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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,705 posts, read 58,031,425 times
Reputation: 46172
Buy a One-Owner for sale BY OWNER.
Condition and care is essential.
I have bought many cars over 300k and have sold many more.
My 'one-owner' cars / trucks usually stand out as superior. I would never by a used car from a dealer. (often an auction purchase for them, or traded stock from other dealers.)
I am really shy of buying a used rental car (I can almost assure they have been abused).
YMMV, and many people have enjoyed a great service life from a rental car purchase.
Late model high mileage cars are hard to sell, so sometimes they're the better deal if you are planning to keep it a while.
If you're not going to drive it much, consider where the mileage will be when you are likely to sell - IE: after 5 years of ownership, will the mileage be back in the 'normal' range?
90k miles (to me) isn't high mileage at all. I don't consider a vehicle broken in until around 130k miles or more. Maintenance is KEY. As long as all has been performed and the vehicle model doesn't have a history of failures I wouldn't be too concerned.
As for the mechanic statement, I don't allow anyone to take my vehicle to a mechanic either. I did this once about ten years ago. Took off work when someone called to come see the truck. They promised the shop was right down the street and they would be back within an hour. Three hours later they called and had gone across town in my truck to their mechanic, and stopped off to run some errands on the way back. On the way back they found another vehicle they liked and decided to buy it instead. Essentially burning my fuel and wasting my time. If you want a mechanic to look at it, bring them with you. Otherwise, it's a used car and you're buying as-is.
You can also tell if a car has a lot of highway miles by looking at the hood and windshield. If they have all sorts of rock chips, thats a sign that its spent a lot of time on the interstates.
Back in the 1980's and early 90's a car (mostly American) was ready for the junkyard around 100K. Nowadays, cars are barely broken in at 100K and most will reach 200K if maintained. Hondas and Toyotas seem to be the most reliable.
I have bought many cars over 300k and have sold many more.
My 'one-owner' cars / trucks usually stand out as superior. I would never by a used car from a dealer. (often an auction purchase for them, or traded stock from other dealers.)
See, I thought going through a dealer was "safer."
Do most owners keep and have all of their maintenance records?
All that buying through the dealer really gets you is inflated prices. You can usually find what you are looking for through an individual if you are patient. And most dealers don't have all of their maintenance records either. I typically keep all of mine with a log book so that I can show how it was maintained, but that isn't necessarily common. Dealers don't really care. Their goal is to make money on the vehicle and turn it quickly. Most used cars are sold as-is through a dealer just like an individual so there is little recourse if something does go wrong anyhow.
See, I thought going through a dealer was "safer."
Do most owners keep and have all of their maintenance records?
I log all my maintenance into a spreadsheet each time it's done (date & mileage). When I sold my used car recently I printed a copy of the spreadsheet to hand to potential buyers (or e-mailed). If they wanted to see proof for certain items, I have the receipts in my filing cabinet. I think this really gives some peace of mind to a FSBO buyer. If they buy a used car from a dealer they'll likely get no maintenance history at all.
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