Low mileage and $$$$$ or high milege and cheap?

Car B. $5900 pays for a lot of repairs, which you shouldn't need.

As a police Officer I can attest that lots of cars end up in accidents that have minimal to no damage. Look at the car and see if you can discern what was damaged. I see it all the time a car is lightly bumped and gets its bumper scuffed, and the other party requires a report for their insurance viola you have a "bad" Carfax for no or minimal damage.

Carfax is stupid in my honest opinion, partial or incorrect information is sometimes worse then none at all.

Javelin wrote: I am looking at two nearly cars, both Black on Black 2008 Mazda5 Touring's with identical options: Car A is at a new car dealer for $11,997 and has 73,303 miles with a squeaky clean Carfax showing dealer services and 1 owner. Car B is at a typical used car lot for $6,900 and has 130,791 miles with an accident in 09. That's $5,907 cheaper for 57K additional miles. A or B?

Don't look at the miles, look at the car.

That said 130k is low miles nowadays.

You are always taking a chance when buying a high mileage car. My personal fleet went as follows. 1986 gti, some problems. Nothing that was not expected. Bought with approx 180k for $560. 1997 Jetta Gt, again with approx 180k. Had expected problems. Worst was heater core. $250. 1992 Safari van, 210k miles. Had its share of issues. Fuel pump, rusty brake lines. Paid $1400 (I think) few years in when van developed trans leak, I did not want to fix. Away it went. 1992 Maxima, bought with 160k (I think) paid 1400 or 1600 from someone who had everything fixed on the car whenever it needed it. Great car, had something like 250k? When rust took it away. High mileage cars can be great if you are careful and have a bit of luck with you. Oh yeah, a couple of totally forgettable A/T Sentras. An 1987 and a 1986. Didn't make enough power to hurt themselves, did not like either one. And currently my wife is driving a creampuff 2007 Accord that we bought with 13k on it. At this point it still has less than 40k. Paid premium price for that one. But that is OK sometimes. Boy,did I run on there. An abused 73k car is worse than a well maintained 130k car. So like someone else said. Look at the car...

I can't believe they're asking that much for A. I had a hard time selling my clean 06 two years ago for $8k with less than 90k miles.

That said, get the cleanest lowest mileage example you can. it seems to me once you cross 100k miles on a 5, lots of little stuff starts failing, from interior plastics to bushings to struts.

Well Car C seems to be a bust. $9800 is as low as they'll go, which is almost $12K out the door.

Car A won't come off of $11K, which is way overpriced.

I'm about to throw in the towel and just buy Car B. Half the price seems fine to me!

Any of you want to sell yours???

I used Car C's offer as leverage on Car A. If they bite, I'm buying. Fingers crossed...

I would buy car B. That huge price savings buys a lot of maintenance and repairs. It looks awesome too.

Knurled wrote:

Javelin wrote: I am looking at two nearly cars, both Black on Black 2008 Mazda5 Touring's with identical options: Car A is at a new car dealer for $11,997 and has 73,303 miles with a squeaky clean Carfax showing dealer services and 1 owner. Car B is at a typical used car lot for $6,900 and has 130,791 miles with an accident in 09. That's $5,907 cheaper for 57K additional miles. A or B?

Don't look at the miles, look at the car. That said 130k is low miles nowadays.

It is lowish, just like 70k is lowish.....neither are anything close to low miles IMHO.

Update!

The gambit worked and the dealer for Car A bit at Car C's price! ($9,800 plus TTT), so I saved $2,200 playing 2 dealers off of one another. At that price, it's only $2,900 more than Car C but with 58K less miles and no accident history.

Now to go pick it up...

haha, nice

$2,900 more for 58,000 miles less.

$2,900÷58,000=.05 per mile.
Leases typically factor mileage depreciation at 15 - 25 cents per mile so looking at it that way, I'd say you got a bargain.

Nice! I'm on my way to 150k without any weird maintenance since 50k (under warranty). I suppose a three year old car shouldn't really need anything though.

Build thread coming soon?

Nice!

I have found a new-ish car with high-ish miles that, to me, seems cheap-ish. '12 Taurus SEL with 144,000 miles (corporate sale car) priced at $7,990. Seems like a good deal.

The 3.5 has a timing chain and seems like a very durable engine and I'm currently researching the transmission, looking for horror stories or common failures.

Try pricing the Lincoln version, the MKS, you might find you can get the Lincoln cheaper.

JohnRW1621 wrote: Try pricing the Lincoln version, the MKS, you might find you can get the Lincoln cheaper.

Quoted for truth

I was trying to go see Car A last night after work but day 10 of SWMBO's sick precluded that. Scheduled to go see it Sunday. There is a new dark horse in Car D at a dealership very close to Car A, it's also a 2008 Mazda5 Touring, this time in Storm Grey with 46K on it and comes with such goodies as a full roof rack with crossbars, hitch, and bike carrier. Unfortunately, it has a nasty crease in the passenger sliding door. I'm still really interested in it because it's a better color, comes with expensive accessories that I'm going to have to buy otherwise, and is 30K less miles. If I can get that one for $9500...

In other news, Car C hit me back at $9750. NOPE lolololol