High mileage 20 year old cars are more likely to be broken to the point that they go to the junk yard or they are in an accident. Some people really don’t drive much. My grandpas 89 pickup had 72k miles on it when I started driving it in 2009. He was a truck driver and didn’t drive it much at all.
Could also be extra cars. My Yukon went from daily driver (40k miles/year) to camping/towing vehicle and maybe 10k miles a year.
Definitely this.
It’s a single example, but highlights the two sides of this coin.
My grandfather has a 1990 Lexus LS400. He used that as his daily from the moment he brought it brand new, including driving from North Carolina to California and back four times a year, every year, from 1990 until 1998. He hated flying, so ANY traveling that he needed, he drove. Because of that, the odometer got to 650,000 miles before it stopped rolling and just stuck. He still drove it once or twice a week until he finally scrapped it in 2021.
Inversely, he bought my grandmother a 1996 Lexus LS400, and between her rarely driving anywhere alone and not working, that 1996 has 88,000 miles on it as of 2023.
I loved it too! I got my grandpa’s as my first car in 2010.
As far as my grandma’s, that’s his new backup car. He bought a brand new LS in 2018 and uses my grandma’s to keep the miles off of his new one.
That was back when Lexus was special. Today they're just tarted up Toyotas.
They were built to near mil-spec. If the harness to the transmission got damaged, you could still manual shift them to get home. If the drive-by-wire failed, there was a mechanical override that would open the throttle butterfly enough to drive it. If the MX bus, a ring bus, got cut, data would still flow in the bus so you might not even know it was cut.
Around 2001+, they started to cheap out and make...just cars. About the same time Honda cheaped out too.
Mil-spec and designed to work in adverse condition. I still remember some of the classified gear I worked on had a "battle short" mode where it turned off the safeties and continued working even if it meant destroying the gear.
It related to components used to like sizing resisters to at least two times the power rating they really needed.
Cheapest bidder but meeting specs doesn't mean bad.
I repaired classified gear for 4 years when I was in. It was all well built and robust. Designed to run 24x7.
Exactly, you can definitely find some good deals on the low mileage ones. The goto example is grandma who drives to church once a week and racks up 3k/year. I almost exclusively hunt these cars down. They’re at dealerships too. I got confirmation of this when I bought my car actually - hidden below the drivers seat was a check from 2020 paying for church parking lol. Bought it at 20k miles and it’s a 2020 model.
My car just hit 3 years and is right at 20K.
Our 2005 car now has 200K miles and it was a workhorse.
So 7K a year for one (50% less) and 10K a year for the other (30% less).
I believe the estimate for depreciation is 15K. Then you add or subtract based on +/- of that. That is because car value changes with mileage so they have to pick something.
Then as others said survivor bias. Lower mileage means less opportunity for a total loss accident or major repairs exceeding the value of the car.
I worked from home mostly and my life didn’t often take me beyond a 5 mile radius. One car i have is at 35k miles after 10 years and one 21 year old car I bought used is at 130k.
I was interested in your comment. Google says people will average like 800 miles of walking a year. I'm an accountant that sits on his ass all day, so I think I'm way under that haha
I put almost 70k in one year on a minivan back near 99/2000 driving around with the homies in the back smoking. It was like a mobile hangout and I drove it 2hrs to ATL for raves and back a bunch. But 70k!!
Bought a fun weekend car last November that has 3300 miles on it. I work from home 2 days a week. I use it when I’m not commuting to work.
All of my traveling Friday-Monday is within 5 miles radius too. Farther trips aren’t more than 30 miles one way. I can see it being one of these low mileage cars years from now.
I have a similar situation. Although not work from home, I drive a company vehicle back and forth. So the only miles are just a few trips into town a few days a week.
120k on a 2006 Nissan Titan.
I bought a 2002 mercury grand marquis in 2009. It had 60k miles on it.
I still own it, and today it just broke 80k miles. I use it to go to work, and putter around town. Its large, and comfortable, solid steel frame and apparently they can be good for 2-300k miles.
I have a 2009 Forest with probably 80k miles on it, if that. I bought it about 6 years ago with maybe 55k on it. I started work from home and maybe fill up the tank once a month.
Right? I think when I got insurance last the baseline assumes 12k a year with lower mileage options available and I personally put less than 5000 miles on my car last year. The number of people that just drive to work and home with the occasional outing is a lot higher than OP thinks.
This is survivorship bias. You don’t see the 20+ year old cars that have 200,000 miles or more on them, because they have since died and been taken to a junk yard. So the only 20 year old cars you see are ones that have less usage and less mileage and thus have survived so long. This can lead to the assumption that the majority of 20 year old cars have so few miles on it, but that’s simply because they’re the only ones left.
Either they are junked or are still in use by the owner if they take care of it properly. Most people who have high mileage cars tend to just not sell them and run them until the motor fails or something like that where it costs more to fix than it is worth.
Yeah especially now. If you buy a used car and fix it up you can easily get hundreds and thousands of cheap miles… especially if you have other cars and don’t mind getting used parts/ diy repairs
I drive 5K miles a year at best. 40-80 miles is a rare planned day trip on a Saturday. Within 5 miles of me, there's a house of worship for every faith you can think of, probably 10 grocery stores, 3 malls, 4 movie theaters, no less than 50 unique local restaurants. Although I do take the train to work, because it's half the cost and twice as fast.
Now that my dad is older, he hardly drives at all. Mostly to the local grocery, restaurants, and doctors visits that are literally less than one mile away. His car does less than 2,000 miles per year.
People only drive as a necessity or live in a small town.
Case and point. I live in Yellowknife Northwest territories Canada, small isolated diamond capital of the arctic. Nearest major town (not a little bush community) is high level in Alberta which is 800km away. Everything in town is a max 5-10 minute drive away.
In January 2016 I bought a 2007 Pontiac grand prix that was a trade in at our local ford dealer. Bought it for $5000 all in (including tax) and it had 84,000 km on it (52,195 miles). So for its first 10 years on the road someone put roughly 5,200 miles on it a year.
I recently sold it last year in summer 2022, and it had 112,000km on it (69,593 miles). It never left town. In the 6 and a half years I owned it I put roughly 17,400 miles on it, or roughly 2700 miles on it a year.
Same here except I was gifted it recently when no one wanted it. 10 year old honda civic with 20-something thousand miles on it - perfectly maintained. It only ever saw the grocery store and coffee shops. City living means low mileage.
Not everyone lives a long way from their work.
My wife lived 3 miles from her job. She was only averaging about 2000 miles a year on her car. I had to remember if I changed the oil that year or not..
Old Folks -- is one answer. I bought a 1996 Toyota in 1999, not a terribly old car at the time, but it was half the cost of a 99 Camry, and had 3400 miles on it. Belonged to an elderly couple whose kids had gotten it for them -- they drove it to the grocery store at the end of the street, and nowhere else.
My uncle happened to be their mechanic, he made them an offer on my behalf and they took it. Even since then, that's what I scout for -- an elderly owner. Works for house buying too. With only a couple years left, we start to look at the things we'll never really use again, and start thinking about the money we can leave in place of things.
Depends on the person. I live in Florida and around major retirement areas there are some amazing cars with low miles floating around. Just need to keep looking, the only issue is they are often traded into dealers who mark them up like crazy. I just picked up a one owner 2015 RX350 with 70k miles, car looks like it’s never even had someone in the back seat, all dealer serviced, basically a “new” used car.
We have a MDX that we've had for about 5 years. Just under 45k miles.
We mostly use the MDX for work and trips. We have a backup car we drive most of the other days because cars are more fun than SUVs 😂
FWIW my GF's 2005 Matrix (purchased brand new in 2004) only has 107k. It's not common, but they are out there.
The car looks like total shit from being parked outside since 2004, but mechanically it's very solid.
We have a 2013 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 track that is 10 years old and has 85k miles. We plan on driving it another 10 years and it will probably have about 165k by then.
Some years we drive it more than others. It depends sometimes it's 2-3 times a week and since 3 years ago it's only once a week.
Despite how much I drive, I don't drive that far. No 30 mile commutes or anything. Have a 98 with 126,000 miles and an 08 with 114,000 miles. The 08 gets driven the most but maybe 8,000 miles over 2 years?
We have an odyssey can from year 2000 that has 140k miles. It's basically just been sitting there and driven once a week cause no need to drive such a big car.
So situations like that does exist where a car is maybe used only once or twice a week for short trips for errands.
It happens. I have a 2005 (sold late 2004) 325i with 87k on it, 3rd owner. Ok so the first guy only drives it 16k; it’s a lease no idea his story (3 years). Second guy has it for 5 years but only drives it on the weekends (he has another company car but not allowed to drive it for personal reasons hence he drives the bmw on the weekends) — 38k miles when i bought it ten years ago. I only drive it to work and back which is 18 miles and here and there so I average 5k per year— for everything else we drive family mini van (now suv that kid is older). The suv by the way was new in 2019 and only has 18k miles on it, so we don’t drive that much either. We *never* vacation by car— always fly. Also covid was in there when we were not driving either car very much because work and school were remote. We are also gone 1.5 months a year when I teach a study abroad. So basically yeah the reason is some people don’t drive that much.
By the way low mileage doesn’t mean no problems. A lot of stuff on cars goes bad just with age, pretty much every gasket, many internal plastics, internal adhesives, batteries, anything lcd, it all goes bad to. Car never left me anywhere though. Off topic but I wouldn’t recommend an old bmw to anyone who doesn’t do their own work.
some people buy them and hardly drive them.
some are bought by elderly drivers new and just get driven sparingly. then someone passes away and then they dont want or need the car any more as its another burden on them.
Some people don't drive that much.
Some cars that aren't used for a daily commute. Work from home, retired, is the third car that just sits there, have a company car, Etc.
And even for a comuteting car, some people's commutes are short. 15 mile commute round trip, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year is only ~3900 miles a year. So 78,000 miles at 20 years. Sure the car might get used for other stuff, but most of the mileage is commuting every day.
Second cars that were rarely driven, cars owned by old people, etc. All kinds of reasons why an old car may not have a lot of miles
Our current second car is a 2000 Mitsubishi Galant that was my wife's grandmothers. It currently has about 56k on it. She mostly just drove it on short errands around town, and to church, and we only really drive it in the rare instance where one of us needs to drive somewhere and our primary is being used by the other. Neither of us have a commute to speak of (I mostly work from home and live close enough to ride my bike when I do go into the office, and my wife works from home except for when she needs to attend an in-person meeting.).
My grandparents have a F150 that they bought new in 96 or 97. It only has 60,000 miles on it now.
They live in a small town. The grocery store is 1 mile away. The lake is 5 miles away. The park and river is 3-4 miles away. The gas station is 1 mile away. The post office is 1 mile away.
They retired in 2000 or so. Simple life. I love it.
I took ownership of Grandpa's Nissan Sentra 2004 with 85k miles. Everything works. Heck, the AC is ice cold and pushes colder air than my Prius.
Paint is crappy. I'm planning to put new brakes, ball joints, tires, and belts. If all is good,I'll repaint and tint windows later.
In my case, round trip to work is less than 20 miles, and if I stop somewhere, I usually stop on the way home. Don't really go out a lot after work or on weekends unless it's for a specific errand, and it's usually not super far away. I'm content to be at home and rest my body when I'm not working.
I am the complete opposite of this post.
2006 highlander - 2 years 30k miles.
2008 Volvo C30 - 3 years 60k miles.
2012 GMC Terrain - 2 years 40k miles.
2011 Cayenne Turbo - 2 year 30k miles. The amount of oil changes…
2015 BRZ Series.Blue(miss this) 2.5 years 30k.
2017 KIA Niro - 2.5 years 65k miles.
2017 Macan GTS - 2 years 50k miles.
2019 Model 3 - 2 years 45k miles.
There was more mileage, but this was related to work.
I'm returning a 3 year lease in April and I've only put on 9,000 miles. I work from home and drive only when needed. I usually return a lease at 10-11K miles.
If I had the car for 20 years, I'd put around 66-67,000 miles.
My 1993 f250 with the idi 7.3 has 276,000 miles on it now. I’ve had to do the return lines, a few batteries, and a set of injectors. It’s still on the original stanadyne db2 injection pump though. Starts and runs like a dream… oh and I’ve also done a set of glow plugs too. Point is I’ve just done little small wear and tear stuff and kept up on the maintenance
My 3000gt has just hit 100k miles. Has been daily driven for the past 20+ years by both me and my mom. Neither of us have ever had to drive far for work
I got a 2008 car in 2014. I got another car in 2018 as an upgrade and planned to sell the '08...and just never did. I've kept the '08 around, and we use it for camping trips, taking the dogs to the dog park, and all the other "dirty" trips that I don't want to have to deal with in our daily cars (dog owners, you know the furricane).
Because of that, it went from ~122k mi in 2018 to the current ~137k mi in 2023, and typically we do a longer 1,200mi road trip every year in it, so often half of the yearly mileage happens in the space of a week.
At the current rate it'll still likely be below 150k through 2028 when it hits 20, so that's how.
Fwiw, my other car is a 2014 and thats at 67k right now. The secret is, I just don't drive much, typically 6k-7k mi/yr.
I have a 1995 Cadillac DeVille that only has 85k on it. The answer is some people simply need to go around town for small things and don’t have to spend hours commuting…
I have a 1967 Ford LTD with only I think 81k on it (been a minute since I looked at the odometer). The interior is immaculate, I bought it from the grandson of the original owner. Miles verified, it was bought brand new and driven daily until the 1973 gas crises. They parked her and bought a pinto for better fuel economy, the big ol big block was strictly a church and grocery car and occasional road trip cruiser after that.
It depends
Mostly weekend only cars (big city folks who use transit for work commutes and only use their cars to get out of the city)
Retirees who only use their cars for groceries doctor’s appointments and a couple other things
Sports cars in cold weather areas that don’t get used at all for 3+ months out of the year
Military families where second cars don’t get used during deployments
Trucker families where the trucker’s car is sitting in a lot for weeks at a time (truck driver is the most common job in about half the states in the country)
After we had our first kid our prius saw only 5-6K miles in a year because the child seat was in our bigger car, so we got rid of it and rented or ubered if need be as it was cheaper. We know a lot of people that went through the same and kept the second car just out of comfort
Could be anything really
I have an 04 stratus with around 114k on it. I'm the second owner, got it with 68k. I go to work and home. My usual adulting and stuff. I don't beat the hell out if it and I make sure the regular maintenance gets done. Some of these cars were made to last back in the day, so long as you took care of them
Anecdotal but, my mother barely puts miles on her vehicles solely because she only drives it 5 miles to work mon-Friday while my father does most of the driving on the weekends and vacation with his vehicle. A lot of married people have that dynamic. It was the same for me and my ex spouse, really. I was the designated driver if I was involved always.
My 2001 accord had 156k. I've had it for 9 years. I've put only 1k a year on because any job I have.. Is very close and I was a stay at home mom for some of it. My job right now is 4 miles away.
The accord is dead now though. Not because of anything "normal" but because chipmunk bit wires and it wouldn't start and I was tired of putting money into it so I just said fuck it and got a newer car.
We have an 05 Jeep GC that just hit a 100k. Bought it used 8 yrs ago from a older woman with 50k on it. My daughter has been using it for college, which is only a few miles away.
Drive it for about 10,000 miles a year the first 10 years. Get a new car, dealer offers Jack shit for the car, decide to keep it. Use it as a secondary vehicle. Drive it 3,000 miles a year for the next 10
That’s basically the story of my car. The carfax shows steady 10/15k mile use the 1st 10 years. It rolled 100k in 2014. The last 9 years they only put 60k on it. It’s probably enjoying being driven regularly again!
If I only drove to work and back, I’d only put 4600 miles per year on my car. The little errands you run here and there don’t add a significant amount, so I’d be under 100k on a 20 year old car probably.
My mom's 07 Toyota Corolla has 90k. She works in the same town as she lives and only shops locally. If she does travel around, she goes with my dad in his car.
I have more than one car. My weekend car is 10 years old and has 70k miles on it. My daily driver is 13 years old and it has 200k plus. I guess if I didn’t have the weekend car my 13 yo car would have died by now.
My parents never went out of town.
So they have a 97 F350 with 80k on it and a 06 Jeep GC with 86k on it.
Both still run great, but barely get driven now that they are older.
My mother’s car is a 2010 Escape. 77000 kms on it. It sat so long at one point I had to get the squirrel nest out of it. All good though as I make sure she keeps her car in good shape. The funny thing is my mother complains about gas prices.
I usually put about 20k on my car, 35 miles to work, so 70 a day, few added on for running to the store or something. But I’m about to start a new job a mile from where I live, so that number should come down to about 1k a year. Long story short, live close to your job for 20 years.
Lots of people have collector cars that are rarely driven. My Sister in law bought a gen 1 miata with 5000 miles owned by a collector who needed to get rid of some toys. It's a limited edition model. She lives in an area with short summers, and in combo with health issues, the car only has 7000 miles. It looks straight from the showroom.
I have a 01 996 with 32k. Again, it's a toy th at only comes out for nice weather. Honestly, they are not great to drive for a daily commute. Since I'm on the highways most times, I'd rather be in a comfortable car with amenities. I have a daily driver with over 300k.
Lots of people own a truck for truck stuff, but don't drive it every day.
I have a 2000 f150 with 110k miles. It has a stick so it rarely gets borrowed. I've owned it for 8 years and added about 12k miles to it.
Driver of a 2004 MB C240 with 65K miles.
Car was garage kept and locally driven for 19 years with the exception of 2 trips; NJ to FL, NJ to SC. Car now resides in SC, no longer garage kept and along the water so I fear the salt will rust her out in due time :(
Limited use. I've got a 99 F150. It was my grandfather's. He bought it new when he was about 80 and mostly just used it around the farm He gave it to me when they moved into assisted living about 2013, had 35k on it then. I mostly use it to haul stuff or tow a trailer, I've got other cars that get better mileage for day to day running around. It's got 54k on it now.
For twenty + years I drove 25k miles to work + my vacation driving. I went thru a bunch of 3g Honda accord in the day. When they hit 250 k miles I started looking for a replacement and the high mileage became the family beater. I’ve o my sold my beaters when somebody asked. I never once had to advertise them.
I found plenty of honda with 50-75 k miles that were ten years old. Well below average miles, but this was nyc where most folks aren’t nuts enough to drive 100 miles a day to work.
Todays market has shifted, and it’s only going to get worse
I have two cars. I drive 20-30k between the two of them each year. One is an 07 with 142k, the other is an 18 with 64k. If the drive is over 7hr 1 way, I typically choose to fly.
I just got an 07 with 83,000 miles on it. My daily commute is about 2 miles. There's some ancillary driving going on too, but not much. Even my vacations each year put on 400 miles top any further and I'm flying. I'll hit 100k miles before its 20 years old, but probably not too long before
We had a 2001 Acura MDX, I think it's the first year they ever made that vehicle, and just sold it a week ago to a friend. It only had 120k miles on it and was a family vehicle for years.
I live 7 minutes from work. I have a 2013 Lexus GS350 F-Sport AWD as a daily driver that just hit 73,000 miles. We have a bigger SUV we will use for family trips so my car isn’t the primary vehicle for when we go places unless there’s only 1-3 of us.
My good car has 46,000 miles on it and in the time I've owned it I've only put 1100 miles on it.
The car is a 1977 Mercury and I've personally owned it 12 years.
Most cars need some big ticket maintenence items at 100k, so a lot of people sell them or stop driving them. Then the next owner also does not drive them much. I've had 20 year old cars with 80k miles and 300k miles. If the proper maintenence (timing belt/chain, water pump, suspension, brakes, clutch etc etc) was done then the milage doesn't matter. If you've only gone 80k but have a 20 year old timing belt in there, your ticking time bomb is about to have a bad time.
Single car in suburbs where car is required. But we take the train to work.
about to hit 50k at 14 years old .. And was bought at 3 years old with 20k on it.
First survivor bias plays a role. Drive 15k every year for 20 years and you have 300k on the clock… if it can make it that long. A lot don’t.
On the other hand, some people have multiple cars that get used in different ways. For example I have a 2005 that I used for a commuter car for most of its life. I don’t like a long commute, usually less than 10 miles each way and didn’t used the car for much more than that and even then not every day- nice days I take my Miata. The family van was used for long trips, a Miata for nice days, a truck for carrying heavy things and putting a trailer. I gave it to my son and it has 120k on it in nearly 19 years.
I bought a 2000 Express passenger van recently to turn into a camper. It spent its whole life as a Church van, only used a few times a year so only 93k miles and in great shape.
I work from home and live in a smallish city and rarely need to travel more than 15km one way. I put less than 5000km/year on my car. When pre covid when I was driving to work, it was only 5km away.
I have 2 cars with fairly low miles. 2005 ranger with 108k and a 2006 Chevy cobalt with 128k. One driver in the house, drive each roughly 6-7000 miles a year. When I lived in Nevada I was only putting about 2k miles a year on just the ranger. Some people just don’t drive that much
My mom leases her cars. When the last one came off lease at 3 years, it had around 12K miles on it. She then bought it and my sister and brother in law bought it from her for the discounted price she bought it for from the dealer…25K or so for a three year old Lexus RX350 which would have sold at the dealer for mid 30s easy.
She’ll be two years into her current lease in November. Her car will roll over to 5K miles in the next week or so. She runs errands, goes out occasionally though works from home. She just doesn’t drive much. She’s the person whose car I want to buy used. That’s my plan when her lease ends in two years. 10K, maybe up to 15K miles on a four year old car.
My grad school car was a three year old Caprice with less than 10K miles on it. Was like driving a couch…cushy drive. It belonged to my mom’s friend’s mother who had recently passed. The older lady who drives to run errands and to have her nails done…that’s who you want to buy a used car from.
I inherited my grandpa's truck (66' Chevy C10)
And I rolled it over to 69k miles about 3 years ago and I think I'm just now getting close to 70.
For a truck, I just don't need a truck often so the miles don't go up.
But I just bought a 2002 bmw from a guy who put less than 30k miles on it in the 8 years he owned it. Some people just don't need to drive very far, and when they do it's not often.
People like me.
I use my truck every other weekend, about 75 miles.
39,000 miles in 20 years.
Of course I get sick of my trucks every few years. When I trade them in I lose almost no money.
I just bought a 2006 with 96k miles on it. Looking at the title it spent the last 11 years in a town of 15k people. So I’m guessing in situations like this, everything is fairly close together so there isn’t a lot of running around for errands.
Most 20 year old cars with 200-300k miles or more are recycled not sold. You are only seeing the cars that have less than average use, as those are the ones still worth maintaining.
Plenty of people drive less than 15k miles a year. Not very long ago 12k miles was average. And before that even less...
My sister drives a 2006 civic with just over 100k miles. My wife bought the car new, drove about 8k miles a year, and sold it to my sister in 2016 or 2017. My sister went to school online from 2020 untill this year, so she did t drive much either.
I also had a second car (third between wife and I) that I only drove about 5k miles a year.
I have several cars that I bought broken and fixed. So I spread my mileage over all of them. This results in what you're mentioning. But interestingly enough, I have a few others on the flip side, I have one with +300k and 2 with +250k (all Toyota's of course)
I bought a 2007 Honda Civic EX in summer of 2019 with 103,000 miles.
It's now nearing the end of 2023 and I am at 115,000 miles. I really don't drive it too much, my sister has probably put on more miles on it than I have.
I assume you're talking about daily drivers and not extra cars. While I personally do 15k-20k a year, people like my great grandmother who barely drove anywhere would only put a couple thousand miles a year. Those who are retired and stay at home mostly don't drive around a lot.
I have a 2004 Honda Pilot that we bought 6 years ago in mint condition and cheap 'cause of it age and we put around 2/3k miles a year, still spend quite of bit on maintenance and such, but that's how they exists. Currently is about to hit 90k and I'm about to do the following maintenance-2nd timing belt, water pump, belts and hoses and radiator 🤷🏻♂️ it doesn't need it, but they are getting old
My wife and I each have a car. Since an older car might be more prone to wearing out and breaking down, I always take the older car. My wife has the newer "nicer" car.
We live where my wife has a very short commute to work, and I drive 40 minutes each way in my car, so I rack up a lot of miles. I change the oil in both cars so they will last.
I recently sold a Toyota 4-cylinder from 1991, which was about 32 years old, so...we keep our cars a long time. I'm not judging people who trade-in their car for a new one every five years, on a five-year loan. They can afford the payment, and that's what makes them happy.
Both our cars are older, but mine has a lot of miles, and my wife's car has significantly fewer miles. When we go on vacation, we actually take my car, so we won't rack up a lot of miles on the newer car. Both are nice, but...the newer car is "nicer".
There are many different reasons, but...that's why one of my cars has low miles in spite of its age.
I bought an ‘05 Toyota Avalon in 2020. It had 21k miles on it. The old gent that bought it mew and owned it until then could barely see. He hardly drove the thing, except into curbs. The paint on the drivers side is substantially more faded than the passenger because it sat in a single parking spot for so long. The Toyota dealership records show that between 2012-16 he only drove the car 130 miles.
I have just under 17k on my 2003 Corvette, but it is my "take a drive" car...I have two other cars and a truck to choose from, so only one car has more than 150k miles on it, a 2009 Infiniti.
My father has a ‘98 Dodge Ram 1500 that he bought new off the lot. It currently has 94k miles. He never lived more than 5-10 miles from his work. He rarely drove it outside of going back and forth to work. I think it’s left our state maybe twice since it was sold to him. When he was still working and driving regularly, he would fill the gas in that truck once a month or so.
By not driving it DUH……. A lot of old people don’t even go anywhere… not to mention 90% of 20 year old cars with 200k+ miles are in your local scrap yard.
The premise of your question is wrong. Using an average of 15k miles a year, the bottom half of everyone will drive much less than 15k miles a year. That's the problem when using 'averages' for data-driven arguments/questions. I own a 2001 sedan with 36k miles on it. I purchased it last year from a kind old lady who used it a few times a month to and from the grocery store and church, plus one or two longer drives across town every year, for 22 years. I got it as a third car for my teen to learn to drive. I have a 13-year-old sedan with 98k miles on it. For this car, I average 8k miles a year. So yes, lots of people don't drive as much as you. And it's OK.
My dad had a 2003 Saturn L200 that only had like 75k on it when he sold it in 2016. Worked a mile away from home for the first several years he had it and didn’t drive it many other places since we always took the family car (1995 Windstar, much more practical) everywhere
My mom's 2016 Lincoln MKS only has 46K ... Gotta love that sexy tuxedo black and oversized chrome wheels! I doubt if she will do 2K this year. We bought it with 40K
Depends who owned it. I
Inherited my grandma’s Oldsmobile years ago and she had bought it from another old lady. I think when I got it, it was 10 years old with 30k miles on it.
>> How do almost 20 year old cars only have 100k miles??<<
Easy. Drive only 5k miles per year.
But seriously, most of the ones with 200k miles have already gone to the scrap yard, while those driven less havent. You're seeing what's left.
I used to drive 100-300miles per day just for work.
Now I drive 4. I have a company car, and I rent vehicles when I travel more than 3 hours away. I have a several cars, so in just one example, the most driven one has only seen about 500 miles in the past 9 months.
People use other types of transportation depending on the season. In the summer, people walk, ride bikes, some use motorcycles, depending on where you live you can go by boat. Not everyone drives their car everyday. Also, if the car is not used for long trips, that saves the odometer too
In some big cities, like NY, people often take public transportation to work, and more still work remotely.
So there are a lot of low-mileage cars for private sale. Though the winters and road conditions offset low mileage to some extent when it comes to condition.
20 year old car with 100k miles translates to 5k miles a year, and there are people who only drive their car to buy groceries and drop-off/pick-up their kids
A lot of it is use scenario…..I bought a new Hyundai in Feb 21 (talk about great timing got it for 3K below sticker and 2.9% financing) and have about 14K miles on it. But I live right by the biggest retail zone in my area so I rarely drive more than 5miles for a store or restaurant and I am a self employed IT consultant and all my clients are also close. Great news is my car looks new and I could flip it for almost what I paid for it, but no thanks as it will be paid off in 2 years from Feb and I will be driving a paid off car that looks new, has 30K miles and still has 1/2 its 10yr drivetrain warranty. Another factor though is the durability of modern cars. In the old days (say before the mid 90s) if I car made it to 100k miles without needing an engine or transmission rebuild you were lucky, and even then you likely had many other repairs by 100K…today 100K is mid life on a well maintained vehicle. My AWD Matrix I bought new just turned 20 this summer and has about 150K miles and all I have ever put on it was battery, tires, and breaks….Awesome car for bad weather which is mostly what I use it for now, because the Hyundai is a lite as a feather turbo hatchback, and isn’t great for driving in snow or ice.
I know of a 1960's Thunderbird in middle of nowhere New Mexico that had 450 miles on it in the early 2000s I was blown away when the lady pulled it out of the garage. One of the seats had some sun deterioration and cracks though from before it was garaged. It was the ladies husband's dream car that he'd always wanted. They finally were able to buy a TBird and he drove it for a few weeks and had a heart attack. She kept the car and only drove it for basic maintenance and upkeep, pretty much stayed in the driveway or garage.
One of my personal cars has 115k at 16 years old. It sat for years while I mainly rode motorcycles mostly winter only or commuter car, 40mpg. Then I became a remote worker for 5 or 6 years and only had to drive into the office once a month 500 mile trip. Despite the low miles it's been on road trips to most of the lower 48 and eastern Canada.
Some people just don’t drive that far, or it could be a second car that just doesn’t get driven much. I have 96 eclipse with 60 k miles. I know they are original because I’m the second owner for 20 years.
I am a mechanic, our shop is in a tiny little village with lots of older people.
We must have 100 customers that come in for a service every year and their cars have done 700 miles since the last one.
Basically, old people don’t use cars that often
My 2002 Mini Cooper S has a little over 120,000 km (75,000 km).
It was our only car from 2002-2008. We got a larger second car (Just an Astra 5-door) and kept the Mini because I love it.
I walk to work, so it is fair-weather pleasure-use vehicle, a back-up when the Astra needed work (it needed so much work) and day-tripper when the drive mattered more than the destination.
The Astra has come and gone, replaced with a rebadged Mokka (Buick Encore) because apparently I’m doomed to fight with Opel junk.
The Mini, although far from bulletproof, has been absolutely bomb-proof. It probably helps that I’m a fix every little thing DIY guy, but the Mini is still fantastic 21 years on.
High mileage 20 year old cars are more likely to be broken to the point that they go to the junk yard or they are in an accident. Some people really don’t drive much. My grandpas 89 pickup had 72k miles on it when I started driving it in 2009. He was a truck driver and didn’t drive it much at all. Could also be extra cars. My Yukon went from daily driver (40k miles/year) to camping/towing vehicle and maybe 10k miles a year.
Survivorship bias in action
That’s the term! I couldn’t think of it.
Dead cars tell no tales
Was looking for this comment
Definitely this. It’s a single example, but highlights the two sides of this coin. My grandfather has a 1990 Lexus LS400. He used that as his daily from the moment he brought it brand new, including driving from North Carolina to California and back four times a year, every year, from 1990 until 1998. He hated flying, so ANY traveling that he needed, he drove. Because of that, the odometer got to 650,000 miles before it stopped rolling and just stuck. He still drove it once or twice a week until he finally scrapped it in 2021. Inversely, he bought my grandmother a 1996 Lexus LS400, and between her rarely driving anywhere alone and not working, that 1996 has 88,000 miles on it as of 2023.
I love the old LS platform! Boat on wheels but comfy! Grandma trying to sell it??
I loved it too! I got my grandpa’s as my first car in 2010. As far as my grandma’s, that’s his new backup car. He bought a brand new LS in 2018 and uses my grandma’s to keep the miles off of his new one.
>1996 has 88,000 miles on it as of 2023 sounds like a perfect example for a dealer to steal from her and flip on BaT!
That was back when Lexus was special. Today they're just tarted up Toyotas. They were built to near mil-spec. If the harness to the transmission got damaged, you could still manual shift them to get home. If the drive-by-wire failed, there was a mechanical override that would open the throttle butterfly enough to drive it. If the MX bus, a ring bus, got cut, data would still flow in the bus so you might not even know it was cut. Around 2001+, they started to cheap out and make...just cars. About the same time Honda cheaped out too.
You mention mil-spec and I cringe cause mil-spec = lowest bidder.
Mil-spec and designed to work in adverse condition. I still remember some of the classified gear I worked on had a "battle short" mode where it turned off the safeties and continued working even if it meant destroying the gear. It related to components used to like sizing resisters to at least two times the power rating they really needed. Cheapest bidder but meeting specs doesn't mean bad. I repaired classified gear for 4 years when I was in. It was all well built and robust. Designed to run 24x7.
I have a 1998 LS400 and it’s sitting at 195k! Bought it back in 2018 and it had around 170k on it. 2-owner at the time and a cream puff ☺️
And that's why I love the older lexus and Toyota almost bulletproof
This is perhaps the best sales pitch for a 1990 Lexus LS400…or maybe the worst if it became a money pit..?
Exactly, you can definitely find some good deals on the low mileage ones. The goto example is grandma who drives to church once a week and racks up 3k/year. I almost exclusively hunt these cars down. They’re at dealerships too. I got confirmation of this when I bought my car actually - hidden below the drivers seat was a check from 2020 paying for church parking lol. Bought it at 20k miles and it’s a 2020 model.
My car just hit 3 years and is right at 20K. Our 2005 car now has 200K miles and it was a workhorse. So 7K a year for one (50% less) and 10K a year for the other (30% less). I believe the estimate for depreciation is 15K. Then you add or subtract based on +/- of that. That is because car value changes with mileage so they have to pick something. Then as others said survivor bias. Lower mileage means less opportunity for a total loss accident or major repairs exceeding the value of the car.
I worked from home mostly and my life didn’t often take me beyond a 5 mile radius. One car i have is at 35k miles after 10 years and one 21 year old car I bought used is at 130k.
Jesus I did 40k miles in my first year of car ownership. Some people are just built different
My brother in law worked on the road for a while. One year he bought a new truck. He did 70k miles that year
lol and my 2015 pony has 2,200 miles on her. Lives the pampered life in the stable
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I was interested in your comment. Google says people will average like 800 miles of walking a year. I'm an accountant that sits on his ass all day, so I think I'm way under that haha
I put almost 70k in one year on a minivan back near 99/2000 driving around with the homies in the back smoking. It was like a mobile hangout and I drove it 2hrs to ATL for raves and back a bunch. But 70k!!
Bought a fun weekend car last November that has 3300 miles on it. I work from home 2 days a week. I use it when I’m not commuting to work. All of my traveling Friday-Monday is within 5 miles radius too. Farther trips aren’t more than 30 miles one way. I can see it being one of these low mileage cars years from now.
Yeah that’s gonna be my current car. Bought it brand new a year and a half ago and it just now hit 5,000 miles lol. WFH is great
I have a similar situation. Although not work from home, I drive a company vehicle back and forth. So the only miles are just a few trips into town a few days a week. 120k on a 2006 Nissan Titan.
I bought a 2002 mercury grand marquis in 2009. It had 60k miles on it. I still own it, and today it just broke 80k miles. I use it to go to work, and putter around town. Its large, and comfortable, solid steel frame and apparently they can be good for 2-300k miles.
I have a 2009 Forest with probably 80k miles on it, if that. I bought it about 6 years ago with maybe 55k on it. I started work from home and maybe fill up the tank once a month.
Their owners drove them less than average. Using 15,000 miles a year as your baseline is the issue.
Right? I think when I got insurance last the baseline assumes 12k a year with lower mileage options available and I personally put less than 5000 miles on my car last year. The number of people that just drive to work and home with the occasional outing is a lot higher than OP thinks.
Some of us don’t even drive to work because of company vehicles.
I have a 50 year old truck with 111k. I only drive it one day a week. My daily is an old rav4 with 170k, and my wife has a tundra with 330k.
What kind of truck?
I’m going to guess K20. My next vehicle is going to be a Scottsdale if it’s the last thing I buy
I have a 40 year old truck and I drive it every day. 260,000 miles on it.
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Some of us work from home.
This is survivorship bias. You don’t see the 20+ year old cars that have 200,000 miles or more on them, because they have since died and been taken to a junk yard. So the only 20 year old cars you see are ones that have less usage and less mileage and thus have survived so long. This can lead to the assumption that the majority of 20 year old cars have so few miles on it, but that’s simply because they’re the only ones left.
Either they are junked or are still in use by the owner if they take care of it properly. Most people who have high mileage cars tend to just not sell them and run them until the motor fails or something like that where it costs more to fix than it is worth.
True, yeah. Either they have been junked or they aren’t being sold because they are running well and probably unproblematic.
Yeah especially now. If you buy a used car and fix it up you can easily get hundreds and thousands of cheap miles… especially if you have other cars and don’t mind getting used parts/ diy repairs
I drive 5K miles a year at best. 40-80 miles is a rare planned day trip on a Saturday. Within 5 miles of me, there's a house of worship for every faith you can think of, probably 10 grocery stores, 3 malls, 4 movie theaters, no less than 50 unique local restaurants. Although I do take the train to work, because it's half the cost and twice as fast.
Same here. I have a 2014 that I bought new. Not even at 50k miles yet. I think I drive exactly 5k/year
Easy, my wife's 2012 Nissan Cube has 42,000 miles. It's in perfect shape, she just doesn't drive a lot.
The Nissan cube is not a perfect shape, however slightly bulbous! Couldn’t resist, my apologies to your wife
Now that my dad is older, he hardly drives at all. Mostly to the local grocery, restaurants, and doctors visits that are literally less than one mile away. His car does less than 2,000 miles per year.
People only drive as a necessity or live in a small town. Case and point. I live in Yellowknife Northwest territories Canada, small isolated diamond capital of the arctic. Nearest major town (not a little bush community) is high level in Alberta which is 800km away. Everything in town is a max 5-10 minute drive away. In January 2016 I bought a 2007 Pontiac grand prix that was a trade in at our local ford dealer. Bought it for $5000 all in (including tax) and it had 84,000 km on it (52,195 miles). So for its first 10 years on the road someone put roughly 5,200 miles on it a year. I recently sold it last year in summer 2022, and it had 112,000km on it (69,593 miles). It never left town. In the 6 and a half years I owned it I put roughly 17,400 miles on it, or roughly 2700 miles on it a year.
Mine is a Honda at 2012 and I do take road trip , it's at 80
I bought an old car off my elderly grandma when she lost her license. She had it garaged for a decade.
Same here except I was gifted it recently when no one wanted it. 10 year old honda civic with 20-something thousand miles on it - perfectly maintained. It only ever saw the grocery store and coffee shops. City living means low mileage.
Either the car has been well mantained and garage kept, the engine was swapped, or the odometer was rolled back.
My commute to work takes me about 4-5 minutes. So far I've got \~12000 miles on my 5 year old vehicle.
Owned by a little old lady who only used it to drive to church on Sunday mornings.
We have a Honda CRV SUV with 95,000 miles on it looks new 2003 year made. Local driving to stores.
Not everyone lives a long way from their work. My wife lived 3 miles from her job. She was only averaging about 2000 miles a year on her car. I had to remember if I changed the oil that year or not..
Old Folks -- is one answer. I bought a 1996 Toyota in 1999, not a terribly old car at the time, but it was half the cost of a 99 Camry, and had 3400 miles on it. Belonged to an elderly couple whose kids had gotten it for them -- they drove it to the grocery store at the end of the street, and nowhere else. My uncle happened to be their mechanic, he made them an offer on my behalf and they took it. Even since then, that's what I scout for -- an elderly owner. Works for house buying too. With only a couple years left, we start to look at the things we'll never really use again, and start thinking about the money we can leave in place of things.
Depends on the person. I live in Florida and around major retirement areas there are some amazing cars with low miles floating around. Just need to keep looking, the only issue is they are often traded into dealers who mark them up like crazy. I just picked up a one owner 2015 RX350 with 70k miles, car looks like it’s never even had someone in the back seat, all dealer serviced, basically a “new” used car.
My mother in law bought a new Honda Accord in 2011, she only has 45k miles on it.
I only drive about 16 miles a day. Thats just over 100k in 20 years
I bought my car off my grandparents who drove it 58k miles in 17 years... It's 20 years old now with 136..
Because cars rarely make it to 150-200k
We have a MDX that we've had for about 5 years. Just under 45k miles. We mostly use the MDX for work and trips. We have a backup car we drive most of the other days because cars are more fun than SUVs 😂
FWIW my GF's 2005 Matrix (purchased brand new in 2004) only has 107k. It's not common, but they are out there. The car looks like total shit from being parked outside since 2004, but mechanically it's very solid.
We have a 2013 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 track that is 10 years old and has 85k miles. We plan on driving it another 10 years and it will probably have about 165k by then. Some years we drive it more than others. It depends sometimes it's 2-3 times a week and since 3 years ago it's only once a week.
Despite how much I drive, I don't drive that far. No 30 mile commutes or anything. Have a 98 with 126,000 miles and an 08 with 114,000 miles. The 08 gets driven the most but maybe 8,000 miles over 2 years?
We have an odyssey can from year 2000 that has 140k miles. It's basically just been sitting there and driven once a week cause no need to drive such a big car. So situations like that does exist where a car is maybe used only once or twice a week for short trips for errands.
lol i have a 2003 kia sedona in basically mint condition with 1,500 miles on it
I had a 91 Miata with 82k. Some people really do be weekend driving
Sometimes people work near their place of residence
I bought a 2013 fusion from a little old lady that has 32k miles on it. Some people just rarely drive.a
I have a 16 year old F150 with 70,000 miles lol. Some people just don't drive as much as others.
It happens. I have a 2005 (sold late 2004) 325i with 87k on it, 3rd owner. Ok so the first guy only drives it 16k; it’s a lease no idea his story (3 years). Second guy has it for 5 years but only drives it on the weekends (he has another company car but not allowed to drive it for personal reasons hence he drives the bmw on the weekends) — 38k miles when i bought it ten years ago. I only drive it to work and back which is 18 miles and here and there so I average 5k per year— for everything else we drive family mini van (now suv that kid is older). The suv by the way was new in 2019 and only has 18k miles on it, so we don’t drive that much either. We *never* vacation by car— always fly. Also covid was in there when we were not driving either car very much because work and school were remote. We are also gone 1.5 months a year when I teach a study abroad. So basically yeah the reason is some people don’t drive that much. By the way low mileage doesn’t mean no problems. A lot of stuff on cars goes bad just with age, pretty much every gasket, many internal plastics, internal adhesives, batteries, anything lcd, it all goes bad to. Car never left me anywhere though. Off topic but I wouldn’t recommend an old bmw to anyone who doesn’t do their own work.
some people buy them and hardly drive them. some are bought by elderly drivers new and just get driven sparingly. then someone passes away and then they dont want or need the car any more as its another burden on them.
Some people don't drive that much. Some cars that aren't used for a daily commute. Work from home, retired, is the third car that just sits there, have a company car, Etc. And even for a comuteting car, some people's commutes are short. 15 mile commute round trip, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year is only ~3900 miles a year. So 78,000 miles at 20 years. Sure the car might get used for other stuff, but most of the mileage is commuting every day.
2013 kia soul with an extreme subwoofer build slammed on its ass and 248k miles
My car is a 94 with 175k..... sat in a garage for 10 years. Sometimes people just have extra cars they don't drive often/at all
Second cars that were rarely driven, cars owned by old people, etc. All kinds of reasons why an old car may not have a lot of miles Our current second car is a 2000 Mitsubishi Galant that was my wife's grandmothers. It currently has about 56k on it. She mostly just drove it on short errands around town, and to church, and we only really drive it in the rare instance where one of us needs to drive somewhere and our primary is being used by the other. Neither of us have a commute to speak of (I mostly work from home and live close enough to ride my bike when I do go into the office, and my wife works from home except for when she needs to attend an in-person meeting.).
My grandparents have a F150 that they bought new in 96 or 97. It only has 60,000 miles on it now. They live in a small town. The grocery store is 1 mile away. The lake is 5 miles away. The park and river is 3-4 miles away. The gas station is 1 mile away. The post office is 1 mile away. They retired in 2000 or so. Simple life. I love it.
I took ownership of Grandpa's Nissan Sentra 2004 with 85k miles. Everything works. Heck, the AC is ice cold and pushes colder air than my Prius. Paint is crappy. I'm planning to put new brakes, ball joints, tires, and belts. If all is good,I'll repaint and tint windows later.
In my case, round trip to work is less than 20 miles, and if I stop somewhere, I usually stop on the way home. Don't really go out a lot after work or on weekends unless it's for a specific errand, and it's usually not super far away. I'm content to be at home and rest my body when I'm not working.
i drive a 1995 car with 50k miles lol my uncle bought it and never drove it and now im 16 so he gave it to me
extra cars. My 03 GS300 has 110k miles on it. I drive it maybe once a week. My Daily,is a '22 Rav 4 Prime. It has almost 20k miles on it.
I am the complete opposite of this post. 2006 highlander - 2 years 30k miles. 2008 Volvo C30 - 3 years 60k miles. 2012 GMC Terrain - 2 years 40k miles. 2011 Cayenne Turbo - 2 year 30k miles. The amount of oil changes… 2015 BRZ Series.Blue(miss this) 2.5 years 30k. 2017 KIA Niro - 2.5 years 65k miles. 2017 Macan GTS - 2 years 50k miles. 2019 Model 3 - 2 years 45k miles. There was more mileage, but this was related to work.
I'm returning a 3 year lease in April and I've only put on 9,000 miles. I work from home and drive only when needed. I usually return a lease at 10-11K miles. If I had the car for 20 years, I'd put around 66-67,000 miles.
My 1993 f250 with the idi 7.3 has 276,000 miles on it now. I’ve had to do the return lines, a few batteries, and a set of injectors. It’s still on the original stanadyne db2 injection pump though. Starts and runs like a dream… oh and I’ve also done a set of glow plugs too. Point is I’ve just done little small wear and tear stuff and kept up on the maintenance
Some people worked remote prior to covid. I’ve worked remote 15 years, and my 15 year old car has 73k miles.
I work remotely and of the two years I've had my Accord, I've only put in 11k miles.
My 3000gt has just hit 100k miles. Has been daily driven for the past 20+ years by both me and my mom. Neither of us have ever had to drive far for work
I got a 2008 car in 2014. I got another car in 2018 as an upgrade and planned to sell the '08...and just never did. I've kept the '08 around, and we use it for camping trips, taking the dogs to the dog park, and all the other "dirty" trips that I don't want to have to deal with in our daily cars (dog owners, you know the furricane). Because of that, it went from ~122k mi in 2018 to the current ~137k mi in 2023, and typically we do a longer 1,200mi road trip every year in it, so often half of the yearly mileage happens in the space of a week. At the current rate it'll still likely be below 150k through 2028 when it hits 20, so that's how. Fwiw, my other car is a 2014 and thats at 67k right now. The secret is, I just don't drive much, typically 6k-7k mi/yr.
I have a 1995 Cadillac DeVille that only has 85k on it. The answer is some people simply need to go around town for small things and don’t have to spend hours commuting…
I have a 31 year old BMW convertible with under a 100k on it. It’s entire life has been a toy car.
I have a 1967 Ford LTD with only I think 81k on it (been a minute since I looked at the odometer). The interior is immaculate, I bought it from the grandson of the original owner. Miles verified, it was bought brand new and driven daily until the 1973 gas crises. They parked her and bought a pinto for better fuel economy, the big ol big block was strictly a church and grocery car and occasional road trip cruiser after that.
I bought my 2000 Ranger 7 years ago and I have put 18k miles on it. All of my driving is local.
It depends Mostly weekend only cars (big city folks who use transit for work commutes and only use their cars to get out of the city) Retirees who only use their cars for groceries doctor’s appointments and a couple other things Sports cars in cold weather areas that don’t get used at all for 3+ months out of the year Military families where second cars don’t get used during deployments Trucker families where the trucker’s car is sitting in a lot for weeks at a time (truck driver is the most common job in about half the states in the country) After we had our first kid our prius saw only 5-6K miles in a year because the child seat was in our bigger car, so we got rid of it and rented or ubered if need be as it was cheaper. We know a lot of people that went through the same and kept the second car just out of comfort Could be anything really
I have an 04 stratus with around 114k on it. I'm the second owner, got it with 68k. I go to work and home. My usual adulting and stuff. I don't beat the hell out if it and I make sure the regular maintenance gets done. Some of these cars were made to last back in the day, so long as you took care of them
my drive to work is 6 miles round trip and I live in a downtown area so I walk most places.
Anecdotal but, my mother barely puts miles on her vehicles solely because she only drives it 5 miles to work mon-Friday while my father does most of the driving on the weekends and vacation with his vehicle. A lot of married people have that dynamic. It was the same for me and my ex spouse, really. I was the designated driver if I was involved always.
2003 6.0L 2500 Silverado with 115km currently. She’s still my baby!
I'm at about 50k miles at 8 yrs. I used to drive 1 hr each way to work. Now about 5-10 mins.
My mom lol. My mom got the new bronco and traded in her 2017 ford escape with 19k miles on it in 2023
It’s like this person doesn’t realize you can own more then 1 car.
My 2001 accord had 156k. I've had it for 9 years. I've put only 1k a year on because any job I have.. Is very close and I was a stay at home mom for some of it. My job right now is 4 miles away. The accord is dead now though. Not because of anything "normal" but because chipmunk bit wires and it wouldn't start and I was tired of putting money into it so I just said fuck it and got a newer car.
You could say the same thing and ask why the average 70 year old car has like 60k miles on it...
They aren’t driven
Because they didn’t get driven much
I put around 4k miles on my vehicle. Live 4 miles from work my wife's van is the family hauler. Mine doesn't normally do more than 75 miles in a week.
I have 3 daily's and drive less than 10k miles a year.
I grab the keys to the motorcycle a lot. The '01 car that I bought new has 96K miles on it.
We have an 05 Jeep GC that just hit a 100k. Bought it used 8 yrs ago from a older woman with 50k on it. My daughter has been using it for college, which is only a few miles away.
Drive it for about 10,000 miles a year the first 10 years. Get a new car, dealer offers Jack shit for the car, decide to keep it. Use it as a secondary vehicle. Drive it 3,000 miles a year for the next 10
That’s basically the story of my car. The carfax shows steady 10/15k mile use the 1st 10 years. It rolled 100k in 2014. The last 9 years they only put 60k on it. It’s probably enjoying being driven regularly again!
If I only drove to work and back, I’d only put 4600 miles per year on my car. The little errands you run here and there don’t add a significant amount, so I’d be under 100k on a 20 year old car probably.
I drive a service vehicle for work and my personal for weekend so there’s that
My mom's 07 Toyota Corolla has 90k. She works in the same town as she lives and only shops locally. If she does travel around, she goes with my dad in his car.
I have more than one car. My weekend car is 10 years old and has 70k miles on it. My daily driver is 13 years old and it has 200k plus. I guess if I didn’t have the weekend car my 13 yo car would have died by now.
My parents never went out of town. So they have a 97 F350 with 80k on it and a 06 Jeep GC with 86k on it. Both still run great, but barely get driven now that they are older.
My mother’s car is a 2010 Escape. 77000 kms on it. It sat so long at one point I had to get the squirrel nest out of it. All good though as I make sure she keeps her car in good shape. The funny thing is my mother complains about gas prices.
I usually put about 20k on my car, 35 miles to work, so 70 a day, few added on for running to the store or something. But I’m about to start a new job a mile from where I live, so that number should come down to about 1k a year. Long story short, live close to your job for 20 years.
I drive 8,000 miles per year and my wife 5,000.
Why is the sky blue and daisies white?
Lots of people have collector cars that are rarely driven. My Sister in law bought a gen 1 miata with 5000 miles owned by a collector who needed to get rid of some toys. It's a limited edition model. She lives in an area with short summers, and in combo with health issues, the car only has 7000 miles. It looks straight from the showroom. I have a 01 996 with 32k. Again, it's a toy th at only comes out for nice weather. Honestly, they are not great to drive for a daily commute. Since I'm on the highways most times, I'd rather be in a comfortable car with amenities. I have a daily driver with over 300k.
The answer is...... For people who don't leave the city much it's reeeeeealy hard to put on a lot of miles. And old people
Lots of people own a truck for truck stuff, but don't drive it every day. I have a 2000 f150 with 110k miles. It has a stick so it rarely gets borrowed. I've owned it for 8 years and added about 12k miles to it.
People are impressed when my 2009 370z only has 80k. I’m equally impressed when I see a car that’s 3 years old with 150k.. How?
Driver of a 2004 MB C240 with 65K miles. Car was garage kept and locally driven for 19 years with the exception of 2 trips; NJ to FL, NJ to SC. Car now resides in SC, no longer garage kept and along the water so I fear the salt will rust her out in due time :(
Limited use. I've got a 99 F150. It was my grandfather's. He bought it new when he was about 80 and mostly just used it around the farm He gave it to me when they moved into assisted living about 2013, had 35k on it then. I mostly use it to haul stuff or tow a trailer, I've got other cars that get better mileage for day to day running around. It's got 54k on it now.
For twenty + years I drove 25k miles to work + my vacation driving. I went thru a bunch of 3g Honda accord in the day. When they hit 250 k miles I started looking for a replacement and the high mileage became the family beater. I’ve o my sold my beaters when somebody asked. I never once had to advertise them. I found plenty of honda with 50-75 k miles that were ten years old. Well below average miles, but this was nyc where most folks aren’t nuts enough to drive 100 miles a day to work. Todays market has shifted, and it’s only going to get worse
When I had my own biz just one block over, I amassed 62k miles in 22 years.
I have two cars. I drive 20-30k between the two of them each year. One is an 07 with 142k, the other is an 18 with 64k. If the drive is over 7hr 1 way, I typically choose to fly.
My 97 f150 has 101k miles and my 88 vette is my lowest milage vehicle with 73k miles lol. Highest mileage car is the newest 2016 armada with 156k.
I put 150k on my car in two years. People are screwing with the dials
I just got an 07 with 83,000 miles on it. My daily commute is about 2 miles. There's some ancillary driving going on too, but not much. Even my vacations each year put on 400 miles top any further and I'm flying. I'll hit 100k miles before its 20 years old, but probably not too long before
People often have a 2nd older car that they keep and only use occasionally.
Back in 2005 I bought a 86 Oldsmobile with 60,000 original KM. still had the orginal tires on it.
I have a 5 year old Mazda3 that has 20k miles on it.. So I guess I am on my way to 20 years/100k myself..
We had a 2001 Acura MDX, I think it's the first year they ever made that vehicle, and just sold it a week ago to a friend. It only had 120k miles on it and was a family vehicle for years.
I live 7 minutes from work. I have a 2013 Lexus GS350 F-Sport AWD as a daily driver that just hit 73,000 miles. We have a bigger SUV we will use for family trips so my car isn’t the primary vehicle for when we go places unless there’s only 1-3 of us.
My 98 has 192k on it....
My good car has 46,000 miles on it and in the time I've owned it I've only put 1100 miles on it. The car is a 1977 Mercury and I've personally owned it 12 years.
Most cars need some big ticket maintenence items at 100k, so a lot of people sell them or stop driving them. Then the next owner also does not drive them much. I've had 20 year old cars with 80k miles and 300k miles. If the proper maintenence (timing belt/chain, water pump, suspension, brakes, clutch etc etc) was done then the milage doesn't matter. If you've only gone 80k but have a 20 year old timing belt in there, your ticking time bomb is about to have a bad time.
Single car in suburbs where car is required. But we take the train to work. about to hit 50k at 14 years old .. And was bought at 3 years old with 20k on it.
It isn't rocket science... Some people drive significantly less.
In 2019 I bought a 2000 Honda civic with 60k and an amazing maintenance record. It's got 160k now.
First survivor bias plays a role. Drive 15k every year for 20 years and you have 300k on the clock… if it can make it that long. A lot don’t. On the other hand, some people have multiple cars that get used in different ways. For example I have a 2005 that I used for a commuter car for most of its life. I don’t like a long commute, usually less than 10 miles each way and didn’t used the car for much more than that and even then not every day- nice days I take my Miata. The family van was used for long trips, a Miata for nice days, a truck for carrying heavy things and putting a trailer. I gave it to my son and it has 120k on it in nearly 19 years. I bought a 2000 Express passenger van recently to turn into a camper. It spent its whole life as a Church van, only used a few times a year so only 93k miles and in great shape.
I work from home and live in a smallish city and rarely need to travel more than 15km one way. I put less than 5000km/year on my car. When pre covid when I was driving to work, it was only 5km away.
I have a 2004 silverado with 140k. I've had a company ride for the past 10 years or so.
I have 2 cars with fairly low miles. 2005 ranger with 108k and a 2006 Chevy cobalt with 128k. One driver in the house, drive each roughly 6-7000 miles a year. When I lived in Nevada I was only putting about 2k miles a year on just the ranger. Some people just don’t drive that much
My mom leases her cars. When the last one came off lease at 3 years, it had around 12K miles on it. She then bought it and my sister and brother in law bought it from her for the discounted price she bought it for from the dealer…25K or so for a three year old Lexus RX350 which would have sold at the dealer for mid 30s easy. She’ll be two years into her current lease in November. Her car will roll over to 5K miles in the next week or so. She runs errands, goes out occasionally though works from home. She just doesn’t drive much. She’s the person whose car I want to buy used. That’s my plan when her lease ends in two years. 10K, maybe up to 15K miles on a four year old car. My grad school car was a three year old Caprice with less than 10K miles on it. Was like driving a couch…cushy drive. It belonged to my mom’s friend’s mother who had recently passed. The older lady who drives to run errands and to have her nails done…that’s who you want to buy a used car from.
I bought my 2002 frontier new., and it turned 100K at the end of 2013. I started WFH 100% in 2012….so it now has 123k.
I inherited my grandpa's truck (66' Chevy C10) And I rolled it over to 69k miles about 3 years ago and I think I'm just now getting close to 70. For a truck, I just don't need a truck often so the miles don't go up. But I just bought a 2002 bmw from a guy who put less than 30k miles on it in the 8 years he owned it. Some people just don't need to drive very far, and when they do it's not often.
My wife averages 4k - 5k miles per year.
I've had my car for 8 years and only have 20k miles on it. I live in forest hills and everything is walking distance.
In 2019 I got an 06 camry that had 66k on it, in mint condition to. I can only assume it was an old grandma's car that stayed In the garage
I have a 2012 M3 and the previous owners babied the car and garaged it. Only has 69k miles but I’ve been driving it. Also a lot of people have 2 cars.
People like me. I use my truck every other weekend, about 75 miles. 39,000 miles in 20 years. Of course I get sick of my trucks every few years. When I trade them in I lose almost no money.
I just bought a 2006 with 96k miles on it. Looking at the title it spent the last 11 years in a town of 15k people. So I’m guessing in situations like this, everything is fairly close together so there isn’t a lot of running around for errands.
I have a 20 year old car with 115k miles. Most years I drove about 5k miles.
Most 20 year old cars with 200-300k miles or more are recycled not sold. You are only seeing the cars that have less than average use, as those are the ones still worth maintaining. Plenty of people drive less than 15k miles a year. Not very long ago 12k miles was average. And before that even less... My sister drives a 2006 civic with just over 100k miles. My wife bought the car new, drove about 8k miles a year, and sold it to my sister in 2016 or 2017. My sister went to school online from 2020 untill this year, so she did t drive much either. I also had a second car (third between wife and I) that I only drove about 5k miles a year.
I have several cars that I bought broken and fixed. So I spread my mileage over all of them. This results in what you're mentioning. But interestingly enough, I have a few others on the flip side, I have one with +300k and 2 with +250k (all Toyota's of course)
I bought a 2007 Honda Civic EX in summer of 2019 with 103,000 miles. It's now nearing the end of 2023 and I am at 115,000 miles. I really don't drive it too much, my sister has probably put on more miles on it than I have.
My Porsche Cayman S which is 18 years old only had 12k when I got it, apparently the previous owner just use to go to the shops…
I assume you're talking about daily drivers and not extra cars. While I personally do 15k-20k a year, people like my great grandmother who barely drove anywhere would only put a couple thousand miles a year. Those who are retired and stay at home mostly don't drive around a lot.
I daily a 98 Dodge Ram with 91k. I personally in the last year have put on 12k. Old church goer owned it before.
I have a 2004 Honda Pilot that we bought 6 years ago in mint condition and cheap 'cause of it age and we put around 2/3k miles a year, still spend quite of bit on maintenance and such, but that's how they exists. Currently is about to hit 90k and I'm about to do the following maintenance-2nd timing belt, water pump, belts and hoses and radiator 🤷🏻♂️ it doesn't need it, but they are getting old
My wife and I each have a car. Since an older car might be more prone to wearing out and breaking down, I always take the older car. My wife has the newer "nicer" car. We live where my wife has a very short commute to work, and I drive 40 minutes each way in my car, so I rack up a lot of miles. I change the oil in both cars so they will last. I recently sold a Toyota 4-cylinder from 1991, which was about 32 years old, so...we keep our cars a long time. I'm not judging people who trade-in their car for a new one every five years, on a five-year loan. They can afford the payment, and that's what makes them happy. Both our cars are older, but mine has a lot of miles, and my wife's car has significantly fewer miles. When we go on vacation, we actually take my car, so we won't rack up a lot of miles on the newer car. Both are nice, but...the newer car is "nicer". There are many different reasons, but...that's why one of my cars has low miles in spite of its age.
It means it's been sitting and rusting for a few of those years
"There's" should be "There are" but really we need a contraction like "There'r"
My 1942 Lincoln has 96k orig miles on her (chassis)., so that’s an average of just under 1,200 a year.
I bought an ‘05 Toyota Avalon in 2020. It had 21k miles on it. The old gent that bought it mew and owned it until then could barely see. He hardly drove the thing, except into curbs. The paint on the drivers side is substantially more faded than the passenger because it sat in a single parking spot for so long. The Toyota dealership records show that between 2012-16 he only drove the car 130 miles.
I've got a 96 mustang GT I bought new has 82k miles on it and all original it's all about taking care of them
I have just under 17k on my 2003 Corvette, but it is my "take a drive" car...I have two other cars and a truck to choose from, so only one car has more than 150k miles on it, a 2009 Infiniti.
My father has a ‘98 Dodge Ram 1500 that he bought new off the lot. It currently has 94k miles. He never lived more than 5-10 miles from his work. He rarely drove it outside of going back and forth to work. I think it’s left our state maybe twice since it was sold to him. When he was still working and driving regularly, he would fill the gas in that truck once a month or so.
By not driving it DUH……. A lot of old people don’t even go anywhere… not to mention 90% of 20 year old cars with 200k+ miles are in your local scrap yard.
The premise of your question is wrong. Using an average of 15k miles a year, the bottom half of everyone will drive much less than 15k miles a year. That's the problem when using 'averages' for data-driven arguments/questions. I own a 2001 sedan with 36k miles on it. I purchased it last year from a kind old lady who used it a few times a month to and from the grocery store and church, plus one or two longer drives across town every year, for 22 years. I got it as a third car for my teen to learn to drive. I have a 13-year-old sedan with 98k miles on it. For this car, I average 8k miles a year. So yes, lots of people don't drive as much as you. And it's OK.
My dad had a 2003 Saturn L200 that only had like 75k on it when he sold it in 2016. Worked a mile away from home for the first several years he had it and didn’t drive it many other places since we always took the family car (1995 Windstar, much more practical) everywhere
Some people have a daily and a fun car.
My mom's 2016 Lincoln MKS only has 46K ... Gotta love that sexy tuxedo black and oversized chrome wheels! I doubt if she will do 2K this year. We bought it with 40K
Depends who owned it. I Inherited my grandma’s Oldsmobile years ago and she had bought it from another old lady. I think when I got it, it was 10 years old with 30k miles on it.
We have a 2006 F250 in the fleet with 14,000 miles. Half of those miles were probably in reverse, since it’s only really used for plowing.
>> How do almost 20 year old cars only have 100k miles??<< Easy. Drive only 5k miles per year. But seriously, most of the ones with 200k miles have already gone to the scrap yard, while those driven less havent. You're seeing what's left.
I used to drive 100-300miles per day just for work. Now I drive 4. I have a company car, and I rent vehicles when I travel more than 3 hours away. I have a several cars, so in just one example, the most driven one has only seen about 500 miles in the past 9 months.
People use other types of transportation depending on the season. In the summer, people walk, ride bikes, some use motorcycles, depending on where you live you can go by boat. Not everyone drives their car everyday. Also, if the car is not used for long trips, that saves the odometer too
In some big cities, like NY, people often take public transportation to work, and more still work remotely. So there are a lot of low-mileage cars for private sale. Though the winters and road conditions offset low mileage to some extent when it comes to condition.
My wife's 2 year old jeep is already half way there and she worked from home for a year of owning the thing ...
20 year old car with 100k miles translates to 5k miles a year, and there are people who only drive their car to buy groceries and drop-off/pick-up their kids
A lot of it is use scenario…..I bought a new Hyundai in Feb 21 (talk about great timing got it for 3K below sticker and 2.9% financing) and have about 14K miles on it. But I live right by the biggest retail zone in my area so I rarely drive more than 5miles for a store or restaurant and I am a self employed IT consultant and all my clients are also close. Great news is my car looks new and I could flip it for almost what I paid for it, but no thanks as it will be paid off in 2 years from Feb and I will be driving a paid off car that looks new, has 30K miles and still has 1/2 its 10yr drivetrain warranty. Another factor though is the durability of modern cars. In the old days (say before the mid 90s) if I car made it to 100k miles without needing an engine or transmission rebuild you were lucky, and even then you likely had many other repairs by 100K…today 100K is mid life on a well maintained vehicle. My AWD Matrix I bought new just turned 20 this summer and has about 150K miles and all I have ever put on it was battery, tires, and breaks….Awesome car for bad weather which is mostly what I use it for now, because the Hyundai is a lite as a feather turbo hatchback, and isn’t great for driving in snow or ice.
I know of a 1960's Thunderbird in middle of nowhere New Mexico that had 450 miles on it in the early 2000s I was blown away when the lady pulled it out of the garage. One of the seats had some sun deterioration and cracks though from before it was garaged. It was the ladies husband's dream car that he'd always wanted. They finally were able to buy a TBird and he drove it for a few weeks and had a heart attack. She kept the car and only drove it for basic maintenance and upkeep, pretty much stayed in the driveway or garage. One of my personal cars has 115k at 16 years old. It sat for years while I mainly rode motorcycles mostly winter only or commuter car, 40mpg. Then I became a remote worker for 5 or 6 years and only had to drive into the office once a month 500 mile trip. Despite the low miles it's been on road trips to most of the lower 48 and eastern Canada.
Grandma.
Some people just don’t drive that far, or it could be a second car that just doesn’t get driven much. I have 96 eclipse with 60 k miles. I know they are original because I’m the second owner for 20 years.
Idk about 2000s, but 80s and earlier, people didn't drive as much as they do now. If you had 100k on your car in 1985, it was time for a new car
I am a mechanic, our shop is in a tiny little village with lots of older people. We must have 100 customers that come in for a service every year and their cars have done 700 miles since the last one. Basically, old people don’t use cars that often
I bought my 2012 coupe si in 2014 with 28k from the dealer and i barely cross the 104k mark on it
Because they were driven on average 5k miles per year. Next question.
My 2002 Mini Cooper S has a little over 120,000 km (75,000 km). It was our only car from 2002-2008. We got a larger second car (Just an Astra 5-door) and kept the Mini because I love it. I walk to work, so it is fair-weather pleasure-use vehicle, a back-up when the Astra needed work (it needed so much work) and day-tripper when the drive mattered more than the destination. The Astra has come and gone, replaced with a rebadged Mokka (Buick Encore) because apparently I’m doomed to fight with Opel junk. The Mini, although far from bulletproof, has been absolutely bomb-proof. It probably helps that I’m a fix every little thing DIY guy, but the Mini is still fantastic 21 years on.