The first car I ever bought was a 1973 Audi Fox (Audi 80 to the non-Americans in the crowd), which I purchased in 1982. It had 95,000 miles on the clock, and while the car was in good shape, it needed a lot of work mechanically. I ended up replacing all the various rubber components like hoses, belts, bushings, etc. and soon after rebuilt the motor as well. I replaced wheel bearings, brakes, and tires. Basically, every part that could wear out, was worn out and was replaced.
A few years later, I bought the 1971 Chevrolet Monte Carlo that I still own. It, too, had 95,000 miles on the clock and, yes, it, too, was completely worn out. Everything needed to be replaced before the car would be useable including a complete rebuild of the motor and transmission.
Fast-forward to 2024, and my 2019 Ford F-150 has just crossed 100,000 miles. The truck looks and feels like it just came off the showroom floor. The suspension is still tight, the engine runs like new, and the upholstery, while it has one or two marks on it, looks otherwise perfect.
Based on this experience, and talking to other people, I do have ask myself this question: Does mileage in a used car still matter like it did before? Clearly a car with 100,000 miles in 1982 is a completely different case compared with a car with 100,000 miles today. But does that mean mileage just doesn’t matter like before or have the goal post just moved? Is the 100,000 mile car from 1982 the 200,000 mile car today? Or 300,000 miles? Where is the limit now?
To help understand this, we need to talk about what has changed in the 40-50 years between those first cars I bought and my F-150. I believe the answer can be summed up in three words: “Customer Expectations.” And Toyota.
Toyota
Let’s start with Toyota, because understanding the impact of this company will explain the other two words.
When I first started out in the auto industry in 1990, cars were routinely tested and designed to last 100,000 miles or 10 years. We would run durability tests, which were designed to simulate customer usage and environmental impacts, and at the end of the tests when the cars had accumulated the equivalent of 100,000 customer miles and 10 years of service the cars needed to be “functional”.
In order to make sure our tests would indeed produce a competitive product, we would periodically run competitive cars as well. The results were always interesting, but one thing that stood out was that no matter how many times we ran these tests, Toyota cars always finished best. They would break less often and would perform better at the end of the tests than our cars. They were far more than just “functional” at 100,000 miles. They quickly became the benchmark for how to design cars for durability and long-life.
Of course, this didn’t happen by accident. Durability and long life have been hallmarks of Toyota cars for decades and it goes back to the early days of the company and the rebuilding of Japan after World War II.
Rebuilding Japan
Shortly after WWII ended, General Douglas MacArthur was tasked with taking a census of the Japanese people. Frustrated by his inability to complete the task in a war-torn country, MacArthur brought in a man named W. Edwards Deming to help out. Deming had over the years taken to the work of Walter A. Shewhart in statistical process control and applied it to both manufacturing as well as managerial processes. These methods emphasized the use of statistics to control the processes of making things. The theory being that if you control the process, then you control the outcome of that process.
If you control HOW a part is made, then you control the part itself. Nowadays, this is pretty much how all manufacturing is done, but in those days, the idea was revolutionary. At the time, manufacturers preferred to use inspectors to check parts after they were made and reject those that didn’t meet specifications. This would often result in a lot of scrap and wasted money. It also led to a lot of yelling and telling line workers they weren’t doing a good enough job. But that was the way things were done back then, and some American manufacturers were reluctant to change.
When Deming came to Japan to work on the census, on the other hand, he found fertile ground for his ideas and soon became the most influential person in Japanese manufacturing. Toyota especially took note of his ideas and developed what has become the world’s standard for manufacturing — specifically quality and process control. In 1949 Toyota introduced its Statistical Quality Control (SQC) process, and steadily built on this, turning it into the famed Total Quality Management process still in use today. But Toyota didn’t just use Deming’s ideas to help their manufacturing, they also used them to improve their management. Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda, Chairman and former President (1982-1999) of Toyota is quoted as saying “Every day I think about what he meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.”
Deming was so influential that in 1951, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) created the Deming Prize for innovations in quality control. It is still awarded annually to the individual deemed to have produced the greatest advancement in the art of quality control and the ceremony is broadcast on national television. In Japan, it’s a big deal!
I personally had the distinct honor and pleasure of attending one of Deming’s last seminars before he died at the end of 1993, and I can tell you it changed my life. He was very soft-spoken, but his words resonated and still influence me today.
Of course, the best quality control systems in the world can’t fix a bad design. Good quality control simply means parts are always built to the design specification, but if that design calls for steel that rusts easily or a rubber compound that deteriorates and cracks within a year, then the parts are never going to be durable, no matter how well they are made. This is where testing, good design practice, and experience come in. At Toyota, this means sticking with a design for a long time and making constant small improvements on it. If you look underneath a Toyota, you will see relatively simple designs. They stick with what they know, do it very well, and don’t deviate from it very much. That leads to a ton of corporate learning telling them how to build durable parts. It also means that innovation is often slower than at other companies. That may not matter to the average Toyota customer who instead values long life and transportation that gets them from A to B without drama.
Customer Expectations
In reality, “The average Toyota customer” probably covers over 99% of all car buyers, not just Toyota customers, and this leads us back to the first two of our three words: Customer Expectations. The proliferation of Toyota cars in the world’s automobile markets has given customers an expectation that cars should last a long time. Any car that doesn’t, quickly gains a bad reputation and correspondingly lower sales. Many manufacturers found this out the hard way and either failed or were bought and absorbed by larger competitors. The smart ones jumped on the band-wagon, bought into Deming’s ideas, and improved their quality and durability. For me personally this meant that by the end of my automotive design career, we would test to 150,000 miles and parts couldn’t just be “functional”, they had to achieve at least 80% or more of their original specification. What that meant varied for each part, but it meant that overall, the car couldn’t just be drivable, it had to perform well.
A great example of this is Hyundai. When Hyundai first came into the US market in the 90’s, their quality and durability wasn’t anywhere near Toyota or the other Japanese companies. Realizing they needed to gain customer’s trust, they were the first to implement a 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty. This gave customers some reassurance their cars would last and that they would be taken care of in the event something broke, but it also forced Hyundai to up their game. Warranty repairs are expensive for a manufacturer. It is money thrown down the drain. The best way to avoid this waste is to improve quality so the cars don’t break in the first place, and that is what they did. Now, while I have never owned a Hyundia (or Kia), I hear good things about them from a quality standpoint.
Buying a Used Car Now
So, what does this mean for those of you looking to buy a used car? Should you even care about mileage? Based on my experience, I think the answer is a qualified “no.” It’s qualified by the fact that not all cars are created equal. Not all manufacturers have succeeded in matching Toyota’s legendary quality and some models have a well-deserved reputation for poor durability, and of course, not everybody maintains their car well.
In general, though, I think mileage has moved way down the list of priorities when it comes to evaluating a used car. Not until you get to 200,000+ miles should it even be a consideration, in my view. Of course, if all else is equal, get the lower mileage cars, as it’ll be worth more since a car’s value to most appraisers still tracks with mileage, but if you are looking for a car that’s going to work for your needs, I wouldn’t think twice about a well-maintained 150,000 mile car.
So, what do you think? Are we really at a point now that we can stop worrying about mileage in used cars so much? If so, where do you think we should draw the “Oh that’s too high, I’m not buying that car”-line now? Should we even have a line?
Top graphic images: Toyota; Aaron/stock.adobe.com
“Now, while I have never owned a Hyundia (or Kia), I hear good things about them from a quality standpoint.”
Some are very good.
Some get sqeaky and rattly by 90K miles, and way too many have engines that die very young, and the owners wait many weeks or months for the replacement to be done. And way too many have the warranty coverage denied for a real or imagined technicality.
Personally, with plenty of excellent Honda, Toyota, Scion and Mazda used cars available, H/K do not even come into consideration.
YMMV with Hyundai and Kia, and certainly will, quite a bit.
I recall seeing a VW Scirocco with over 350,000 miles on the odometer in 1986-87.
2011 Sienna bought in 2011 with 25k miles. Currently at 135000. Oil, tires, brakes. Thats it. Engine runs like new.. its uncanny.
2007 Sienna bought in 2019 with 165000 miles. Currently at 250000 miles. Oil and tires (the brakes had been done right before buying), plus I had to replace the rear liftgate struts. That’s it, still going to this day.
I may shop around but odds are I will always have a Toyota in my driveway
My main personal example was my 2006 4Runner I bought with 196,000 miles on it. It was a bit rough cosmetically due to neglect but ran great. Ended up selling it with 265,000 miles and only having to replace one short coolant line.
I feel like all things being equal aside from mileage on a somewhat older car (early 2000’s for example), I would prefer to drive a car with 150-200k on it rather than 50-75k. Parts were meant to be used and rubber bits dry out. If it’s consistently getting used then those parts are getting used the way they were intended (which wasn’t just sitting around) and if there were issues, they would have been presumably fixed.
But, THEY DON’T MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TOO!!
Taxi spec Mercedes-Benz automobiles are pretty much unfillable. The trouble is Mercedes-Benz USA has no interest in selling them here.
I guess if they’re not available here, they are indeed unfillable.
Well, that is indeed true although before the iPhone spellchecker jumped in, I meant unkillable.
Did it again and I had to fix it!
My phone loves to sabotage me as well. We knew what you meant, just having a little fun.
Hyundia.
Hire me as a copyeditor! 🙂
I have purchased two cars over 200k miles. Both were Volvos. 1990 740 sedan (270k) and a 92 740 Turbo Wagon (206k). I got 60k out of the sedan, and I’m currently driving the wagon, which has been bulletproof so far. Both were purchased from mechanically inclined Volvo enthusiasts, and had recent timing belt and water pump services, and the wagon a new turbo. Besides redblocks, other cars I would purchase with high mileage would include several older BMWs, a few older Mercs, and a couple of diesel power mills. One car I would love to purchase is Owned by a local Euro specialist; his daughter drives it. White E36 M50 coupe with over 400k on the factory engine and trans, and it is a damn clean car. It’s one of the quietest older BMWs I’ve ever heard. No Vanos noise, no ticking, just, ahhh.
I agree that they are much better. For me, the next step is to find out where it lived most of it’s life, because that will help me get ready for which parts are going to go. If it came from the rustbelt, then I don’t consider the car very often.
In my head 100k car is still a 100k car. There is a key difference, but not one that can simply be moved along the mileage slider.
The 100k mark is the point at which a lot of what should be routine maintenance comes due, but no one ever does it. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, right? Oxygen sensors, coil packs/plugs, timing belts, water pumps, rotors and pads all around, tires, alignment. If the car is at 150k+ add struts, shocks, sway bar end links, possibly ball joints and various rubber suspension bushings. I assume I’m going to put $1-2k and a passel of weekends into a 100k+ mile car. So in that respect a 100k car is still a 100k car.
The key difference to me is the consequences of that wear. With the older cars over 100k I’m afraid the wear will lead to catastrophic failure that’s not worth fixing and I’ll have to drag the thing to the scrap yard. With the newer cars, say 2000 and later (2010 for some mfrs), I’m not afraid of that any more. I can deal with nearly anything that fails, provided the parts are available somewhere, and it’s probably worth the effort. (Interference engines with timing belts being a notable exception to that. Belt replacement on a 100k interference engine is a non-negotiable because of the cost of failure.)
The recent article about BMW oil filter gaskets come to mind when reading about Toyota quality control.
https://www.theautopian.com/heres-how-neglecting-a-36-gasket-can-destroy-a-22000-bmw-engine/
I’ll throw in a counterpoint:
My mom bought a 2007 Acura TSX brand new. It has stayed in the family. It has always been maintained at the dealer with all the regular maintenance and no major issues. It has fewer than 90K miles. In the last couple years the window seals blew out, causing flooding every time it rained. The brake calipers needed replacing. The entire front suspension needed replacing. The radio broke. Half the interior lights stopped working. Driver’s window glass broke off the track. The leather interior fell apart. It eats batteries and nobody can figure out why.
So even a stellar brand like Acura with a clean maintenance record can turn the corner into a turdmobile.
Based on the countless 200-300k mile TSXs of that gen on the local CL, either y’all got a lemon or somehow the environment was not kind to it. Or maybe it just sat too much, cars do work better when driven often.
Yeah, it sucks being on the wrong side of statistics. Still a fun car to drive.
Looking back at it though, I feel like all of those failures would have happened regardless of mileage. Those are things that would probably already be replaced or fixed on a 200k car, but it was probably less palatable since yours was low mileage. Even ‘reliable’ cars need quite a few unplanned fixes when they get older.
Hell, my boyfriends’ parents ’09 Land Cruiser started overheating when I borrowed it since the water pump was going out, and it had <120k miles. Meanwhile my roommate had an ’04 Civic with 130k that had most of what you mentioned (window falling off, interior lights going out, door handles flaking apart), and our 200k Odyssey has the rest (weird clacking sounds, leaky sunroof, flaking leather and paint, battery drain).
Meh, any Japanese car pre-2010 will have leather that breaks down quicker than their European counterparts… always been a weak spot for them
There are certain cars I would NEVER own outside of a warranty, Range Rover comes to mind. They just have so many problems and every single one of them is normally a huge expense. Most of the cars I have owned though, over 50, are over ten years old and had way over 100k on them. You just have to do your research to find out what the common problem areas are on them and do preventative maintenance and you’re normally good to go.
Came to say similar but about Hyundai/Kia
Like other folks have said, the reasons I’m still sticking to the less than 100k policy are:
1) Rust
2) Degradation of plastics and polymers over time (brittle trim and faded upholstery)
3) A good service history is always tough to track down
4) I want to be the one putting 100k on this car. That’s easier from 50-150k than it is from 100-200k.
Of course, there are always examples that prove these points wrong, but buying a car is such an expensive ordeal, you want to play it as safe as possible.
Buying a car doesn’t have to be such an expensive ordeal if you don’t insist on something with under 100k miles, you know
Honestly my guy, anything over $20 is an expensive ordeal these days.
I bought a Mitsubishi Colt with nearly 200k on the clock. Mechanically it is pretty much sound. The only bits I have to change are regular wear and tear parts (tyres, battery etc), and improvements to keep it up to date.
As someone else said, service history is what matters, and not the mileage number. Would you be as excited about that 50k mile car if you knew that it *might have gotten oil changes every 10-15k? Or that the previous owner used the pedals like on-off switches? My logic is that most cars built after, say 2000, are perfectly capable of making it to 50k miles with little to know maintenance. A Toyota? We’ve all probably had the tech-friend who had the 80k Camry arrive on a flatbed with an oil drain plug that was never removed (oil-change? What’s that?) Now 100k+ miles? Not many cars are going to make it that long without some sort of basic care. 150k+? Everything that could have broken on that car has probably been replaced at least once, and it’s a pretty safe bet that it got some sort of routine maintenance.
So, service history aside (let’s be honest, finding a car that has a well documented carfax service history is a bit of a unicorn in itself), I’d take my chances on a car that has made it to 150k that is the fraction of the price of a car that has only 50-70k.
The only real con here is the driver’s seat. 150k is a lot of time for some stranger’s sweaty ass to be planted there.
In a lot of cases I agree here. If we’re talking 5k on a car with 150k on it that clearly has been treated pretty well, that’s a lesser risk than shelling out 25k on a car with 50k on it.
The real issue with cars in that nebulous 40k-80k zone is that you simply don’t get the insane level of depreciation as you used to. A midsize sedan off-lease could be had for 16k before the pandemic. That was a great value. Not so much anymore.
I live in the Northeast. While a lot of people focus on mileage, I focus on years. I’d much rather buy a 3 year old car with 60k on it (like I recently did) than a 7 year old car with 50k on it. Mechanical longevity is important, but these days it’s rust that’s going to end the life of a car more often than catastrophic powertrain failure.
My bigger issue with buying cars with significant mileage is that with so few cheap new cars available, people are now leaning on used cars more than ever, which has driven prices up. Once a car has 100k on it, you can bet you’re going to spend a decent amount on maintenance, yet prices don’t seem to reflect that these days. If I’m going to take the risk on something used, there needs to be a chance that it outperforms the price I paid for it. And if that vehicle has 100k on it, is 8+ years old, but somehow is still worth more than 15k? What is the point? Odds are by year 15 or so the thing will be cosmetically hideous, and by 20 might be totally rotted out.
I think it still just depends on the car and the previous owner(s). I’m also in the NE but I’ll consider something 7-10 years old if it’s a reasonable deal on a model I want (and have done research on).
Before any purchase, I’m getting a PPI from someone who takes their time and puts the car on a lift. If the seller won’t agree to that….. Bye.
My DD is an ’07 Vibe, it’s perfectly fine from a rust standpoint, and I do nothing special. They do use salt here to some degree but nothing crazy and the last few winters in the NE haven’t been all that cold.
Too few people pay attention to researching what they need and then many people don’t get an inspection done of any kind before purchasing from whatever mystery seller they end up at. The amount of friends/coworkers I have with Stellantis or Nissan products that just buy based on trends is staggering. And then they wonder why their car always needs something.
In the past 2 months 3 people at work had to get new cars…. A Rogue, Murano, and Mini Cooper all had sudden (but predictable) EOL mechanical events.
Oof, what a trio of sadness.
Inspections are definitely the way to go, provided you trust the person doing them. That hasn’t worked out for me very well personally (the inspection I got on the Elantra Touring I bought caught literally nothing) and extends to houses (boy did my inspector again, catch basically nothing). So it’s not foolproof, but it is the right thing to do.
“trio of sadness”
Well said. 2 out of the 3 were surprised their cars died “so quickly”. Meanwhile I’m sitting there wondering how they even lasted as long as they did.
At least the new replacement fleet had a Corolla Cross Hybrid and RAV4 mixed in with the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
As Meatloaf once said…
And hey that Grand Cherokee might be fine.
I hope so. She’s a divorcee with 2 kids who killed the engine by having it try to compress water (plowed through a huge puddle at speed – must have been a mini lake).
Housing inspections are a mixed bag (but required here), but I’ve always had good luck with the vehicle PPIs. I take them to the closest dealer/specialist with good reviews for whatever car brand I’m looking at. You’re going to pay $100+ and wait over an hour, but you’re getting a fairly detailed breakdown for your troubles. And ostensibly from someone familiar with the pitfalls.
Still, I like to try to research the pitfalls beforehand if I can, haha.
Yeah just because it’s doesn’t always work out doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your due diligence.
I have never taken high mileage into consideration, if anything I’m more likely to buy certain things with really high miles just for the absurdity of it, or to try to get it to the next high-mileage milestone. What matters to me is what condition the vehicle is in when I go to look at it. My first 3 Saabarus had 134,000, 160,000, and 220,000 miles. The 160,000 mile one was in the best condition, bought from the original owner, and they had even had rust repair done, which was already rusting through again unfortunately.
The 220,000 mile one had an unknown history, and in slightly rough shape cosmetically, but over the entire 40,000 miles I drove it, all it needed was an alternator, and did develop a external head gasket leak before I let it go. The guy who bought it from me put another 20,000 miles on it before selling it last week, but he spent a bit more in those 20k miles than I did in 40k.
The 134,000 mile one? It’s also the cheapest running one I’ve bought, because it was (and still is) in rough shape. Huge dent in the rear quarter, more rust than any other roadworthy Saabaru I’ve ever seen, the AC didn’t work, and the timing belt was over 30k overdue for a replacement. I’ve driven that one the same 40k miles at this point as the one with 220k, but it cost me 4 times as much in maintenance.
“Saabarus”
This would be the most interesting car ever made
It’s a real thing, 2005-2006 Saab 9-2x, just a Subaru Impreza with a different interior and front/rear end.
Why does that sound so much less exciting than I thought it would be? Are they good? Looking at pics I kinda like the asthetic changes
All of mine have been the non-turbo Linear version, but I like them; there’s a reason I owned 3 simultaneously, and now that I’m down to the last one of those 3, have another one in reserve. I would imagine the turbo Aero version is pretty good too, since it’s essentially a WRX, but I have no firsthand experience with them yet.
Click and Clack had a riddle: What used to be rare, then became common, then became rare again? Answer: Turning over your odometer. They used to have 5 digits, then cars became reliable enough that they added another digit.
My second car was a BMW E30 323i that’d done about 350,000 kms. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it still drove well, pulled hard and was mostly reliable.
Of course you should be comfortable buying used cars with over 100k miles; it is simply a fact that cars with relatively high mileage continue to be reliable and economical if you take care of them.
I want to make an amendment here: I want to take the “Modern” out of your title. I am not old enough to know much about the longevity of cars 50 years ago, but I can tell you anecdotes about old cars that still survive. I have a 1986 Jeep CJ7 with 180k miles which suffers more age-related maladies than wear-related maladies, because it just isn’t worn out. I have a 1995 Jeep Cherokee with 230k miles, and that one has been in the family long enough for me to know that it has had zero major mechanical work in its life to maintain its basically perfect current condition. My 1974 Jeep J10, although on its 3rd engine(it has either 330k or 430k miles), is otherwise impressively mechanically sound; the transmission and transfer case look almost new inside.
On the other hand, my Honda Accord has 155k original miles and is on its 3rd engine. Because it has spent the last 10 years as a ricer project car being slowly clapped out worse and worse by a LONG string of owners who didn’t take care of it.
My point here is that mileage is an incredibly poor indicator of wear. It doesn’t take much Marketplace scrolling to find cars with 300k miles which are practically brand new being sold next to cars with 50k miles which are beat to shit and worn out.
I’ve bought used cars with anywhere from 110k miles to 270k miles. Even the well maintained ones eventually need parts replaced that you wouldn’t normally think of during the average life of a car, like sliding door rollers or trailing arm bushings or brake hoses or lock actuators.
Generally I don’t really worry about the longevity of the important bits as long as regular services were done and I don’t see anything scary under the oil cap, but the higher mileage ones of course are are going to cost more to maintain when you have all those ancillary bits starting to fail.
That being said I still buy the high mileage used cars because I can do most of the repairs myself and save a butt load of money.
after about 140k miles your not buying the vehicle your buying the previous owner
This is exactly it. My brother just moved out of the country and left us his Ford that has almost 250k miles, and outside of a few service/cosmetic things, it’s in great shape. The engine is still strong,and while it doesn’t drive like new or anything, it does still perform like a much yournger car
I’ll echo those that service history is super important. Also age, as many parts naturally just wear over time (rubbers and plastics, metals susceptible to rust). But if the vehicle was well kept and well serviced then only those with well deserved reputations tend to be ticking time bombs (though there are a lot of those too, research is your friend). The problem is actually getting a good service history, because so few people bother to keep track of that, even many who do a decent job on their maintenance. And things like carfax are extremely hit or miss on if things have actually been reported or not. But in short, yeah I would have no problem buying a car with 150k on it if everything lined up. We are at 140k on our Element and I need to do some suspension bushings, but nothing major, and I fully expect it to go over 200k.
Service history is everything, and I know I am typing this to folks who will understand.
Skipped and stretched service intervals will catch up with any car, and I thin with today more modern engines, finer tolerances and more advanced materials it is more important than ever.