When buying a new/used car, do the miles on the sway your opinion on whether to buy it or not?

Lets say you're looking for an LS460. You find one two good ones. One of them is everything you want in a car, but the miles are really high (lets say 150k), and then you find another one that isn't as bad, but not what you're looking for, but has low miles (lets say 50k). Both are priced around the same. Which would you get?

Personally, miles matter to me, but I haven't had a Lexus with real high miles, so I wouldn't know what to expect. I know that some LS's last over 200k miles, but just the fact that the miles are so high makes me wonder what the car has been through, you know?

 

I think you have to mention price as well. I've only had higher mileage Lexus' (135K+). But usually if the car isn't too old, couple years or so, and one has high mileage with a service record, and one with much less mileage and no record, one would imagine that the high mileage one attained said miles with highway driving, which means LOW vehicle wear. Sometimes you have to look at all possible factors. Mileage alone is a factor, but not the ultimate determinant.

 

When looking at miles on a car, I want it to to average no more than 15,000 a year, at most 17k. But when looking at an 06 car. Would I determine the average with 5 years (06,07,08,09,10), or would I average it with 6 years (05 being the release date, 06,07,08,09,10)?

I always go one year below, assuming that someone leased/bought the car when it was brand new and it wasn't on the lot for a year.

For example, I see an 06 GS with 81,480 miles. Would that mean he drove an average 16,296 a year for 5 years, or 13,580 a year for 6 years? Either way, it aint that bad.

Unless members here think otherwise?

 

if possible, under 50k would be great, but that depends on condition and usage (and what i need the car for), if it's reliable (like lexus), i have no problem getting higher mileage

but anything over 100k is automatically no-no to me. in fact, i don't think i would consider anything more than 80k miles. more than that, then i either consider myself not able to afford the car, or that means i need to put more money to get one with lower mileage

 

I really wish they would rate cars in hours of operation like how other industries show usage on engines etc. Maybe both miles and hours, you can calculate a average speed. Then you can determine easily if it was highway driven or city driven.

 

Recent cars with trip computers usually come with elapsed time, avg speed, along with MPG, along with the other stuff.. Although they are resettable, so it's not like an odometer where you can't change it. (I think it would be a great idea to have engine op hours similar to an odometer though!)


Miles matters, but you should look at maintenance as well. If it has 70,000 on it, with no maint. records, who knows how well it's been taken care of? I've seen people go 20, 30, even 60 thousand on an oil change, just pure neglect. (Work at a car stealer) In that kind of instance, if I find a car with say 100K but perfect maint. records, I would rather take that, at a lower price of course.

My last 2 cars have had pretty decent records of whats been done on them, and have caused me no trouble whatsoever. If I'm buying used, I would want some records- otherwise it's a luck of the draw, I'd say.

-Nathan

 

Yes IMO miles matter, under 50k is my vote.

 

Unless the 50K is way under priced or the 150K is way over priced, there is no way that they would be priced the same given the example above

 

To date I've always purchased cars with less that 50K on them. Although I've kept cars until they had well over 100K I've always started with a new or low mileage car.

 

Some miles matter more than others. A vehicle that has been run mostly at higher speeds, on the Interstates, with few stops/starts, is likely to have less wear on the brakes, tires, engine, transmission, driveline, and door hinges/assemblies than one used for typical stop-and-go driving and running around on short trips. The highway engine is also likely to be cleaner inside, because the oil gets hot more often and cleans out more of the crud/contaminants in the system. But, conversely, the highway car is also likely to have more damage to the front-end paint, hood, bumper, windshield, etc... from chips, pebbles, and road debris, unless it had a bra or other protective devices....and some of those devices themselves are not good for the paint because they don't let the paint breathe. Cars that have a lot of miles on Snow Belt areas in the Great Lakes and Northeast, where a lot of road salt and abrasives are used (abrasives can also damage the paint/trim), and in coastal areas near the beach where salt air is a factor, can also have more corrosion than vehicles kept in warm, dry areas.

 

Lets say a $5k difference.

 

I voted for under 50k, miles matter. Thats why if you sit in a car that was made in the same year but has less miles on it, it will almost always be cleaner inside and out. I just bought my car recently, and I was looking around for about 2 months for a car. And that was what I noticed. Another thing to note is to pay attention to when the major maintenance is due, if the car is getting near a major maintenance and that hasn't been performed yet, then thats another cost (another reason for you to talk the seller down in price). Personally, if a car had more than 50k miles on it, I wouldn't even consider it, even if it was disproportionally cheaper, I just don't have the time to waste dealing with problems.

 

According to KBB, a realistic figure would be $15K-$20K difference between 2 similar LS460L with 100K miles apart.

 

it's pretty impossible to have 100k difference in miles and only 5k difference in price, unless body condition difference is big

 

I wasn't doing any research when posting those numbers. Sorry bout the $5k difference thing. If its $15k difference, than ok.