Mileage - how high is too high

Goudy

Does "German" actually make any difference.
You can buy a 10 year old A Class and it could have a Renault engine in it.

Barkin

monaymadlol said:

Barkin said:

monaymadlol said:

140k, 2014 petrol 

Instead of drip feeding bits of info, just say which make/model/engine it is.

Nah. It was a general question ❓ 

In that case, the general answer is 'who knows - anybody's guess'.

The quality & usefulness of any replies will depend on the quality of the question...

Mildly_Miffed

The answer to the question is very closely related to "how well has it been maintained?"

And, no, "it's been serviced at the interval" is often not the same as "well maintained". Not while there's 2yr/30k oil change intervals in this world.

CliveOfIndia

Servicing obviously play a large part in the life expectancy of a car, along with routine maintenance outside of pure service items.

But so does how it's been driven.  Servicing tends to mainly focus on the engine, but there are lots of other important components.  A car that's spent its life cruising gently up and down motorways will have relatively little wear to the steering, suspension, clutch, gearbox, brakes, the whole transmission system really, compared to one that's only ever been driven around town.  It's something of an old chestnut, but it always used to be said that an ex sales rep's car with intergalactic mileage could often be a good bet.

And if we're talking about the whole car rather than just the engine, where has it lived?  A few years of being constantly immersed in the salty damp atmosphere of a typical British seaside resort can mean terminal rust long before you might ordinarily expect it.

There are just so many variables, it's impossible to say.  All you can do is go by condition and history.  For what it's worth, every car I've ever owned has had between 150K - 200K on it before I changed it.  Admittedly some of those were pretty much fit for the knacker's yard at the end, but at least two of them that I know of are still going strong  One of them currently has over 250K on it, without any major repairs having been needed.

motorguy

I've a 2014 Golf 1.6TDI with 159K miles on it.

Running like clockwork.

Make sure price is reflective of the miles though.  High miles car need to be relatively cheap.

A similar car to mine with 80K miles on it is probably worth £5495 to £5995.  Mines likely worth £3,000 to £3,500 private sale.

forgotmyname

Personally I ignore service history stamps in the book etc,  what I want is paperwork for work done and avoid cars
that failed an MOT on lights and tyres because those owners generally don't fix anything unless it fails the MOT.

Works for me.   Current car on 172,000 miles and it will probably do that again with regular oil changes.  The
extended service intervals are often to the detriment of engine life.

20k miles and a wet belt is just a very large bill waiting to happen.

EnPointe

monaymadlol said:

For a German car, around ten years old, FSH, belt changed?

How high would you accept?

not just belt ?  there;sa point  where a car starts to become expensive  as  springs get  fatigued and may  crack, wheelbearings / hubs / CV joints need replacing  , also  stuff like Air con not holding  refrigerant  and the electornics / body electicals  giving out 

but that is often rather later than 10 years old  these days unless the car has done  a consistent 20K+ miles / year