How does vehicle mileage work exactly?

Question

Just trying to get an understanding how vehicle mileage works exactly. I always hear people saying this car has too many miles or the mileage is too high. Just wanna know whats too high, low and what does it mean having high or low mileage.

Answer 1

I'll tell you what, when a car hits a hundred thousand miles, anything over that is what I call bonus miles. A hundred thousand is some kind of cosmic barrier at which many cars begin to fail. Or you start having more problems. I have taken every car I have ever owned past a hundred thousand miles, but it becomes more of a challenge. For one thing, a lot of parts under the hood, especially rubber and plastic parts, start to deteriorate just from exposure. Cars with timing belts need that belt replaced at around 90 thousand miles. Things that worked fine at 50 thousand miles start to get gummed up, worn out, clogged, or just plain fatigued. You can keep fixing a car with that many miles. At some point it will become prohibitive, though, and the chances of a catastrophic failure become higher. Some cars have an easier time with high miles than others. Look around when you drive. You'll see a lot of cars that are ten or more years old. These are the ones with over a hundred thousand miles. They're either going to be older American land yachts that are built like tanks, or they will be cars like Hondas and Toyotas that were engineered to last. What you won't see are Chevettes, Yugos, Fiats, Hyundais, or any number of other cheap domestic and import crap. The number of miles you get out of a car before it breaks down permanently depends on the original quality of the car combined with how well the owner(s) keep up on the maintenance. People keep the most unreliable classics like Jaguars and MGs running for years because they constantly maintain them. On the other hand, people can take the most well-engineered Honda and destroy it within a couple of years because they neglect even the basic maintenance tasks. Frankly, when a car gets close to a hundred thousand miles, you're taking a chance with it and the previous owner better have a lot of maintenance records. One other thing: Odometers on some cars roll over to zero at a hundred thousand miles, so beware. Use the rule of thumb that most people put around 15 thousand miles on a car every year, so when you see someone with a 10 year old car that he claims has thirty thousand miles on it, and it has a 100,000 mile odometer, your inner skeptic must be consulted. This is why most new cars have a million mile odometer.

Answer 2

it matters for the car

what defines high milage depends on the year, and how reliable the car traditionally is. For instance, 100,000 miles would be very high milage for a 2005 car that has had a bad history of reliability problems, but relatively its low miles for a 1988 carolla (which is indestructable).

the idea of 12k miles a year bein average is kinda silly. its usually closer to 18k or so a year. That being said, a car that got 50,000 in one year on it or so generally means theyre highway miles (easier on the car).

generally low milage means like 30k or less. High milage is like 100+k miles for most cars, but could be 200k or higher for reliable ones.

Answer 3

Average person drives 12,000 miles in one year. For example, I just bought an '03 Acura with 34,000 miles. Do the math and you will see that that has low mileage. The 12,000 miles is what insurance company's and dealerships base things on.

Answer 4

depends on the car