Old cars with low mileage - good or not?

When I hear somebody just bought some Italian exotic which is 35 years old and they are exclaiming, "it had only xxxx miles" I tend to cringe. Maybe I'm wrong, but if rather buy s car that was driven, used, and basically taken care of than one that sat unused most of its life. When I think of all the systems that now have to be brought back, all of the unknowns may add up to costing more and causing more headaches than a current driver. Yeah, maybe the cylinders don't have a lot of wear, but.... What do you think? A car with 17,000 miles in 35 years or one with 50,000 miles since it was restored over the last 15 years?

Each case is different, but I can show you an E type Jag that was beautifully restored about five or six years ago and hasn't even left the garage. I'm sure this car is deteriorating a lot faster than if the guy actually drove it.

There are different cases. I would prefer the car driven 50k in the last 15 years (since restoration, that means they're putting some decent miles on it every year.

A car that's in original showroom condition (never restored) that only has 15k on it after 30 years? I'd be worried about that. Everything rubber has to be shot. Unless it was started every week and driven until it was warmed up, I would expect every seal to be shot.

When it comes to classics I want to see a car that has been driven 3000-5000 miles a year regardless of pedigree. Regardless of whether it's a Bugatti or a Beetle the seals dry out, brakes seize, rings stick etc.

My brother and I used to go round round debating this as he was a bit of a sucker for trends; I've been to a few bike auctions where people get excited over something still in the shipping crate and my thoughts are great I'm going to pay double for something that needs every seal or rubber part replaced.

I confess I don't care about famous owners, low mileage, barn find or matching numbers as I'm not going to be buying a Ferrari GTO anytime soon. All I care about is that it drives and performs like it did when it was fairly new.

Tom

With old car odometers capable of rolling over, are they sure it hasn't? After all, my 45 year old car shows 14,XXX on the odometer. I know it's actually 114,XXX though. Will admit I only put about 1500 a year on it since the restoration finished about 5 years ago now.

Actually, would depend on the what the car is. I would expect miles on it but often the high end cars don't see that many miles. The one's within most of our reach though have most likely been driven a lot and would have high miles. The high end cars aren't within the realm of possibility for me but if it were I'd prefer to see a car that has had few thousand miles a year put on it, at least.

With an older car, especially with a British or German car, you can't let them sit. Ideally you want a low mileage car that has seen steady mileage. A limited number of miles each and every week, you know? It really isn't the number of miles put on a car but rather the frequency of those miles.

I call it the "supermodel syndrome"

The reality is that most of these cars are at their best standing still rather than driving. They tend to be very needy.

I think it depends on the distribution of those miles over the years. Was it all in the first few years and then parked doing nothing for decades? or was it spread out evenly across the entire time? I wouldn't be scared of the latter.

I've had older cars with almost no miles and more than one with a lot. I tend to agree with the idea that the frequency of use rather than miles driven is an important issue. Assuming of course the ride is warmed up enough to get everything perking each time out.

But I feel the most important investment issue is body condition and originality. It's almost always tons cheaper to do mechanical repairs than body work! A car with lots of rust, dents, and/or missing small body or trim parts, is in my opinion the worst of auto investments. Mileage notwithstanding!

The most expensive thing to fix on a car (usually) is interior wear. I would rather have a basically un-used interior and have to fix everything else, than have a perfectly drivable car with a serviceable interior that's just good enough that i'll never pay through the nose to have it fixed, but will also keep the car from ever being truly 'nice'.

....but age and sitting with non use may dry out an interior more than use and care.

2,000 miles a year is around 38 1/2 miles a week. All of it may come from one or two pleasure drives in any given week so the car gets good and warm. Or perhaps an owner garages the car over the winter so the average weekly miles driven minus four months is higher. Regardless, that should be enough to keep the seals from deteriorating.

maseratiguy wrote: ....but age and sitting with non use may dry out an interior more than use and care.

Interiors need to be wet?

Sun is far more harsh than lack of use, and care is dependent on who owned it. 30 year old leather that's used but untreated will be just as bad as unused.

Rubber can be replaced- that ages due to oxygen. But it ages whether used or not. Would you drive a car with the original 40 year old rubber hoses?

Rust will happen if the car is stored outside or driven outside. And sun is bad for paint.

I'd have no problems with a low mileage car, if it were garaged.

alfadriver wrote:

maseratiguy wrote: ....but age and sitting with non use may dry out an interior more than use and care.

Interiors need to be wet? Sun is far more harsh than lack of use, and care is dependent on who owned it. 30 year old leather that's used but untreated will be just as bad as unused. Rubber can be replaced- that ages due to oxygen. But it ages whether used or not. Would you drive a car with the original 40 year old rubber hoses? Rust will happen if the car is stored outside or driven outside. And sun is bad for paint. I'd have no problems with a low mileage car, if it were garaged.

No, not in the sense of water wet. Ok, let me explain... Leather and even fabrics can dry out over time, even if not in the sunlight. You see they are porous and cellular materials and if there is not enough moisture in the air from the air being stagnant they can dry rot. You can think of these sort of as a piece of wood, or maybe a better example a sponge. If there is ambient moisture in the air, (not too much mind you) they stay at a relative moisture level. If on the other hand the car is in an enclosed place and the air is too dry and or stagnant, i.e.(which means "that is") the leather/fabric/wood/sponge will absorb or "wick" the moisture out of the air. when there is no more moisture available, ( again, I am talking low levels here if you can follow) then the leather/fabric/wood/sponge does not have enough to maintain their cellular structure and thus they can shrink. When they shrink they can split their seams, dry rot, crack, and in the case of wood warp. In fact especially with wood there is a certain range of moisture level desired for it to be workable and usable in furniture making. I'm guessing it would also hold true for leather etc.

Yes Sun is harsh but that does depend if someone leaves their car in the sun, which I wasn't part of the original question just an assumed variable on your part.

Again, yes rubber ages but I would assume that a car that is driven would also be maintained and radiator hoses etc would be replaced as needed, hence the car is then drivable, which is an assumed variable on my part.

Rust can happen if the car is stored outside and driven outside, but it can also happen if stored inside, again depending where stored.

to me I'd rather have a driven and used car than one that has sat for 15 years and is an unkown, but that's just me. I guess to each his own.

In reply to maseratiguy:

As I see it, constant use will do the same thing. That will involved both stretching via weight as well as sun load.

None the less, if the rotted items are limited to the seat covers and the rubber- that's pretty easy to deal with.

In reply to wlkelley3:I just read your comment about odos rolling over. Reminds me of the times I've seen odos unhooked for years at a time. In fact whenever I was using a Halda Twinmaster I just unhooked the speedo (odo) so I'd not have problems with drag on the speedo cable. And I knew of more than one used car lot that had a bank of reversable power drills which they used to run the odos on their lot backwards and erase miles.

I can remember on more than one gimmick rally based on odo readings that I drove backwards. Make a wrong turn, drive backwards to the intersection and erase your mistake. Same concept!

Low mileage without old documentation is equivalent to today's theory, if you didn't take a selfie you weren't there!

I have a lot of classics that see limited use. Some of these cars I've had for close to two decades. They're all covered and on battery tenders and ready to go when I need them. I have no issues due to them seeing limited use. When I buy cars I much prefer low mileage cars and am actually currently looking at an 88 911 with only 23k original miles.

In reply to Rupert: I've had people look at the odometer in my Opel GT and automatically think 6-digit odometer and ask if 14X,XXX is the true mileage. Sometimes I just agree with them, sometimes I remind them to look again as it's only a 5-digit with the 6th digit tenths of a mile.

In reply to wlkelley3:

I had the opposite experience a couple of years ago. My odo reads up to 999,999 miles. I was applying for collector car insurance from a different company, so I sent several photos of that car including the odometer reading. They responded that that a little over 6,000 miles was a hugely low number of miles for a 11 year old car. (I don't remember the exact reading when I took the picture.) I wrote back and told them it was actually a little over 60,000 miles. My odo doesn't show 10ths of a mile.