Don’t shy away from high mileage used cars

If you’re searching for a used car, the chances are its mileage will be at the forefront of your decision making. While we’ve been told that fewer miles equate to a better-condition car, that’s not always the case. Electric cars complicate matters further, given that they have fewer moving parts and are subject to less frequent health checks, plus have different life expectancies to internal combustion-engined cars. 

Firstly, let’s tackle the ‘100,000-mile myth’. You have probably heard this landmark cited as the moment when cars begin running into reliability issues, or severe depreciation takes hold.

However, unless it constitutes the end of a warranty – 100,000 miles is a typical period for EV batteries to be covered, for example – or the car in question requires a new timing chain or cambelt at this point, then it’s a largely irrelevant milestone in the lifespan of any vehicle.

If you’re considering a high-mileage car, its service history is increasingly important to show if it has been cared for over its life. 

On the flipside of this, though, are low-mileage cars. Limited mileage can mean a vehicle has suffered less wear and tear, which is clearly a positive. But there are other factors to consider. If a car hasn’t been used frequently enough, to the point where parts can seize – or haven’t been replaced – then that’s clearly a problem. Even worse, such things are not always immediately obvious when viewing. 

The tyres and brakes are the first things you should be looking at. Even if a car has barely budged, they should be replaced after a certain number of years.

With car sales stagnating in the wake of the pandemic, people have been hanging on to their vehicles for longer. The average age of the cars on UK roads is now over nine years old, which is the highest level for more than a decade. 

At the same time, however, British motorists are travelling less. The average car now covers around 7,400 miles in a year; back in 2002, that figure was 9,200 miles. 

Of course, what is perceived as ‘good’ mileage depends on the car and the type of driving that it’s done. An executive saloon which has travelled 100,000 miles on the motorway won’t have been under the same stresses and strains as a city car that has reached the same total in urban areas. 

So remember that although mileage is worth taking into account, it’s merely one indication of a car’s health. 

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