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YACT: Newer car/more miles or older/fewer miles?

kranky

kranky

Elite Member
I need to find another car and found two of the same model that I'm deciding between at different dealers. Both have clean Carfax records, both are one owner.

One is a 2004 with 36K miles. No factory warranty remains, but dealer will give a 3 month bumper-to-bumper warranty. Was bought new from that dealer and traded in on another new car recently. Will need tires before too long.

The other is a 2003 with 15K miles, and 9 months left on the warranty. Appears to have been leased for two years then bought by this dealer at an auction.

I don't care that much about features, but the first one has some additional options - leather seats, traction control, automatic load leveling, 16" steel wheels. I wouldn't pay extra for them but it could be a tiebreaker.

The 2004 is $4,000 cheaper before any negotiating, and I'm leaning that way. Any thoughts?
 
All else equal, new/more miles. Greater than average miles on a newer car implies that a lot of those miles are freeway miles...which aren't so bad.

As for these cars, I think the leather and $4k in your pocket make it a winner :thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by: Heisenberg
I would take the older one with fewer miles. One model year difference isn't important compared to 20K less miles.
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I agree in theory, but $4,000... that's a lot.
 
Originally posted by: saltedeggman
Originally posted by: Black88GTA
Originally posted by: saltedeggman
Originally posted by: Black88GTA
Originally posted by: b0mbrman
New/more
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:thumbsup: Highway miles = better
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how do you know they are highway miles?
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More than likely, considering the car is ~1 year old, and most cars average ~12k miles/year. Call it an educated guess. 😉
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:cookie:
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Yawp, that's where the "all else equal" comes in. Take a dozen new/more cars and a dozen old/less cars and I'd gladly bet money that the new/more cars have a better ratio of highway:city miles
 
Originally posted by: kranky
Originally posted by: Heisenberg
I would take the older one with fewer miles. One model year difference isn't important compared to 20K less miles.
Click to expand...

I agree in theory, but $4,000... that's a lot.
Click to expand...

Yawp. According to KBB PP values, the 2003 is worth $16,700 to the 2004's $16,600 and that's before taking the options into account.

[Edit] Apparently you can't hotlink to results on kbb.com 🙁

Anyhow, $4k + leather seats + near equal street value = :thumbsup:
 
Remember that 2004 has leather, and the 2003 is an ex-lease car.Go for the 2004, save money, get leather. Warranty is a slight issue though. Can you buy a 12mo for a bit extra? Might be worthwhile.
But 12k in a year means it'll be mainly long runs.
 
You would be nuts to pay $4k more for a pretty much new car with a few less miles. 20k miles isn't much at all in the long run but $4k is. If your worried take that $4k saved and get a warranty and have a longer warranty then the other car and have money left over. Its one thing if your talking about the difference between 100k and 150k but 15k and 36k bleh both are still pretty much new to me.
 
I did think about using some of the $4k difference to get an extended warranty, but it looks like you can't get a GM warranty after 36,000 miles (this one is a couple hundred over) so I'd have to go with some third-party warranty joint, which isn't quite as appealing.

 
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