The first car I ever bought was a 1973 Audi Fox (Audi 80 to the non-Americans in the crowd), which I purchased in 1982. It had 95,000 miles on the clock, and while the car was in good shape, it needed a lot of work mechanically. I ended up replacing all the various rubber components like hoses, belts, bushings, etc. and soon after rebuilt the motor as well. I replaced wheel bearings, brakes, and tires. Basically, every part that could wear out, was worn out and was replaced.
A few years later, I bought the 1971 Chevrolet Monte Carlo that I still own. It, too, had 95,000 miles on the clock and, yes, it, too, was completely worn out. Everything needed to be replaced before the car would be useable including a complete rebuild of the motor and transmission.
Fast-forward to 2024, and my 2019 Ford F-150 has just crossed 100,000 miles. The truck looks and feels like it just came off the showroom floor. The suspension is still tight, the engine runs like new, and the upholstery, while it has one or two marks on it, looks otherwise perfect.
Based on this experience, and talking to other people, I do have ask myself this question: Does mileage in a used car still matter like it did before? Clearly a car with 100,000 miles in 1982 is a completely different case compared with a car with 100,000 miles today. But does that mean mileage just doesn’t matter like before or have the goal post just moved? Is the 100,000 mile car from 1982 the 200,000 mile car today? Or 300,000 miles? Where is the limit now?
To help understand this, we need to talk about what has changed in the 40-50 years between those first cars I bought and my F-150. I believe the answer can be summed up in three words: “Customer Expectations.” And Toyota.
Toyota
Let’s start with Toyota, because understanding the impact of this company will explain the other two words.
When I first started out in the auto industry in 1990, cars were routinely tested and designed to last 100,000 miles or 10 years. We would run durability tests, which were designed to simulate customer usage and environmental impacts, and at the end of the tests when the cars had accumulated the equivalent of 100,000 customer miles and 10 years of service the cars needed to be “functional”.
In order to make sure our tests would indeed produce a competitive product, we would periodically run competitive cars as well. The results were always interesting, but one thing that stood out was that no matter how many times we ran these tests, Toyota cars always finished best. They would break less often and would perform better at the end of the tests than our cars. They were far more than just “functional” at 100,000 miles. They quickly became the benchmark for how to design cars for durability and long-life.
Of course, this didn’t happen by accident. Durability and long life have been hallmarks of Toyota cars for decades and it goes back to the early days of the company and the rebuilding of Japan after World War II.
Rebuilding Japan
Shortly after WWII ended, General Douglas MacArthur was tasked with taking a census of the Japanese people. Frustrated by his inability to complete the task in a war-torn country, MacArthur brought in a man named W. Edwards Deming to help out. Deming had over the years taken to the work of Walter A. Shewhart in statistical process control and applied it to both manufacturing as well as managerial processes. These methods emphasized the use of statistics to control the processes of making things. The theory being that if you control the process, then you control the outcome of that process.
If you control HOW a part is made, then you control the part itself. Nowadays, this is pretty much how all manufacturing is done, but in those days, the idea was revolutionary. At the time, manufacturers preferred to use inspectors to check parts after they were made and reject those that didn’t meet specifications. This would often result in a lot of scrap and wasted money. It also led to a lot of yelling and telling line workers they weren’t doing a good enough job. But that was the way things were done back then, and some American manufacturers were reluctant to change.
When Deming came to Japan to work on the census, on the other hand, he found fertile ground for his ideas and soon became the most influential person in Japanese manufacturing. Toyota especially took note of his ideas and developed what has become the world’s standard for manufacturing — specifically quality and process control. In 1949 Toyota introduced its Statistical Quality Control (SQC) process, and steadily built on this, turning it into the famed Total Quality Management process still in use today. But Toyota didn’t just use Deming’s ideas to help their manufacturing, they also used them to improve their management. Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda, Chairman and former President (1982-1999) of Toyota is quoted as saying “Every day I think about what he meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.”
Deming was so influential that in 1951, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) created the Deming Prize for innovations in quality control. It is still awarded annually to the individual deemed to have produced the greatest advancement in the art of quality control and the ceremony is broadcast on national television. In Japan, it’s a big deal!
I personally had the distinct honor and pleasure of attending one of Deming’s last seminars before he died at the end of 1993, and I can tell you it changed my life. He was very soft-spoken, but his words resonated and still influence me today.
Of course, the best quality control systems in the world can’t fix a bad design. Good quality control simply means parts are always built to the design specification, but if that design calls for steel that rusts easily or a rubber compound that deteriorates and cracks within a year, then the parts are never going to be durable, no matter how well they are made. This is where testing, good design practice, and experience come in. At Toyota, this means sticking with a design for a long time and making constant small improvements on it. If you look underneath a Toyota, you will see relatively simple designs. They stick with what they know, do it very well, and don’t deviate from it very much. That leads to a ton of corporate learning telling them how to build durable parts. It also means that innovation is often slower than at other companies. That may not matter to the average Toyota customer who instead values long life and transportation that gets them from A to B without drama.
Customer Expectations
In reality, “The average Toyota customer” probably covers over 99% of all car buyers, not just Toyota customers, and this leads us back to the first two of our three words: Customer Expectations. The proliferation of Toyota cars in the world’s automobile markets has given customers an expectation that cars should last a long time. Any car that doesn’t, quickly gains a bad reputation and correspondingly lower sales. Many manufacturers found this out the hard way and either failed or were bought and absorbed by larger competitors. The smart ones jumped on the band-wagon, bought into Deming’s ideas, and improved their quality and durability. For me personally this meant that by the end of my automotive design career, we would test to 150,000 miles and parts couldn’t just be “functional”, they had to achieve at least 80% or more of their original specification. What that meant varied for each part, but it meant that overall, the car couldn’t just be drivable, it had to perform well.
A great example of this is Hyundai. When Hyundai first came into the US market in the 90’s, their quality and durability wasn’t anywhere near Toyota or the other Japanese companies. Realizing they needed to gain customer’s trust, they were the first to implement a 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty. This gave customers some reassurance their cars would last and that they would be taken care of in the event something broke, but it also forced Hyundai to up their game. Warranty repairs are expensive for a manufacturer. It is money thrown down the drain. The best way to avoid this waste is to improve quality so the cars don’t break in the first place, and that is what they did. Now, while I have never owned a Hyundia (or Kia), I hear good things about them from a quality standpoint.
Buying a Used Car Now
So, what does this mean for those of you looking to buy a used car? Should you even care about mileage? Based on my experience, I think the answer is a qualified “no.” It’s qualified by the fact that not all cars are created equal. Not all manufacturers have succeeded in matching Toyota’s legendary quality and some models have a well-deserved reputation for poor durability, and of course, not everybody maintains their car well.
In general, though, I think mileage has moved way down the list of priorities when it comes to evaluating a used car. Not until you get to 200,000+ miles should it even be a consideration, in my view. Of course, if all else is equal, get the lower mileage cars, as it’ll be worth more since a car’s value to most appraisers still tracks with mileage, but if you are looking for a car that’s going to work for your needs, I wouldn’t think twice about a well-maintained 150,000 mile car.
So, what do you think? Are we really at a point now that we can stop worrying about mileage in used cars so much? If so, where do you think we should draw the “Oh that’s too high, I’m not buying that car”-line now? Should we even have a line?
Top graphic images: Toyota; Aaron/stock.adobe.com
I’ve never owned a car with less than 100k. All my air-cooled VWs were on at least their 2nd trip around the odometer, my most youthful 80s Subaru was around 110 or 120k, all my diesel Mercedes were at least 180k, and so on.
I ain’t skeered—but did my research. And always had a backup to get to work in
Out here in The Land That Rust Forgot™ a 20-year-old Toyota 4Runner with clean cosmetics and a good service history is still selling for $5-8k when it has 300,000 miles on it.
Lots of new-to-me information here, thanks Huibert!
The Toyota flowchart graphic is incomprehensible though 🙁
I bought an 18 year old Toyota with 115k miles, and 10k miles into ownership, it’s been great.
I’ve still had to put money into it, most notably for brakes, timing belt change, and a minor valve cover leak where I opted for some other tune up work since the mechanic was already doing the work.
But most of it was major service items that would be necessary regardless of who built the car. It ran really well when I bought it, and now it feels great.
I still have suspension work to address with new struts, being the originals. Again, these are items you’d expect needing attention after 18 years on the road.
So as great as Toyota’s can be, you’ll still need to anticipate some amount of work to get it in tip top shape just due to age alone. And of course, previous owner habits heavily factor in.
Mine was bought from a dealer, with only one previous owner who clearly took pretty good care of it. I also assumed things like the timing belt would be needed. My theory is you see a lot of good cars on the market simply because the owner doesn’t want or have the funds to tackle a major service item like a timing belt so they trade it in for something else.
When I transitioned out of the Air Force in the late 80s and signed on as program manager with a defense contractor, TQM was just emerging as a favorite buzzword within the acquisitions community.
Everybody had to explain their continuous improvement practices in proposal packages. Unfortunately, at that time, that’s all they had to do, pay lip service to TQM, not actually demonstrate it.
We were a small, minority-owned company without a lot of business yet, but the partners wanted a TQM guy and that became me.
I did a deep dive into the principles of Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming and was sent to study some American companies that were at the forefront of TQM in this country.
It was all very instructional, but the real eye opener came when I convinced the partners to pay for a trip to Japan where I could visit some Japanese industries, most notably Toyota. It was stunning how different the quality culture was in Japanese manufacturing. It permeated from bottom to top. I learned so much.
When I returned, I was assigned to a study focusing on data development and acquisition for simulation. Working with engineers, we implemented an internal TQM process to generate the study, which itself included TQM guidelines for data development.
The Air Force adopted the study conclusions as a new acquisition standard and it was eventually incorporated into ISO 9001.
I’ll never forget that trip to Japan and it is no surprise that Toyota is a world leader in quality automobiles. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a well-maintained, high mileage, used Toyota for these reasons. Other companies would have to convince me, though I know quality practices are in a much different place than the 80s.
“Are we really at a point now that we can stop worrying about mileage in used cars so much?”
Nope. Mileage matters as it’s an indication of how much wear a vehicle as gone through. And how much mileage is too much depends on the car.
Because there are some cars, like BMWs, that really start to fall apart badly after they pass the 100,000 mile mark.
But a 100,000 mile Prius? Sure… no prob. With a Prius, ‘too much’ starts at some point over 200,000 miles.
But it also comes down to price and age, in relation to the mileage.
And what kind of miles. 100k of highway miles aren’t the same as 100k uber rides in San Francisco or Manhattan.
Depends on the BMW. I’m on my fourth and the first three all went over 200K miles without any major repairs. Of course, cost of relatively minor repairs on German cars tends to be more than on Japanese cars.
my 1982 Econoline went to 250 000, only had to rebuild the manual transmission once.. honestly thought that was fair, I’d towed another car along I-80 into the Wyoming winds and used overdrive like an idiot since I didn’t (don’t) know much about towing. The truck was still running fine when I sold it, just wasn’t a great vehicle with two small children.
Total cost of ownership was lower than on the 1998 Toyota Sienna that went to 300 000, because every Toyota part was 2-3 times the cost of a Ford part and the mechanics were also not cheap. Sienna engine was running fine, but needed a timing belt and two new CV shafts, about $2500. The cost of that was just a bit too much for me.
2004 Ford Sport Trac bought at 98 000, now at 180 000, also cheaper to maintain than the Sienna. Part of this was the previous owners were both engineers, and had done the maintenance.
To be fair there were fewer repairs on the Sienna in total than either of the Fords.
180 000 is my line on a new used car, unless there are extenuating circs.
If you can actually check its service records, 100k is not that big a deal mostly. Though I’ll be dipped in fat and deep fried alive before I trust a German vehicle that hasn’t had whatever Achilles heel job it needs done by then
There is a difference between the Ford’s I’ve owned that hit 150,000 and the Toyota’s that hit 150,000. Don’t get me started on the Germans. I’ve been harping on and on about how car companies need to all adopt a 150,000klm warranty (obviously outlining regular oil changes, etc), if they don’t believe in their product up to that point, why would I?
I wish I could say good things about owning a Hyundai, but I own one with a Theta engine and my only hope is I can trade it in before it blows.
Also: that 100,000 mile warranty does not transfer, so when you buy used like I did you’re on your own after 60k.
I should have bought a Toyota.
In my experience, the 50k between 100k and 150k is NOT the same as that between 150k and 200k. Although this is a bit of a blanket statement, I believe it largely holds true, and it can be extrapolated. I am planning on dumping my Fit around 150k. Not because it’ll be in bad shape, but the thousand cuts will start being counted
I think a greater tolerance esp. in the case of domestics is warranted now.
My parents still have this malaise-era-esq mindset that buying a domestic vehicle means you have to get rid of it before it hits 100k, otherwise, it’ll basically blow up.
I always explain how quality shot up across the board sometime in the ’90s (I don’t know if I could pinpoint it but I’m in the ballpark) and that’s no longer true, but I can tell if they believe me intellectually, they don’t viscerally.
I don’t believe I have ever owned a car with fewer than 100K miles on it, unless it only had a 5 digit odometer. I bought many of them in need of one major repair, but after performing that repair, they have given 70K or more in reliable driving with only small maintenance needs. But yeah, I’m not afraid to purchase car with 180K on it. It all depends on the exact specific vehicle I’m looking at.
Toyota and others may have dramatically increased quality and longevity in cars, but the second law of thermodynamics still applies. 100k may be the new 50k, but that doesn’t mean miles don’t matter.
That said, I’m curious as to what percentage of cars are written off/totaled due to accidents vs major mechanical failure? I think we would need to reach a point where the majority of cars are removed from service from accidents vs. mechanical failure before we can say miles don’t mattter.
I felt like an early adopter of this philosophy as 20-30 years ago a nice car with 40-80,000 could be bought way cheap, and that is how I bought my cars, and I felt like I was buying in the sweet part of the market.
Nowadays I see cars at well over 100,000 miles (especially newer ones) that haven’t depreciated nearly as much as I think they should have. Even if cars last much longer, and I think they do, lifespan is now lifespan minus 100+ thousand miles.
So from a market perspective I think the market has adjusted now and maybe even overcorrected on mileage depreciation.
But maybe I am just old fashioned and still see a 150,000 mile car as close to used up, just as my parent’s generation looked at a 50-60,000 mile car.
So, I think I’ve got a hold of the concpet as presented
QED you can comforatably buy a car with high mileage and have it be reliable if it is a model that has a demonstrated history of being reliable.
Which I guess brings up the question of Modern VW, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, anything with a JATCO CVT….