More mileage and cheaper or less and more expensive?

Elika0215

I'm looking at buying a car to do about 10k miles per year. Long story short, the Suzuki Celerio seems to fit the bill from a financial and practical perspective.

My main considerations with this dilemma are: Purchase and running costs, reliability and loud speakers (so people can see how cool I am when I blast music while driving (kidding))

I've seen a few but I don't know whether it's better to save on the initial outlay or pay now and save on services and other maintenance costs.

Options:
- 5k miles, £5,700
- 15k miles, £4,700

Thanks as always.

Mercdriver

What age are the cars? How they have been driven and maintained are generally more important considerations.

Ebe_Scrooge

As above, always buy on condition. Both of those cars have very low mileages in the grand scheme of things - in fact, I'd be wary of the one with only 5K on it, that's extremely low unless it's only a few months old. There's nothing worse for a car than to be sat on the drive most of the time and only taken for a 5 mile pootle once a week.

It's an old chestnut but still holds true - an ex sales rep's car that's spent all its life on motorways and has been serviced properly, with 150,000 on the clock, is often a safer bet than a car with only 20,000 miles that's popped to the shops and back once a week. Within reason mileage is largely irrelevant - condition, the type of driving that's been done, service and maintenance history are far more important.

AdrianC

You do know almost all near-new, lowish mileage used cars are ex-rentals, right?

EssexExile

AdrianC wrote: »

You do know almost all near-new, lowish mileage used cars are ex-rentals, right?

From experience I'd say there is nothing wrong with that.

Elika0215

Mercdriver wrote: »

What age are the cars? How they have been driven and maintained are generally more important considerations.

2016 and both have a Suzuki FSH. No idea how they've been driven.

Carrot007

Elika0215 wrote: »

2016 and both have a Suzuki FSH. No idea how they've been driven.

With that I would avoid both as too low milage. (with further info may be able to change that depeding of what it was).

Ebe_Scrooge

Carrot007 wrote: »

With that I would avoid both as too low milage. (with further info may be able to change that depeding of what it was).

I was about to say exactly the same - that's firmly in "little old lady pootling to the shops and back" territory. Either that or they've been stood doing nothing for large periods of time. Either scenario is really not good for a car.

Smellyonion

why is neither good for a modern petrol car?


If they have been serviced regularly, yearly then I see no issue.

shinytop

Carrot007 wrote: »

With that I would avoid both as too low milage. (with further info may be able to change that depeding of what it was).

Eh?. How is 5k miles per year 'too low mileage' ?
As others have said, condition and history are the main factors with both of these. That's a big difference in price between the two though.

Mercdriver

I'd be inclined towards the second one with more miles. Have you seen the history or have they just told you that they have FSH. I would ask to see the print outs to check that all the necessary checks have been done and oil etc changes done on time schedule.