Jalopnik: Does mileage (as in miles accumulated) matter?

[kevm14]

http://carbuying.jalopnik.com/how-much- ... 1724611938

Discussion in the comments obviously.

But I tend to agree with the OP.

[kevm14]

I’ll agree for the most part with the caveat that it also depends upon the vehicle itself. Some vehicles that are notorious for certain problems with their systems as related to their age and milage. Ie Chrysler transmissions. And in this case it would be directly related to how “disposable” the car is to you. Be it going for a reliable daily driver, or a classic.

With classic cars, I’m of the mindset that I want as high mileage of a vehicle as possible. Someone who has driven the vehicle that much has gotten most of the damn kinks worked out of the vehicle, and has not skimped on maintenance nor what the marque can consider mandatory updates to the vehicle. I honestly don’t know why in the hell someone thinks that originality is everything when it comes down to the mechanics. Especially when it comes to dry-rotted rubber components from the fuel lines to the tires. No, the rolling time-bombs your wheels are sitting on do NOT in fact drive the price *up* because of “preserved originality”.

And what is with this fucking “Adult Owned” bullshit? You know how many morons I’ve seen down here in Texas that pride themselves on “Adult Owned” vehicles that are *still* abused and have hidden damage. Oh, yes, you didn’t light the tires, nor play heavy metal nor hip hip on the radio, no. But you still have an regular V8 pickup WITHOUT the Factory Towing Package, and you’ve been pulling trailers. Fun Fact: XLT, or any other name that you call a towing package, means that aside from a $10 wiring harness and maybe a receiver hitch where applicable, it also came with a much, MUCH larger oil cooler for the transmission. You’re “adult” ownership also led you to grease the seats up with so much Armor All that it feels like Vikings with Jheri Curls have been using this damn car as barracks, and you’ve gummed up the fuel systems and brake lines since you never stored the thing properly. But oh yeah, you allegedly never chirped the tires once, so that’s supposed to make up for it all.

Give me a high-mileage vehicle any day. Proper records are even better, but at least I know that I have to sort the whole thing out rather than rely upon the garage of lies that low milage cars park within that gives that false sense of security.

This is pretty good.

[kevm14]

Bob I kind of feel like your Dad may place too much emphasis on some of the things this guy mentions as distractions in advertisements. Finding a car that "has never done a burnout," for example, or perhaps more famously "never been brake torqued" is actually pretty unimportant compared to a lot of other things.

[Fast_Ed]

To me, the main thing that kills cars is rust. Pretty much everything else can be replaced (unless you picked something rare/stupid)

Even rust can be fixed, but you really have to love the car to fix lots of that.

[kevm14]

I hate low mileage cars. It just jacks up the price for no reason other than perception that the car will magically last longer. I find high-mileage to be comforting because it means the owners actually DROVE the car and typically highway mileage which is way easier on things than stop-and-go.

It’s worse with classic cars. I don’t want to see a goddamn trailer queen, I want you to DRIVE YOUR DAMN CARS. Enjoy it for what it is; a way to get from A->B with a grin on your face, not something to masturbate over in your garage with a microfiber in one hand and a bottle of quick-detailer in the other.

[kevm14]

Ugh.

I will not buy a car for daily driver duties with over 50K ever again if I can help it. 5 years and 50K is the limit. It has to be newer than that.

It’s not the ‘70s anymore. 50K is absurdly low miles.

Maybe but why would you jump on a five year loan for a vehicle that is 8 years old and has 80K miles on it?

You wouldn’t, you would pay cash.

The rest of the thread is also entertaining. They get to the bottom of it. The guy just wants to drive fancy stuff. And they're like...but that's a choice you made. You don't HAVE to get a loan, idiot. Yup.

Continuing:

Thank god for everyone who throw away money hand over fist buying new cars and taking the brunt of the depreciation yourself. Enthusiasts wouldn’t have many exciting options if there was no one to make the bizarre financial decision to buy new cars.

Uh oh, here it is:

Still don't want someone else's problems.

The age-old fallacy that people only sell cars because something is wrong with them. Because, hey, if it worked perfectly, why would they sell it? Oh I dunno, because they want something different and it may still be worth a few bucks, to put into the next thing?

But this invites a more pertinent discussion: enthusiasts can't buy cheap, interesting cars without someone having bought it new first (and paying out the ass for the privilege). Case in point: The CTS-V2 wagon. That is the perfect Jalopnik-enthusiast type ride, or could have been. Yet, the exact demographic that would lust after the car and be in the market for a highly depreciated used example, is not in the demographic to buy it new. And so hardly anyone bought one, even though they are "awesome."

And by the way, the price of entry in a V2 wagon, at any mileage, is in the $50k range and up from there. It doesn't help, of course, that from 2011-2013 they only made 1,386 of them.

[Bob]

On the subject of mileage, I recently helped a friend of a friend of my wife who is moving to the US buy a car. His budget was around $5k and we ended up buying a 2006 Accord SE with 168k on it. I passed over a 2006 Mazda 6 with only 103k on it that appeared to not have been maintained as well. The Accord was a 2 owner car and the most recent owner drove it about 20k a year for the last 4 years. It had a full maintenance history from the most recent owner and was in very good condition. I think as cars get older, it makes sense to buy more on condition than mileage. For newer cars, mileage is still important because it is a major determining factor for resale.

[kevm14]

Lost my fucking reply.

Short story: Buying my 2005 CTS-V with 97k and driving it 21k miles instead of buying a 2007 CTS-V with 45k and driving it the same 21k miles saved me $7,700 in depreciation. Because I bought at the bottom of the curve.

Some data: Bought my 2005 CTS-V with 97k in 2010 for about $15k. Drove it 21k and now it is worth around $12,700 dealer retail clean (Edmunds).
Compare to a 2007 CTS-V with 45k in 2010, which was around $28k. With 66k, now worth about $18k dealer retail clean (Edmunds).
So, would have lost $10k on the 2007 and only $2,300 on my 2005.

And any maintenance I've done I'd argue could have easily been necessary on the 2007, based on what I've read. In fact, miles seem to have very little to do with anything, except make you pay more up front to buy. Rather than put in more, and MAYBE get more out later, I'd rather put in less, and know that my money isn't tied up in something that gets exposed to risk every single time it's driven.

[Bob]

I guess the key is buying and selling the flat part of the curve, and also buying at a price that falls below the curve.

[kevm14]

Yes, and however that drives the year/mileage.

It sounds like the Accord decision was pretty solid.

The real issue is, if you use a car a lot, it is going to depreciate more than if you didn't use it, due to wear/tear as well as the miles themselves. But even if you don't use it, it still depreciates. So you almost have to do a business case analysis on each individual situation and the car to determine how to optimally operate the vehicle. Which is a crazy amount of thinking for what is a means of conveyance.