Is it wise to buy a car with 185k miles?

Question

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=013&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=230103552387&rd=1,1

I'm just looking for advice. It's a '99, which who knows if this is a good deal or not. Bluebook in fair condition is 4200.

Answer 1

Alot of milage but all done quickly in years..this means it probably had long warm running which is good.

Sounds like the owner has taken care of it but there is some deferred maintenance needing to be done.

Take a look at the car and if it looks real tidy consider getting a mechanical inspection done.

Please expect to have to put some money into the car for repairs because at those high mile there will be things that will need repairs sooner or later.

Answer 2

Expect to put a fair amount of money into it. One thing that would be mandatory to me, is to have a mechanic check it out. Look for worn suspension parts, run a compression test on the engine. Check the transmission.

You sound like a young girl or lady. I'm not so sure this is the car you want. Make sure you look around and see what else is available.
Find a car salesman with his dealer's license and for a fee, say 50 or 100 bucks, have him take you to an auto auction and see what you can find there. At least you'll be buying at wholesale.

Answer 3

I would be carefull on that. If you do buy, have the car disected from top to bottom first, by a good, not wanabe mechanic. Sounds quite pricey for those miles. Average mileage for a car is 12 to 15 thousand a year, so if they only drove 12k it should have 96k on the odometer, and at 15k it should read around 120k, so even at the high average, it's still a little over 60 thousand above average. Above average miles doesn't matter in all cases, depends on car condition and maintinence upkeep, but even then for that price, I would make sure that it is a trouble free car before forking out 5k to someone who you never know could be hiding something to get the most money out of it and make it your headache. I would shop around if i were you, because their are a bunch of cars out their even newer in that price range that have low miles. I dont know what kind of car you are looking at, but dont go for just looks, or status, it's in your best intrest to get something lower in mileage, and extend your reliability factor than be stuck with a 5 thousand dollar plant holder.

Answer 4

It would probably still have a fair amount of life left in it, but there's no real point in setting yourself up for a bunch of hassle in the future. I say, keep shopping around for something with 140k or less.
With that said however, it also depends on the type of vehicle we're talking about. If this was a volvo, i wouldn't worry about that many miles at all (as long as the car appeared to be well cared for.) I wouldn't put that much faith in a chrysler 300 though.

Goodluck

Answer 5

Not really.