Is there a 'sweet age' when purchasing a 2nd hand car?

The_Rainmaker

Some folk I know hunt for cars about 6 years old after cambelt etc have been done.

Mistral001

The_Rainmaker wrote: »

Some folk I know hunt for cars about 6 years old after cambelt etc have been done.

Cam belts have to be changed every 30,000 miles generally, however the more reliable makes use cam or timing chains these days which might never need to be changed during the life of the car.

Clutches though generally cannot be made maintenance free and usually need changed after about 60,000 miles but some manufacturers will use clutches which will last for two or three times longer than that.

alan_d

Mistral001 wrote: »

Cam belts have to be changed every 30,000 miles generally, however the more reliable makes use cam or timing chains these days which might never need to be changed during the life of the car.

Clutches though generally cannot be made maintenance free and usually need changed after about 60,000 miles but some manufacturers will use clutches which will last for two or three times longer than that.

Sounds like you're stuck in 1984??!
Most cambelts have a change interval around 90-100k these days, and a typical clutch will last well past 100k miles on most cars and 150-200k from the original clutch isn't unusual.