Is low mileage ever a bad thing when buying a car?

[matt-ITR]

So can low miles be a bad thing? I'm thinking cars that are rarely used and have very little mileage. Garage queens perhaps.

Cars are designed to be used and driven, so no doubt parts can wear/degrade out even when it is sitting there.
At what stage does really low mileage become and issue?

Extreme example would be the Porsche 959 found with delivery mileage and needed a fair bit doing.
Take less extreme examples, cars 5 years old perhaps. Any issues?

Edited by matt-ITR on Friday 11th November 14:27

[Otispunkmeyer]

Could be, especially if say its been a families second car and only really seen short trips to the shops.

I would take a motorway mile muncher with high miles over something with low miles, but had never been driven long enough to properly warm up.

[martin84]

Its not always ideal. Mileage isnt the only indicator of wear. An old automatic (say 10 years old for example) with 23k on the clock has probably never seen a motorway in its life and has primarily been used for short trips round town so the gearbox will have spent 23k going from 1st to 2nd every 200 yards for 23k and in the case of a very low mileage 12 year old car a friend of mine bought, one look through the paperwork saw the rear box of the exhaust was replaced 4 times with intervals of less than 2k between each one.

[RobM77]

Low mileage often means that a car's been used for short journeys, which aren't kind to the engine. You may find that 90% of its engine life has been on cold oil. Other components too tend to wear more per time used rather than per mile (like an aircraft is judged by). However, the market favours low mileage cars, so residuals are better, and unless the car's so cheap you plan to scrap it afterwards, it's an asset and I always buy a car over £1500 thinking about resale value as well as likely repair bills.

[DanielC4GP]

Mate of mine bought a 10 year old Astra last year with only 19,000 on the clock. Did warn him when he looked at it that low mileage isn't necessarily always a good thing because of the obvious cold short trips. He only kept it for 6 months so never did get to see whether the low mileage did effect the reliability or not.

[Snowboy]

A lad I used to work with bought an XR2i a long time back off a little old lady who rarely used it.
He was very please with the purchase.

But, a week later he was taking a spirited drive when some important bits of the engine stopped working.

The verdict from the mechanic was that some rubber seals and gaskets had dried out and failed when driven hard. That the grannies driving style hadn’t kept them lubricated and hot which would have kept them in tiptop condition.

That's second hand information – but do with it what you will.

[martin84]

If anyones interested the aforementioned 12 year old very low mileage car with exhaust boxes which only lasted 2k ended up very reliable with it clocking up 47,000 before the exhaust needed looking at again (and it wasnt replaced then in the end). Regular use did it the world of good.

[Big Rod]

I bought a car once, (very cheap and not low mileage admittedly!), which had been used as a shopping trolley for a number of years and hadn't seen a motorway in all that time.

It lunched its bottom end 20 minutes after it got over 30 mph as the oil pickup had clogged with all the swarf in the bottom of the sump. The oil hadn't been changed for f'n ages as it hadn't done the mileage to warrant it.

(Might've helped if the muppet driving it had taken heed of the oil pressure warning light that came on just before he put it into top gear mind!!)

[jbi]

make sure you have a good look at old MOT's as there is always the possibility it has been clocked.

tyres can develop flatspots if it has sat a while and coolant can rot out the radiator/hoses

[martin84]

I think this is why some older taxi's still run with no problems and clock up Millennium Falcon mileages, like 10 year old 406s etc with 250k on them and still no problems. They're in use all day, they never run cold. Surely thats the best way for the car to run efficiently?

[Zerotonine]

My Grandad bought a A reg Nissan Micra with about 17k on the clock a few years ago, after the old lady that owned it died. He used to rattle around in it and in the 5 years or so he owned it put another 10k on it. Threw it's cambelt at 27k and that was the end of that. He was a bloody liability on the road anyway, pushing 90 when he was forced by family to stop driving. So it probably did him a favour. (He still has his driving licence, has major cataracts in one eye, failing sight in the other, has to read the newspaper with a magnifying glass yet the DVLA says he is still fit to drive, go figure!)
And I have a 11 year old Accord with low mileage (for it's age), when i bought it a year ago it had 59k, now on 66k. No problems thus far, so it depends on definition of low mileage really.

[mgmrw]

My dad bought a Jaguar XK8 on a 1996 P plate, 2 years ago, with 24k on the clock. Proper garage queen........

It's been OK, but had the odd issue with things going into shock when it started being used as a DD.

Water pump, thermostat, back box, brake refresh, and a couple of trim pieces have fallen apart so far.

[Harry Flashman]

Depends on the car. With Morgans, absolutely. Badly put together, and things fail expensively during the first few thousand miles, often out of warranty. My 2003 Aero 8 cost me nearly £9k in fixes over 3 years of ownership - it was 4 years old and had 4000 miles on it when I bought it.

My second example is a 2005 car with 50k miles on it. Has been faultlessly reliable, after some other poor sod doubtless sorted it out (Thanks Boshly!)

[300bhp/ton]

matt-ITR said:

So can low miles be a bad thing? I'm thinking cars that are rarely used and have very little mileage. Garage queens perhaps.

Cars are designed to be used and driven, so no doubt parts can wear/degrade out even when it is sitting there.
At what stage does really low mileage become and issue?

Extreme example would be the Porsche 959 found with delivery mileage and needed a fair bit doing.
Take less extreme examples, cars 5 years old perhaps. Any issues?

Edited by matt-ITR on Friday 11th November 14:27

I think too many get hung up on mileage. I say condition is always prime.

[scorcher]

Remember seeing a low mileage one owner for BMW sale in the classifieds some time back and thought "i recognise that car".It was about 8 years old with something like 14000 miles on the clock and priced well above everything else to reflect the very low mileage.It belong to the local fire station commander and rarely travelled much more than 1/2 mile at a time from his house to work/house to the firestation/work to the firestation and then back again to wherever he came from.Don't think I would of wanted it myself!

[anonymous-user]

300bhp/ton said:

matt-ITR said:

So can low miles be a bad thing? I'm thinking cars that are rarely used and have very little mileage. Garage queens perhaps.

Cars are designed to be used and driven, so no doubt parts can wear/degrade out even when it is sitting there.
At what stage does really low mileage become and issue?

Extreme example would be the Porsche 959 found with delivery mileage and needed a fair bit doing.
Take less extreme examples, cars 5 years old perhaps. Any issues?

Edited by matt-ITR on Friday 11th November 14:27

I think too many get hung up on mileage. I say condition is always prime.

For once, I have to agree with 300 In fact the low mileage cars I've had have been more trouble than the high mileage ones.

[LotusOmega375D]

DanielC4GP said:

Mate of mine bought a 10 year old Astra last year with only 19,000 on the clock. Did warn him when he looked at it that low mileage isn't necessarily always a good thing because of the obvious cold short trips. He only kept it for 6 months so never did get to see whether the low mileage did effect the reliability or not.

I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere. I just need some help finding it.

[matt-ITR]

Pretty much as I thought, bit of a lottery at the end of the day but from the posts here seems to be an issue on cars 10 years and older, although not exclusively.

[timbob]

DanielC4GP said:

Mate of mine bought a 10 year old Astra last year with only 19,000 on the clock. Did warn him when he looked at it that low mileage isn't necessarily always a good thing because of the obvious cold short trips. He only kept it for 6 months so never did get to see whether the low mileage did effect the reliability or not.

I bought a T plate Honda Civic back in March 2007. It was 8 years old at the time, and had covered only 29,000 miles from new with one elderly owner.

In the last 4 and a half years, I've taken it up to 168,000 miles, and aside from regular servicing, normal consumables and a rear exhaust section, it's been fine.

[vit4]

To balance it slightly, my mk4 Escort; my mum bought it in 2007 for £250, with 30,000 from new, old lady's car used for short journeys and nothing else. But, it had an oil & filter every 6 months. It's been faultless, uses a little bit of oil now (55,000 or so) but IIRC the only thing it's needed is a water pump which was dirt cheap anyway


I'm now setting off to do a 150 mile journey in it, watch it leave me stranded