We are in year 2008 now.

When looking for a used car, when old is too old?

3 years?

5 years?

5+ years?

Anything above a year or two is too old. If a car is 18 months old with 10,000 miles, it is a pretty good deal. A five year old car with 86,000 is a total waste of money.

Its not the year, its the miles.

Is it?

A car could be parked on the street, and driven once a week.
Rust all over, but low miles.

Its debatable.

cars are meant to be driven , if you find a 15 year old car with 50k on it , the chances are it wont be long before you blow a head gasket or run into a major repair. 15 year old car with 145k will perform better then the same car with 45k. Calculate about 12k miles per year w/ a good maintenance record

2008 0 0 0
2007 10,000 12,000 15,000
2006 20,000 24,000 30,000
2005 30,000 36,000 45,000
2004 40,000 48,000 60,000
2003 50,000 60,000 75,000


this is my little chart for max millage per used car, 5 year range.

Automobile Wrote:
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> Its not the year, its the miles.

+1


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

Too funny. The newest car I own is over 9 years old. The next newest is 11 yrs old, both are driven daily and look great. No car payments. Do the regular maintenance of oil, etc. and they work great.

Of course, all my other vehicles are over 25 yrs old, so your mileage may vary.

1895 is too old

Whats key is if they maintain the thing. Get maintenance receipts.

A car could be 10 years old, and have 60,000 miles on it, but if the owner only changes the oil once every 10,000 miles and hasn't performed the 60,000 maintenance on it, you could be looking at a potential nightmare.

The 60,000 maintenance is $400 - $600 alone. Breaks are expensive. Tires are now expensive. The tranny must be working well otherwise you've blown $2000 - $3500.

The 60K maintenance is also BS. All they do is "check" everything. They don't replace plugs/wires til closer to 90K.

They replace. Replaced tranny fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, etc. Mine did an allignment as well.

Definitely get a Carfax http://www.carfax.com/ report on the vehicle before you buy it. You'll need to get the VIN number. I helped a buddies company out buying a used work van. We would get the VIN's and run them, WOW! Some the van's had possible rolled back odometers, been in wrecks, one flood victim van and one van that had been repo'd about 14 times.

Carfax will also tell you if the vehcile was serviced at places like Midas or a dealership. When we signed up at Carfax it was something $39 for two months with unlimited running of VIN's.

ITRADE Wrote:
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> Breaks are expensive.

So are brakes.

Yah, my bad on the typo.

MILF Wrote:
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> The 60K maintenance is also BS. All they do is
> "check" everything. They don't replace
> plugs/wires til closer to 90K.
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Yeah, because every car ever made has the exact same 60K service requirements.

Like someone said, the only thing that really matters is whether the car has a maintnenance history. I wouldn't touch a car with 25K miles if the owner couldn't tell me if the oil had ever been changed. On the other hand, I would buy a 100K car with a complete history.