Why do cars record mileage and not time running?

Arklight

I’d rather buy a used car with 100,000 miles on the clock that had been running motorway journeys, than one with 50,000 on the clock that had spent double the amount of time inching around in city traffic to go half as far.

Other than looking at how worn the interior and pedals are there seems no way of telling.

So why don’t cars record time running instead or as well as when the ignition starts? Actually given the two I would much rather know how long someone has actually sat in it rather than how much of the planet's surface it’s travelled.

As an example I popped into a local dealer and saw a 12 plate Qashqai they’d literally just got, unvaleted or restored. It had less than 13k miles on the clock.

The alloys looked like they'd been repeatedly driven into every kerb in every way imaginable. As soon as I opened the door the stench of stale tobacco billowed out.

Once my eyes had stopped watering I saw that every seat including the back ones was pock marked with numerous cigarette burns. All three pedals were worn down and the steering wheel had done that thing where it’s all sort of greasy and worn away from constant use.

I can’t imagine the kind of abuse that car must have sustained over time to acquire so little mileage and get so much wear.

I said to the dealer, “Honestly, it absolutely stinks of fags and looks very tired. Are you really going to be able to do anything about that?”

“Yes, with a lot of hard work.” He said.

A week later and it’s back in the forecourt, gleaming alloys, a fragrant reupholstered and restored interior, and a line of punters out the door wowed that they can get a 5 year old Qashqai with only 12600 miles for the same price as one with quadruple.

AdrianC

Just shows how stupid it is to focus on mileage, rather than condition.

coffeehound

Agreed, hours rather than miles makes more sense overall. For aircraft, the quantities used to set maintenance intervals are tailored to the individual components depending on whether they are affected more by flight hours, number of flights, calendar time, etc.

tacpot12

Even with aircraft, hours in the air doesn't tell you a lot about how the aircraft has been used. A Cessna 172 used by a Training School will have had a much harder life than one owned by a single owner.

wgl2014

Whilst it could be useful to know running hours it would still be no substitute for properly checking the cars condition.

Personally I'm quite happy that high miles put people off and knock values down, when I come to change car it will likely be one with 100k plus on the clock.

Jonesya

With electronics now so cheap I'd expect many cars are logging this, they just don't display it to the driver.

If you look at the details of those OBD readers for accessing the data in car engine control units there's various registers they can access which record engine run time, run time at idle, even run time while an engine warning light was showing.

The data is probably there but not used, after all what does it mean when a dealer advertises a car as have run for 4000 hours, or at an average speed of 45mph? Mileage is the accepted measure of wear and tear, but I'd agree having more data would be great, but probably confuse the average punter.

agrinnall

I'm pretty sure that the trip computer on the Mark 2 Golf GTi (I owned 2) did include the duration that the ignition had been switched on (or engine running, I can't remember which). Never seen it in any other car though.

flashg67

Too lazy to check but I'm thinking my Kia has an option to display hours in use too

System

Arklight wrote: »

Other than looking at how worn the interior and pedals are there seems no way of telling.

Yes there is. Number plate on the front, odometer on the dash. Divide odometer mileage by age of car. Anything sub 10-12,000 miles per annum be wary of. Anything heading towards or exceeding 20k a year is likely to have spent that doing long journeys and not town driving.

coffeehound

Jonesya wrote: »

The data is probably there but not used, after all what does it mean when a dealer advertises a car as have run for 4000 hours, or at an average speed of 45mph? Mileage is the accepted measure of wear and tear, but I'd agree having more data would be great, but probably confuse the average punter.

Over time youd get an industry average of miles travelled per running hour. You could then see straightaway if a car had been a commuter with low miles per running hour or used for longer motorway runs with more miles vs hours than the average.

AdrianC

So with stop-start on just about every car now, is this running time the engine time, or the ignition time?