newer car with high mileage or vice versa

Hi,

If I have a budget of $12000 and I wanna buy Accord, which one should I
try to find

1- Newer model with high mileage
or
2- Older model with low mileage

and why?

Thanks,

 

Meaning it's likely been driven on the highway a lot, which is preferably to
getting all that mileage on via stopngo city driving.

Meaning one cannot tell whether the low mileage was due to infrequent
highway (or whatever) driving or frequent city, short distance stopngo
driving.

If you can ascertain that the older low mileage car was mostly driven on
highways, I'd say it's the way to go.

If there's no way to tell, I think you just roll the dice with either. Maybe
use other factors, like which has a maintenance record, which had the most
recent timing belt change (or other major work), etc.

www.edmunds.com has good guidance on used car pricing, according to mileage
and year, etc., BTW.

 

Other things being equal (and this is a great many things), choose the newer
car with higher mileage.

It turns out digital odometers are easier to roll back than the old kind by
the right people. This can be done for $30-50 by some people you can google
search. It is apparently legal in Germany, so many German websites have you
mail them your speedometer assembly and they set it to whatever you like.

Some people who know more than me have estimated 1/3 to 40% of used cars for
sale on lots have been rolled back. You are more likely to get what you pay
for if the odometer admits to being driven 40k miles per year for a year or
2 on your budget.

regards,
KL

 

Newer car with high miles.

Miles are not the only enemy of a car. Time is an enemy. In fact, I'd
say that in a modern Honda, miles are much less the enemy (if the car
was properly cared for).

All things rot with time.

 

If the car has a Standard Transmission, a newer high-mileage car would be
preferable over an old low-mileage car. Most modern engine can handle the
extremely high mileage (especially Honda). Also, a car that gets driven
regularly will be in better condition then one that's dormant over extend
period of time. In the case of Civic, the 96 and up seems to be noticeably
more robust when compared to previous models. So, investing in the better
technology (that attributed to newer models) is also a bonus.

High mileage on an automatic transmission can be a costly repair. If the
engine is maintained properly, it can easily last the life of the car (or
until the car becomes too expensive to maintain), but the automatic tranny
will burn out much sooner then the engine. Rebuilding an Automatics
transmission will cost more then twice that of the Standard Tranny. So, if
the car has over a 100,000 miles, the type of transmission can be a key
issue

Pars

 

that fear of 100k is /so/ detroit mentality pars. honda automatics,
when drivers are not being suckered into premature replacement by
unscrupulous dealers, or are not part of the odyssey fiasco, will last
200, 300, or even 400k miles. if you really think that's premature
expiration, well, you've never worked on any ford, chrysler, gm,
mercedes, vw...

truth is, many manufacturers /do/ design with 100k end of life in mind,
but honda is [or was] not one of them. nor toyota.

 

The trans in my ES300 crapped out at 125K miles.

I suspect, though, that the culprit was the local gas station's
"transmission flush" that the previous owner had done.

 

wouldn't surprise me. my friends with the 360k automatic accord had
/never/ changed the tranny fluid. kinda scary, but it means there was
never any screw-ups!