What's your cutoff for mileage on a used car?

very vehicle dependent for me.  something i am familar with,  know its ins and outs and common issues,  i'd have no issue buying something over 200k miles.  

something i don't know a ton about about and its common issues,  150k and under please.  

i'm a GM guy at heart and have owned many GM trucks.  I'd buy a GM truck at 250k and not blink an eye.  a dodge or Ford at the same price and miles i would likely walk away from.  But i KNOW the GM stuff.  not that it is actually any better,  but if it breaks i likely already know or can easily figure out the fix.    I currently own a Ram truck, and even at only 70k miles i trust it less than my previous 180k GMC.  

Condition is all that matters to me and I consider it in the order I don't want to work on. 

Rust, upholstery, paint, mechanics, mileage, price. 

Rust is an instant deal breaker. BTDT, never again. The others will depend on the price. 

I bought our Suburban with over 300k on it. Changed the fluids, fixed a broken fuel sending unit and took it on a 4000 mile vacation. My wife drives it daily and it has almost 375k on it now. I will run it into the ground and sell it for scrap.

I bought my XJ at 250k. No plans to sell it. Ever. 

My youngest's Colorado was bought at almost 300k. It was a company car so I knew its history.

The only vehicle I've ever bought with low mileage was my RV. It is 25 years old but only has 55k on it. 

I'm all about condition and service history.  My cap has always been 100k but after reading some of this I might be expanding my horizons, at least for certain cars!!

Ranger50 said:

Condition over mileage everytime.

180k is normal and rust free for Arizona but 75k is a rustbucket in Michigan.

My 11 year old, 185k 100% Michigan-lifed car was rust free.  Like, I could even zip the stabilizer link and (cursed non-taper fit) ball joint nuts off without heat.  They do not salt very much if at all, depending on where you are at.

Now, four years in Cleveland, all of the suspension parts that are steel are balls of rust, all the bolts and nuts are rusty, the DEM corroded out, etc...

Per the OP, I generally prefer cars over 150k.  If they have made it that far and feel good to drive, they were well cared for.  I have seen some 60-70k mile cars that were garbage for lack of maintenance.  The only other option is new, and I have a hard time with $500-600/mo payments for something that may be scrapyard worthy by the time it's paid off, depending on who did the rust protection that day.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Mileage?  Oh you mean the guage you open up and turn it back to zero?  

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

That happens when you live on the east side... still doesn't make me want to even look at a Michigan vehicle.

In reply to Ranger50 :

Some cherished cars are put away in the fall and not brought back out until spring. I always check out Jaguars in the rust belt.  

I agree with the others that condition is more important to me than miles however I'll put it in a slightly different context.  I believe maintenance is more important than miles.

A year ago I bought a 2005 Dodge Ram 2500 diesel with 130k on it for $18,000.  The selling features were very good physical condition but more importantly a 1" stack of maintenance records, most of which was done at the new car dealership.

I was in the market for a $15k truck max but looking back I'm so glad I stepped up to this rig.  Over the summer we drove it from CT to IA and back, while leaving our 2021 Stinger GT and 2021 Wrangler Unlimited at home.  I trust my pickup at least as much as the others because of maintenance. 

I would absolutely buy a 300k Toyota Landcruiser with a full maintenance history but it would likely cost $10k or more.  A 300k Camry might be worth $1k.  It's all relative.

In reply to frenchyd :

Possible but unlikely.

Man, condition or not, I just don't believe that most vehicles can survive over 250,000 miles without a major component failure just from simply being used. And by that I mean engine, transmission.

I suppose, as is obvious by now, there is tons of context involved in one's particular cut off. Project toy can be any amount of miles, because you might be getting into engine/transmission anyway. The other context is if you are no longer able to do your own stuff, too, because that makes you a lot less interested in risking problems. 

Now maybe somebody on here can explain to me that with proper maintenance, engines and transmissions do not "just break", in which case I would start being more selective, but I'm starting off skeptical. Surely the Army or something has done research into what exactly causes "terminal failure" in their vehicles??

Admittedly, on the other hand, my poor Saabaru started its life with me at 260,000 miles with a leaking head gasket. And despite the fact that I drove the SNOT out of that poor thing for a couple thousand miles, it's going away because of rust, not mechanical failure. 
Well, other than that front right hub, which I don't understand how that failed because I drove the car so gently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiUiT-LYtUU

as the more learned and experienced here have noted, condition trumps mileage.   Recently I was shopping small trucks for my father with Rangers being the primary target.  I looked at plenty of sub 125k vehicles which were cheap enough and utter crap.  In the end we spent more money on a 200k mile ranger which had been loved and maintainted.  I went over it top to bottom, ran every test I know and honestly if I covered the odometer and told you it had 50k on it you'd belive it.   If someone cares for a car miles are irrelevant.   

Conversely I've bought low mile vehicles which were just on the verge of everything failing.   Yes around 100-150k things start to break down, so buy right before that and plan to replace it all, buy right after when someone did that work and you will be buying better.   Look at the vehicle, the condition and the maintenace history, miles are an arbitrary number in todays market used only to sucker folks into paying more for a car on the edge of failure or to talk down a seller from a well maintained vehicle.

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

Condition is all that matters to me and I consider it in the order I don't want to work on. 

Rust, upholstery, paint, mechanics, mileage, price. 

Rust is an instant deal breaker. BTDT, never again. The others will depend on the price. 

I bought our Suburban with over 300k on it. Changed the fluids, fixed a broken fuel sending unit and took it on a 4000 mile vacation. My wife drives it daily and it has almost 375k on it now. I will run it into the ground and sell it for scrap.

I bought my XJ at 250k. No plans to sell it. Ever. 

My youngest's Colorado was bought at almost 300k. It was a company car so I knew its history.

The only vehicle I've ever bought with low mileage was my RV. It is 25 years old but only has 55k on it. 

This brings up a good variable to discuss.

It depends on what you're going to do with it.  If you're going to buy something cheap and run it until it's worthless, you can push the mileage higher.

My jam is to buy something low-mileage and somewhat desirable (at least has a broad market) at the bottom of it's depreciation curve, drive it for a few years, then put a coat of wax on it and sell it for pretty much what I paid for it.  It means I often spend a very long time looking for the unicorn.

My current Branger (94 Mazda B4000).  It's the whole kit and caboodle of unicorn-ness.  It has every single option except automatic transmission.  Power everything, power sport seats, pushbutton 4x4, first year that the B4000 was a Ranger, and it was a rust-free FL truck with only 84k miles which I bought in PA.  I now have a 114k mile truck, still with no rust in PA, that I know will bring what I paid for it during the current fever pricing.  But if you're looking for a vehicle that you expect to pay $X and run it until it's worth $0, I still recommend low mileage, because for your $X you will likely get more life before it reaches the $0 mark.

It is very rare that I don't make back at least 90% of what I paid.  I did take a bath on one, but some I've made 200% of what I paid or more because I waited for the "right" vehicle.

But, if you're looking for a forever vehicle that will last you a long time, the bottom line for me is that lower mileage means less time with a butt on the upholstery, less wear on the driveline, bearings, fewer miles trying to jiggle spot welds apart and metal fatigue, fewer miles of rain water being jetted into pinch welds, fewer rock chips on the fenders, fewer times the windows have been put up and down, fewer electrons passing through the sensors, fewer cycles of the injectors... you get the idea.  Basically, it likely has a longer time before I have to start throwing money at it to fix things.

Every vehicle has a fixed life before it starts falling apart, and mileage is a very good indicator of how much life something has left.  I personally choose to maximize the miles I have before that happens, hence why I choose low mileage.

But what do you folks pay for these 200k vehicles? I just can't fathom paying more than $3kfor a car with that mileage even if it is a M3or something. I know people spend $20k on rare cars with that mileage, but not me. 

frenchyd said:

In reply to Ranger50 :

Some cherished cars are put away in the fall and not brought back out until spring. I always check out Jaguars in the rust belt.  

The cleanest car I ever bought was from central Wisconsin.  I doubt it ever saw daylight between October and May for its first 23 years of life, and judging by the condition of its clearcoat, and how rapidly it degraded during my ownership, it was garaged when not being driven, too.

(I bought it off of eBay from a place that advertised itself as a "boy's ranch".  Picked car up at 1am on the coldest night of the winter of 2007... in central Wisconsin.  The place had some seriously creepy vibes, and also the car wouldn't start.  And it also wouldn't roll.  And our U-haul trailer did not have a winch, and I left my come-along at home.  Along with my gloves.  Good times...)

GTwannaB said:

But what do you folks pay for these 200k vehicles? I just can't fathom paying more than $3kfor a car with that mileage even if it is a M3or something. I know people spend $20k on rare cars with that mileage, but not me. 

I paid $3800 for my 184k mile S60R that was clean and came with a thick stack of maintenance records.  Shortly after, Youtube was full of videos of "$2500 300hp supercar???" videos.  Now I could probably sell it at 260k for $10,000.

It all depends on what you are looking at.  At 260k my car has no squeaks or rattles or broken trim. The paint is still immaculate with no chalkyness or peeling clearcoat.  The interior leather is still soft and no rips and tears or bad stitching.  The current owner keeps up on maintenance.  All those big expensive "what if??" items have already been taken care of, mostly by me, but then again, paid only $3800 for a car that was $50k ten years earlier, it's okay to have to pay into that.   Still in the black on the ol' automotive ledger.

P3PPY said:

Man, condition or not, I just don't believe that most vehicles can survive over 250,000 miles without a major component failure just from simply being used. And by that I mean engine, transmission.

On above S60R, at around 200k, at a rallycross(*), the torque converter bushing seized to the torque converter and ripped the front seal out, pumping all of the Toyota Type IV fluid onto central Michigan clay.  This was probably a Pete fault, not a car fault, as TF80 transmissions can suck air in long corners if you don't overfill them by a half-quart, and Pete never actually had checked transmission fluid level ever.

Told my transmission guy to just go through it, it's at 200k and I want to keep the car at least another 150k.  He replaced... the pump assembly, because the bushing galled it on its way out.  I was told that the friction materials were so unworn that you could still see visible printing on them.  Was also told that this is normal for modern electronically controlled transmissions: they just don't wear out anymore.

Hooray for modern torque-management shift strategies.  They smooth shifts by pulling power, not by slipping the clutches heavily.

I did also have an engine debacle, but this was due ultimately to a failed thermostat, and installing the wrong ignition coils.  Yes, all of it.  Yes, I feel dumb.

(*) Anything I own will be rallycrossed at least once.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, I don't take resale into account at all. I buy in the best condition I can find at the bottom of the market and drive them until they are mostly used up. I don't really care what they sell for. 

This is what a 375k mile, 4WD Suburban looks like. It drives very well, rides very well, runs very well, and cost $2750. My wife put 200 miles on it yesterday.

GTwannaB said:

But what do you folks pay for these 200k vehicles? I just can't fathom paying more than $3kfor a car with that mileage even if it is a M3or something. I know people spend $20k on rare cars with that mileage, but not me. 

I paid $2700 for the Ranger with 205k on it, sold it 3 years later with 210k for $3500. 

The P71 came to me for $600 with 220k, sold it 2 years later with 250k and a bad shift linkage for $300. 

Rust is world's more important than mileage here in the salt belt. Resell is not really something I consider because I have no choice but to buy the cheapest things I can find. 

I bought a W126 Mercedes diesel with the odometer stopped at 376k.  It needed a full suspension rebuild (they all do at this point anyway), but the only thing that really wore out while I had it was the governor in the injection pump started to stick (wouldn't return to idle properly), but after replacing it with a used one it ran fine until I sold it with no major issues (no tow trucks or anything that took more than a day to repair).

I guess 183k since that's what the Camaro had when I bought it.

I don't have a milage limit, honestly condition is much more important. I have bought vehicles with 300k that are nicer than ones with 20k on them.