Thoughts on highway miles versus city miles

Breadsax

Registered User
What are your thoughts on the effects of city miles versus strictly highway miles?

Would you be more inclined to buy an 89 SC with 190,000 if you knew for a fact that the miles were put on only through one hour highway trips to work, some trips across country, and he lived in like the smallest town possible with not even a stop light?

More inclined than one where you didn't know the 89 SC's history and it had 90,000 miles on it?
 
190k is 190k. Are highway miles easier on a car? Im sure. The car still has the hours on it. More than twice the hours on it, I might add. Buy a 90k mile car and save yourself the thousands of dollars that the 190k car is going to need in repairs from nickle and diming you to death....
 
Hours were my thoughts too, but thinking about an average of 60 miles an hour for 190,000 and 30 miles and hour for 90,000 miles would average about the same at 3,000 hours or so. At this point, I think it would depend on if you knew the owner on one extreme versus buying from a kid who drove the car.
 
about the only reason "highway" miles would be better vs city miles would be the fact that the car got up to operating temp and was held there for long periods of time to cook out moisture and acids that build up in oil that gets old. we take apart BMW motors here at work that have 90 thousand and are cars that are owned by realators.. let me tell you they get short tripped alot. and then we have the cars from montana that drive hours at a time and we really see no difference in them except for brakes and suspension. but motors are almost same problems each time. good maintenance records mean more to me than highway or city.


but if car was not maintained its a wash in the long run.

a good test drive will tell you what you wana know about the car.
 
talking about BMW's they really have some awesome machining, usually when a BMW head comes in for a resurface, if its out, we double check our machine :eek:

there usually right there no matter what, it really takes alot to twist one
 
What are your thoughts on the effects of city miles versus strictly highway miles?

Would you be more inclined to buy an 89 SC with 190,000 if you knew for a fact that the miles were put on only through one hour highway trips to work, some trips across country, and he lived in like the smallest town possible with not even a stop light?

More inclined than one where you didn't know the 89 SC's history and it had 90,000 miles on it?

All things being equal, ALWAYS go with the lower mileage car. In your scenario, you state that the 190K mile car lead an easy life with straight highway driving, but the 90K mile car has unknown history. Unless you know the 90K mile car was beat on, go with that one. After all, the 90K mile car may have been driven even easier than the 190K mile car.

Obviously, the best bet is to perform a thorough inspection of each car, with an exhaustive test drive. Let the cars tell you how they were treated. If you look and listen close enough, they will tell you.

Also, a parting thought. I've never seen a vehicle price estimator that differentiated between "highway" and "city" miles for calculating value. Miles are miles, and there's a reason lower mileage vehicles are worth more.

JD
 
City miles are much more harsh on all componants. Ive driven cars with well over 100,000 highwy miles that drive like new and cars that have city miles well under 100,000 that feel like crud.

ll that being said Id rather get the lower mile car as in either case Id probably change everything anyways
 
Having bought two SCs, 1 at 197,xxx miles and the other at 128,xxx miles, the lower mileage car was in better shape. I had no info as to how each car was previously driven, so I agree with Jerry, The "SC Whisperer" :D :cool: , go with with lower mileage car, unless you have all the facts about both cars and all other things being equal.
 
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