs will begin to be needed with increasing frequency. There is no specific age or mileage at which this happens, but it often does when the car is eight to ten years old and reaches 100,000 to 120,000 miles. This is inevitable; cars don’t last forever. So avoid cars that are more than 10 years old and show six figures on the odometer.
Highway versus city
Another thing to consider is the type of mileage a vehicle has accumulated. A car sold in a big city neighborhood will have had a much harder life than one offered in a small, rural town.
Because? Because while the big city car has been spending its time driving potholes and swerving traffic in its rush to get from stoplight to stoplight, the country car has been cruising along without having to deal with so much traffic or rush.
A car in a rural area will probably rack up more miles than one in a densely populated city, but those miles add up with a certain ease that can’t be found in urban driving.
The bottom line
Mileage should be considered one of the most important factors when buying a used car, but it’s not the only one. You should look for the lowest mileage car you can get, yes, but also one that has been regularly serviced, never been in an accident and has been used regularly.
Sometimes this criteria means giving up a car with fewer miles. Do not you worry; more miles don’t destroy a car. But the lack of care and maintenance does.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter for more news coverage in English from EL PAÍS USA Edition
