Do you regard mileage differently between various cars ?

[J4CKO]

Have been looking at various cars with view to a change, I have found myself looking and regarding the mileage differently based on the car I am looking at.

I was comparing E46 M3 cabriolets (yes I know, get a coupe, but I want an open top) and found that higher mileages put me right off (as do some of the bad adverts and general air of "geyserness" a lot have) but I had a look at 645i's (very different I know) and kind of ignored the mileage being over 100k and saw it as being pretty much just run in. Not so much interested in the actual car models, but do you do the same thought process ?

Is this a fair assesment, do you use the same thought process, is a 645i potentially less problematic due to,

Ownership profile (at this age), middle aged or older vs younger, probably not hammered quite as often or as hard.

Engine type, less stressed 4.4 V8 vs motorsport derived 3.3 six cyl screamer

Normal Auto box vs SMG (in a lot of cases, appreciate some M3's are manual and some six series have SMG)

Chassis cracking on M3's

Vanos, on both ?

[Kemlo]

You're right - the E46 M3 Chassis is cracking!

I regard 100K on a 10 yr old M3 as about average and as long as condition and history are good then I don't see an issue.

I really hate a sloppily written/rushed advert though, puts me right off. As does a car that looked like it's ram-raided Halfords...

[George7]

Definitely. Certain cars seem to wear the miles a lot better than others as well. My ZT has 93k, but the seats make it look like its done twice that. 200k on an old Merc wouldn't bother me at all, but the same milage on a Ford Focus would have me scrolling away as quickly as possible.

[Captain Muppet]

I got rid of my AX GT because at 90k it was falling to bits. I replaced it with a CRX with a about the same mileage that just seemed nicely run in.

My quarter million mile E30 325 felt pretty solid, it certainly had fewer faults than my 60k mile RX7 that was the same age.

[RobM77]

Resale is what you need to think about, unless you plan on being a car's last owner. Sure, cars vary both due to build quality (compare a Honda and a Ford at 100k miles!) and type of usage (motorway, town, stops and starts etc), but the market generally just sees mileage as a number. I once owned a Toyota Celica from 95k miles to 143k miles and it felt like new (mostly motorway miles); it was a bugger to sell though - taking a year to shift and at half what a 80k mile car was worth.