Second hand cars - mileage?

[mrbeanthethird]

Just been browsing online for a ‘new’ to me second hand car, for when my 15 year old one finally becomes too expensive in repairs to keep running.

Why on earth do all these cars that are literally a year or so old have such high mileage on them? I can’t understand it! They can’t all be ex hire cars or whatever, can they?

Some of them have done more miles in a year or so than mine has done in its lifetime (admittedly I bought it due to its ridiculously low mileage and it’s more than done its job for me), where can I find cars a couple of years old that haven’t done 35k +, anyone got any suggestions?

Cars bought on a 48 month PCP are usually on a very restricted mileage.

The motoring columnist in the Daily Telegraph, Honest John, always advised low years and high mileage, rather than the other way around. So many people sell granny’s car that’s 20 years old but only done 4000 miles and he said that’s a terrible buy because it will never have gone far enough to burn off the crud from just starting it (or something on those lines).

Also an ex-fleet car may have high miles but it is far more likely to have been serviced on schedule, by a main dealer, rather than a yearly oil change, if it’s lucky, by Bob round the corner. They can be a really good buy.

My last five cars in 25 years (Kia Ceed x2, Discovery, Volvo 940 and 740 estates all had over 100k miles when I bought them, with full service history, and the only disappointment was my first Kia from a guy who bragged that he did all the work himself. It was suspiciously cheap for a reason, but I’d just had to scrap my Discovery after 10 wonderful years and I was in a hurry - bad time to be car-hunting, but it saw me through a year while I looked for another.

Agree with this.

A friend recently needing a new car moaned that there were none. But in fact they meant there were none that fitted their criteria (specific model, OK, <xx years old, OK, mileage < xxxx, OK, for £XXXX). The price was the issue (secondhand cars seem to have gone up a lot lately; I checked the value of mine a couple of years ago, when I had had it for three years, and it was "worth" more than I paid!).

But I also agree with a PP – I would buy a newer car with higher mileage over an older one with lower mileage, if that is the choice (obvs newer with low mileage is the win but also more ££). Newer cars are just better – they will run better, have better alerts to issues, just better built. My baby car is almost seven years old and has done 120k (I drive a lot for work and for my hobby) and it runs like a dream.

Tbf @mrbeanthethird you can see that – your 15yo car has very low mileage but is starting to need work; so a better buy would be a much newer one with similar mileage.

I had a car in the 1990s, when I was an area manager, and also was weekly visiting a grandparent who lived over 100 miles away. I did 138,000 miles in four years.

So what the OP describes does not seem strange.

I’ve recently been looking for a new car (used), and have been horrified by how little I can get for my money now.

I bought my last car for £2k in 2012, it was a Segment-A, 07 Reg with less than 40k miles on the clock.
Now I’m struggling to find anything of the same spec for less than £5k. I thought worst case scenario I’d be spending about £4k, as I realise it’s been a while since I bought my last car, but there’s just nothing. To think I’d been considering upgrading as well. Haha!

I’d like to say it’s odd but I do approx 20k miles a year and that’s just ferrying the kids to their activities, school runs, daily life and visiting my parents approx once a month as they live 1.5hrs away!

Used car prices are indeed mad.

I paid £8k for a 2 YO Skoda Citigo 4.5 years ago - it seemed quite a good price at the height of the COVID madness when cars were in short supply. It came from a car supermarket. The same place is selling the same car (19 plate Citigos) for over £7k now, so they're now 4 years older and have only lost around £1k in that time compared with what I paid.

I also had another Citigo that was a special edition in 2014 on PCP. I handed it back in 2017 and was quoted about £4k to buy it, which seemed a fair price compared with others on sale, but I was getting a company car so didn't need it. I've just looked on Autotrader and people are selling that car now for over £4k nearly 10 years later, so it appears there's currently been hardly any depreciation in that time in that type of car at least.

On the belts, mine needs changing every 5 years (the garage says it seems a bit frequent but that's the recommendation and I do about 8k miles pa, so over double the OP). I paid £500 last time including the service and MOT.

I definitely preferred to buy from a dealer to get a longer warranty plus they had a reputation to lose. But then I was switching to an EV for the first time and wanted the reassurance. It was a good choice for me.

I’d agree though that a recent car with higher mileage is likely to cost less and be a better deal.

There is always one!

VW grp dry belt, together with the usually required water pump will be around £700 from an indie, close to double that for a main dealer.

Of course there are warranties that will cover clutch replacement, will be limited on mileage/time period but there are available

Given you do next to no mileage, does it really matter if a car has 35k, 45k or 55k on the clock? You'll be adding to it so slowly. My 14 plate diesel VW has done 120k and is doing absolutely fine. My little Fiat before that did about 100k before someone drove into it and I'm sure would have done plenty more. You sound like you have a bit of a skewed view of mileage - 45k in 15 years is exceptionally low.