Buying a car. Need advice

[jellyjelly]

Shall i go for a newer car ie 99 with higher milage or an older car say 97 with lower milage?

Please give me your reasons why as i dont know what to go for.

PS not going to typical boy racer/modified lookign cars. Looking for maybe an astra or 206.

Depends on the car and the mileage, but low mileage is not necessarily a good thing. It can mean the car has been used mainly for short trips (3 miles or less), which can put a lot of strain on an engine. Cars benefit from having long runs at high speeds (or is it high revs?).

Unless the mileage was horrific, my instinct would be to go for a 99 with higher mileage.

Worth checking out the Honest John website. He's always talking about this in his Telegraph column.

Really depends on the mileage difference, how big a gap.

I'd be tempted to say lower milage. Its wear and tear that causes things to go wrong in the main - exhaust, break wear, tyre wear, etc.

Age of car I reckon really only affects the bodywork and these days bodywork is a much better quality and a car needs to be really old before it starts rusting.

The cars i have seen are either about 30/40k milage and are maybe an n/m ish reg or

tuvw reg with about a 90/100k miles.

Ideas please

30/40K is very low for an n/m car. I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but that's just me.

It'll only have been used for very short trips, or been left unused for long periods.