Operating hours

[DeeKay17]

Looking to be a 997 and got into a debate with a friend over what's more important: miles on the dash or operating hours.i imagine a bit of both.

Anyone have any thoughts? Also what constitutes a low or high number of operating hours, I have no terms of reference. I know we can work out average speed but that still doesn't tell me how much the car has been worked.

Appreciate any advice from learned friends!

Ps hope those of you with convertibles enjoyed the sunshine today.

[smj996c]

as always buy on condition and get an independent inspection, mileage and operating hours are only part if the picture.

[DeeKay17]

Agree with that, but just want to get an idea of what's a low number of operating hours vs high as I have no terms of reference.

[thegoose]

The majority of both buyers & sellers will know nothing about the existence of the operating hours being recorded but everyone can see the number on the dash, so this will always have a bigger effect on saleability and value. However, if you're after a car to keep long term then personally I'd prefer one that'd done a higher average speed, hence more miles for a given number of hours given that the market value will be lower. I bought a lovely 997 a few years ago with 60-odd thousand miles on it in 1100 hours (whereas most at that many hours would be well under 30,000 miles) which would be a good example, it was about £5000 less than if it'd been sat in traffic for the same length of time.

[f1ashgordon]

Operating hours and mileage are directly proportional, given an average speed of 20-50mph (I don't know what the range is) I don't see how one can be more important/significant than the other.
The only time it would be of concern is if the mileage divided by the operating hours deviated massively from the average 20-50mph.
If anything the average speed of the car over its lifetime is probably more significant, the higher the better I'd imagine, which iwould mean a lower number of operating hours for any given mileage, but I just can't see any car deviating massively on UK roads (I.e not tracked or autobahn).

Edited by f1ashgordon on Saturday 20th April 23:28

[KPE]

thegoose said:

The majority of both buyers & sellers will know nothing about the existence of the operating hours being recorded but everyone can see the number on the dash, so this will always have a bigger effect on saleability and value. However, if you're after a car to keep long term then personally I'd prefer one that'd done a higher average speed, hence more miles for a given number of hours given that the market value will be lower. I bought a lovely 997 a few years ago with 60-odd thousand miles on it in 1100 hours (whereas most at that many hours would be well under 30,000 miles) which would be a good example, it was about £5000 less than if it'd been sat in traffic for the same length of time.

How can we check the op hours from the dash please? (2004 boxster)

[Rockster]

DeeKay17 said:

Looking to be a 997 and got into a debate with a friend over what's more important: miles on the dash or operating hours.i imagine a bit of both.

Anyone have any thoughts? Also what constitutes a low or high number of operating hours, I have no terms of reference. I know we can work out average speed but that still doesn't tell me how much the car has been worked.

Appreciate any advice from learned friends!

Ps hope those of you with convertibles enjoyed the sunshine today.

Where a used car buyer is at a disadvantage when buying a used car is sufficient knowledge about the car's condition. The odometer and the operating hours are just two data points that help add to the prospective buyer's knowledge (or at least sense) of the car's condition so he can make a good assessment of the car's value and whether he wants to own the car and if so how much he should offer/pay for the car.

Thus both the odometer and the operating hours are important.

The odometer at least nominally tells you how many miles are on the vehicle. Condition is tied to miles driven so one can make a judgement of the car's condition based on knowing how many miles the car has been driven. There is also something of value in knowing the vehicle covered 1000 miles per year or 10000 miles per year or 20000 miles per year.

The operating hours gives you a means to sanity check the odometer. Dividing the miles by the operating hours gives you an average speed. An "average" and this is all this is, is 30mph. (A while back I had my 02 Boxster's operating hours read. I do not recall the odometer reading at the time but it was guite high, over 200K miles (the car now has over 265K miles on it). The "average" speed? Just about 30mph.)

What you want to be concerned about is if the average speed is significantly less than 30mph. What is significantly less? Well, it depends upon various factors but 15mph average speed is significantly less but it may be harmless or explained by other things. The runtime needs to be considered in the context in which the car appears to have been used. If the owner lives in a large city/metro area where natually road speed limits are going to be low and distances traveled are on the average short, a 15mph average speed is likely real.

Or based on other things like wear/tear of various external and internal (pedals/carpets/seats) items it can suggest the odometer was tampered with. The 50K odometer reading was rolled back to 25K miles.