Ask an expert


sjlbailey

Hi there,
Just looking for an expert opinion on the importance of looking for low mileage when buying a imported car. Particularly in our case, a Toyota Wish or similar type car. We automatically prefer anything with k's under 100,000. However the price difference between say 70,000 and 100,000 is quite significant to us. How much of a difference would that make to car?

ABayliss

Remember, when you are laying out your money for a car, you are buying the rest of its useful life. A car with a low mileage should have plenty of life left, whereas a high mileage car has had much of that usefulness used up, with repairs likely to be required sooner.
So it is preferable to buy a low mileage car if possible. Also, if you start with a lower mileage, there will be better resale when you come to sell.
Having said that, depending on your annual mileage, a 100,000km car is still likely to have a reasonable life ahead of it - but with the average NZ motorist travelling around 14,000km per year, applying this logic, there's likely to be an extra couple of years in a 70,000km car.