Cars with low miles

Currently shutting my MIL around for errands in her 2008 Versa. 3178 miles on the odometer. I think that I have put at least 500 of them on it when I have come down and helped out. Yes, she has owned it since new, and I make sure the oil is changed once a year, just to take care of condensation build-up.

Car is certainly an appliance, but it takes her on her weekly errand of a couple miles.

Oh, and yes, it is less than 1000 miles a year. She'll likely keep the car until she can't drive, at which time someone will get a great price on a fairly new car, mechanically speaking. Too bad it wouldn't work well for BSpec.

Too bad that it will also still be a Versa. Sweet jesus that's the worst handling anemic pile of E36 M3 I've ever driven. No offense.

Anytime I hear that name, the first thing that comes to mind is a gay man whose preferences is somewhere between "top" and "bottom."

When I hear the name, I think "...Versa a real car".

When I was a kid, my mother's aunt had Plymouths. I remember a gray '56 Plymouth Savoy hardtop with seatcovers on the seats, and a '64 Belvedere that was that Chrysler light tan. Both had 6 cylinder engines and pushbutton automatics. I got to drive the '64 when I was old enough, and what I remembered was that for a 5 year old car, it only had about 10K miles on it. She wrecked it in '73 or '74 at which time it had about 14K miles on it. My mother's dear aunt did her parking "by touch" but drove so slowly she didn't do much more than scratch the paint. That '64 Plymouth probably had 3 or 4 times the thickness of paint that a "normal" '64 had as she would not let it stay scratched for long.

My wife's TSX, which we bought new in October of 2004, has about 41,000 miles on it. I realize that's not in the same league, but she goes to work full time and we always take it on weekends to keep the miles off my car.

My 99 Civic Si has had 7000 miles put on it in the past 5 years, IIRC. I only drove it 1000 last year.

Losing interest/mojo in it (Sonic is trying to change this), but can't bear to part with it.

That will be a great score for someone when she's ready to part with it. Some kid is going to get a great first car.

Stuff like that makes me wonder about super low mileage cars. A local dealer always sold cars that were 20+ years old with less than 10 miles on them. That cant be good for any car with fluids in it, right?

My parents are kinda similar in a way. They have a couple normal cars they drive around daily which get the miles on them, but have a few others that hardly get driven, and due to depreciation my dad doesn't want to sell it for 'less than it's worth' years later. That's basically how I got my van. They got it new in 1986, and by 2007 when my VW died, they still had it in a storage garage in great shape to be used for a few summer road trips a year. They had no plan to sell it, not that anybody would buy it anyway. Right now it's up to 135k, but that's still faily low for a car from the 80's, especially since i've been daily driving it for 4 years (and even using it before I officially got it).

The parents of a friend of mine got her a new 2004 Beetle when she got her liscence, and to this day it only has like 25k miles. Being Wisconsin it may rust out completely before it starts wearing out.

Handling, I can deal with on the Versa, it's better than my 26k # Sterling box. But to be able to comfortably reach the wheel, I need the seat so close that my knee digs into the horridly designed dash. If they only designed it four inches shorter, and got rid of the useless pocket, I might forgive them.

My BMW has traveled less than 2500 per year since 1980.

While we are on that subject, I'm wondering how CarMax finds so many low mileage cars and/or trucks. My local CarMax has a '03 Chevy S-10 Xtreme extended cab with only 18K miles. And just about every CarMax location has 1 or 2 vehicles that fall into that category...8-10 years old, but with less than 25-35 thousand miles. Are there really so many cars out there that folks buy and don't drive?

My '85 C-30 Dooley averages a little over 1000 miles a year. I've had it a dozen years or so. Currently has just 145k on it.

The '88 RX-7 has been Sunday driven and occasionally to the strip. I've had it ten years and driven it maybe 2000 miles. It's showing 102k.

The daily driver sees at least 15k a year.

Cole_Trickle wrote: Stuff like that makes me wonder about super low mileage cars. A local dealer always sold cars that were 20+ years old with less than 10 miles on them. That cant be good for any car with fluids in it, right?

It's not jujst the fluids... the brakes are usually in need of complete overhaul, most of the rubber bits (belts/hoses) are junk, and the strangest places develop rust.

My opinion is that, unless you KNOW the vehicle's history, stay far, far away from low mileage cars, since they are usually poorly maintained. Who would do a coolant flush after only 3000 miles? (nevermind that "only 3000" took eight years to do)

High miles cars, on the other hand, wouldn't have made it that long unless it was taken care of.

My mom's redezevouz is like that. bought new, She does about 2500 miles a year.

my 1987 Saab only has about 140,000.. that equals out to a little over 5000 miles a year

integraguy wrote: While we are on that subject, I'm wondering how CarMax finds so many low mileage cars and/or trucks.

Hurricanes and floods. Takes some time to "wash" a title, but fairly easy to do.

A slightly less scary answer is "affluent city people." I know of two individuals who could, and frequently do, use transit, but who consistently lease decent cars (mid-size GM and Audi A6) for three years, then turn them in and get new ones. The dealer gets three-year-old cars with maybe 20,000 miles. Everybody wins, and the country's GDP keeps growing.

honestly, if I could use transit to work.. and get there in a confortible amount of time.. I probably would. I would save my cars for nice drives out into the world when it is pleasure

Low-mileage cars have less wear on the interiors and less wear and tear in general. Age-related deterioration is dependent on, you guessed it, age. I'll gladly pay more for a 10-year old car with 70k miles on it than a 10-year old car with 240k on it.

my 2010 kia has 54k on it. lol
We had a lady come in with an 09 Aura the other day with 3800 miles. this is her only car, and she bought it new in the first month or so that the 09s hit the dealer. Pretty unimaginable (but I wish I could do the same sometimes) to only drive like 1000 miles a year. I drive more than 2000 a month lol

Ha, I'm looking at a 10 year old Outback with 198k. The leather interior is immaculate, and the only rust is a little bubbling at the edges of the rear wheel wells.

My dads first car was a 63 Chevy Bel-Air that he got from his grandpa. Seeing as my dad was born in 53, he got that car in... 1969. It had all of... 2700 miles on it.

It was literally used ONLY for going to the grocery store. They lived walking distance from the church.

I've figured out that my great aunts 98 Park Avenue with less than 70,000 miles on it has at least 9,000 miles on it from me driving her to Kentucky or Indiana from Chicago. Trying to get that one from her now seeing as she can't drive anymore (for her own good, really), but she won't give it up.

I used to know where there was a 73 Camaro RS with 26 MILES on it. My friend's great aunt lived in Yonkers NY. She had a pediatric medical practice in her home, and of course nobody really needs a car in NYC anyway. She retired in 73. She called the dealer and said, send me a car. They showed up with this 73 Camaro RS, 350/350, blue with white stripes and a white interior. She was always afraid to drive it because, well, she wasn't much of a driver, and it was NYC.

Then she had a stroke and was paralyzed on her right side. So, neatly tucked in a windowless, cement floor garage in Yonkers was an untouched 73 RS with 26 miles on the odometer.

I'm a sucker for low-mileage cars. I've had:

73 Hornet with 7100 (yes, just four digits)
73 Impala S/W with 58k
66 Bonneville with 74k
87 Cutlass Salon with 36k

We all need to help the next generation by making our aged parents buy cool cars. Around here, there are some old ladies driving 30-40 year old stuff, that would have been very nice, except for the olive green paint, 4 door sedan, 250 ci 6 cylinder/powerglide stuff. Gramma won't drive much, so its not like the 427 would have really cost her much more...

Streetwiseguy wrote: We all need to help the next generation by making our aged parents buy cool cars. Around here, there are some old ladies driving 30-40 year old stuff, that would have been very nice, except for the olive green paint, 4 door sedan, 250 ci 6 cylinder/powerglide stuff. Gramma won't drive much, so its not like the 427 would have really cost her much more...

In 1999 my B.I.L. went to buy a winter rat from an older lady his wife worked with. She had bought it new. It was an old, pretty rusty '70 Impala, that she wanted $500 for. She told him it ran well, but was "tough" on gas. Yeah....it was a 454! He ran it through the winter and sold it to a guy he worked with for $1K.