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So according to an article in the Sunday Times, 106,000 miles is the average at which a car is scrapped. Really? that is rubbish....!
I'm surprised it's that much, tbh. They're disposable items to a lot of people.
Wow! Surprised so low. I guess accidents / write offs / theft drag the average down but even so!
Ita the age at which paying the garageto replace all te bits of suspension that should be replaced exceeds the percieved value.
Interesting article in scotland on sunday inthat outside of a team of specialists who design our goods very few folk actually know how the things they operate day to day actually work Due to complexity cars being a prime example in my line of work not knowing how your tool works is suicide!
My first car - a 95 diesel fiesta ( in 2004)went to 220 thousand miles ( from 90k)because i did all i could diy to keep it on the road
I couldt repair the rotten floor pan though !
High Mileage Vehicle...
[url= http://durangoherald.com/article/20120710/NEWS03/707109977/-1/s ]http://durangoherald.com/article/20120710/NEWS03/707109977/-1/s[/url]
what d'you do then, big boy....my line of work not knowing how your tool works is suicide!
I couldt repair the rotten floor pan though
MIG welder + Time 😉
it's a statistic so basically can be made up, but if it's marginally based on fact it might be including all the low mileage car that are scrapped due to accident damage.
No sobriety - it was beyond that. My chum was into his minis an had welded up many a floor pan - said even he admitte defeat !
It surprises me because every car I have owned, I have kept for more miles than this, or sold on at similar miles in perfectly working state...
1985 Fiesta = sold at 110
1990 Polo = sold @ 100
1994 309 = (sh*te car) sold @90
1997 Seat Vario = sold at 90 to mates who ran it up to 140.
1999 Passat = 160k and sold on working, but high bills
1999 323 = bought at 113, run for a year, new tyre for MOT only cost, sold on.
2005 Touran = 100k and still going strong, although bills have been a few quid for the 4 years we have owned it.
MIG Welder + replacement floor pan + Time squared 😉
Thats more like it - time to scrap 🙂
My wifes Saxo was scrapped at 30,000 owing to a rear end shunt
Sounds about right, say the average scraped through old age was arround 150k which is more reasnoble, then you only need about 1 in 3 cars to die in an accident in an even distribution between 0 and 100k to get a figure arround 100k.
If you can DIY thing it'll be longer before it's scrap, but as the steel price has gone up and you can get £400+ for a scrap car that's moved the point at which it's not worth repairing quite a long way from 10 years ago where you had to pay the scrap man.
I did have to laugh at the prices stuff like old Golfs go for, a 10 year old hatchback with 170k on the clock, £400? £500? £900 even if it's nice? Nope £3000! Who in their right mind pays that sort of money for a 10 year old car wit 170k miles on the clocks!
as the steel price has gone up and you can get £400+ for a scrap car
then its gone up 400% in the last 6 months.
My 1st Car (Corsa) was scrapped at 180k
My 2nd Car (V6 Golf) will be scrapped in August at 115k....
Mk2 Escort - 80K - Scrapped/Banger racing
Mini - 89K - Scrapped due to rust everywhere
Mondeo - 84K - Scrapped due to engine rattling, new chains etc
For these cars it was cheaper to go buy a different car, than have them repaired.
Current car is in the 80K's, but has at least a couple of years left unfortunately..
If you only do 5000 miles per year that would make it a 21 year old car, not that many of those about
The thing is 100,000 gives no idea how old the car is.
If you think 100,000 is too early then maybe you do alot of miles per year ?
The post above says
2005 Touran = 100k and still going strong, although bills have been a few quid for the 4 years we have owned it.
Well I have a 2002 306 estate with about 40,000 miles. Using the same rate of milage to get to 100,000 I'll have to own it for another 15 years. Which would mean the car is 25 years old before I scrap it.
Maybe I'll do this but even if I keep it in great condition I imagine it will just reach as state where it is easier to buy a new car than get it fixed.
I did have to laugh at the prices stuff like old Golfs go for, a 10 year old hatchback with 170k on the clock, £400? £500? £900 even if it's nice? Nope £3000! Who in their right mind pays that sort of money for a 10 year old car wit 170k miles on the clocks!
Yeah? Selling my 'low mileage' (104k) 2003 GT TDI sounds appealing now!
I got an e-class back from the airport last week and the driver told me it had 448000miles on the clock. A replacement gearbox after 300k and wear tiems. It didn't rattle or squeek and you be hard pressed to tell how many miles it had done unless you knew.
I guess that it's still economical to run it. 😀
It depends on the miles. A lot of city cars are old but low mileage. We had a 13 year old Fiesta that was scrapped at 80k miles, and it was a piece of junk.
Age is far more important than miles imo. After all, rust kills many/most cars doesn't it?
doesn't seem ridiculous to me, especially since the government ran its 'car scrappage scheme' to prop up the car manufacturers / give middle classes a discount on a new car they didn't need! That meant a lot of perfectly serviceable cars got crushed; even if these stats don't include that period those vehicles are no longer on the road so there is a 'shortage' of serviceable high mileage vehicles.
I got an e-class back from the airport last week and the driver told me it had 448000miles on the clock. A replacement gearbox after 300k and wear tiems. It didn't rattle or squeek and you be hard pressed to tell how many miles it had done unless you knew.
Similar story, got in an eclass from airport, chatting to driver, I thought the car was newish but it had 260k on the clock. Not a rattle or aqueak, I was amazed, and nothing done except regular servicing. I guess MB are back in terms of reliability? Although coming to think about it I've seen a few MB 61's and 12's stuck by the roadside/in the middle of the road recently, very odd.
Yeah? Selling my 'low mileage' (104k) 2003 GT TDI sounds appealing now!
Well that's the first hit on autotrader, and my missus' brother sold his even older one with 140k for what I thought was silly money (about 1800 IIRC.
I've just 'scrapped' my 5 series, 14 yrs and 125k - scrapped as in sold on ebay with no reserve. Got just over £300 for it.
Only reason is that the (sealed for life) auto gearbox has gone into 'failsafe' and having had a poke around (plus put it on the diagnostic PC) there is something amiss; very stiff selector and an armfull of fault codes.
A repair would be upwards of £800, and tbh its just not worth fixing when I could buy another identical 5 series for £1000. The rest of the car is in superb condition, and very solid. It cost £2k over 4 years ago, so I've had good value from it.
So for me 'scrapping' is usually both financial and mechanical.
Oh, and it cost the original owner £42K in 1998!
rust kills many/most cars doesn't it?
Certainly used to, these days it seems to be some big mechanical (or electronic) repair that kills them off. They don't rust as badly as they used to. I've got a 02 Peugeot that's just gone over 130,000, no rust anywhere but most of the suspension needs replacing. Previous car got sold for buttons because it needed more spending on it to keep it going than it was worth. That did actually have 105,000 on it...
As someone said above, crashes and the scrappage scheme will have pulled the average down a lot.
A repair would be upwards of £800, and tbh its just not worth fixing when I could buy another identical 5 series for £1000.
see... I don't get that. You would rather spend £1000 on an essentially 'unknown' relpacement car of the same age and condition with potentially all the same (maybe worse) future problems as the one you're about to scrap.
Why not spend the £800 - £1000 getting your known car fixed, you're not really any more out of pocket (assuming the broken car will be scrapped for peanuts) and have a car you know and trust (at least more than an unknown replacement).
I have a 20 year old Hilux @170K and a 13 year old VW @94k FWIW, repair costs on the hilux over the last 8 years have been < £500
In years to come I suspect it'll be failures in the ever more sophisticated electrics and engine management that'll pull cars off the road early.
We get through cars quickly due to excessive mileage. We bought a Toyota Corolla (55 plate) in 2010 with 25,00 on the clock. Now it's up to 75,000.
It's still going strong...ish but I can't see it going for many more years without some money being spent on it sadly.
see... I don't get that. You would rather spend £1000 on an essentially 'unknown' relpacement car of the same age and condition with potentially all the same (maybe worse) future problems as the one you're about to scrap.Why not spend the £800 - £1000 getting your known car fixed, you're not really any more out of pocket (assuming the broken car will be scrapped for peanuts) and have a car you know and trust (at least more than an unknown replacement).
He got £300 scrap, which is hardly peanuts when you're talking about the difference between £800 and £1000. Saved £800 bill, got £300 scrap for old car, bought new car for £1,000 so effectively got 10% cashback on buying the car. Sounds alright to me.
Hmmm. First car was an M reg Fiesta that got to 144k miles before I was warned it would fail it's MOT for rust. Decided to get rid.
Current car is an 03 Ibiza with 192k miles on it. Bought it in 06 with only 24k miles on it. Can't see me getting rid anytime soon, although I would like to get an estate.
106k miles does seem quite low, but as mentioned - cars that only get driven low annual mileage must get old before their time, so to speak.
Another thing that kills cars amongst my non petrol head mates is lack of servicing.
I have some friends that think as long as it passes mot car is fine For another year
I have others who will happily trade in rather than service.
106k miles does seem quite low, but as mentioned - cars that only get driven low annual mileage must get old before their time, so to speak.
It's an average (and I'm assuming mean), there's some discussion about this above. It's quite possible that no cars at all that were scrapped last year had done 106,000 miles. Given that some will have crashed as they were driven home from the dealership and that the vast majority are piled up next to railway lines before the see 200K on the clock, the median and mode averages I reckon will both be substantially higher than 106K.
There's a faulty premise in the thread title: the mean average absolutely does not suggest that a 106,000 mileage car is likely to be ready for the scrapheap. Journalists make this kind of error with basic statistical concepts all the time and it boils my urine.
111K mileage Mondeo estate here. Started to make some alarmingly expensive sounding noises of late, probably not destined to be an outlier.
There's a faulty premise in the thread title: the mean average absolutely does not suggest that a 106,000 mileage car is likely to be ready for the scrapheap. Journalists make this kind of error with basic statistical concepts all the time and it boils my urine.
I wholeheartedly endorse this post 🙂
I'm surprised. I generally give up on my Hondas when the gear box or clutch gives up at ~200,000 miles. The engines and bodyworks are usually still in fine nick, but the gearboxes and clutches are not economic to replace when you can get another Honda with less than 100,000 miles on it for peanuts which will last trouble-free for ~4 years.
My Hillman Superminx was scrapped when it had 180,000 on the clock. That's 180k for the second engine, the first did about 100k.
it was good for more miles yet but I 'rebuilt' the engine BUT effectively stabbed it through the heart!
So according to an article in the Sunday Times, 106,000 miles is the average at which a car is scrapped. Really? that is rubbish....!
That's an average. Most cars do less than 15k per year (and small cars average much less, more like 8k per annum), so they're saying that cars are scrapped, roughly, at around 10-12 years.
Look at the number of cars that are written off through accidents that are 5 years or less, consider the economic value of a 10-year old Clio or Mondeo (approximately sod-all) which just requires a dead clutch to scrap it, and you'll see that the average 106k miles is probably accurate-ish.
Not that I support this - my 2 cars have a combined mileage of just under 300k and I've no intention of changing them for a good while yet. Then again, I'm prepared to pay the bills to maintain them to as-new standards. Most people are not.
Not that I support this - my 2 cars have a combined mileage of just under 300k and I've no intention of changing them for a good while yet. Then again, I'm prepared to pay the bills to maintain them to as-new standards. Most people are not.
You're absolutely right. The vast majority of people will quibble over their servicing costs, demand cheaper, and raise a big smile when they get it. But when questioned, they have absolutely no idea what they're getting. A service is a service. Hell, an MOT is a service... They have no care of the details so will be happy for you to fill up their washer bottle with piss for £20. Or miss it out entirely.
Most people don't care. When it breaks, they buy a new one.
I have 183k on my 2004 320d. No intention of scrapping it. Turbo replaced at 97k.
Even for Singletrackworld this thread is particularly full of self satisfied smugness.
Well done to everyone who has got their car past 100,000 miles.
But as pointed many people dont actually drive that far. If they only do 5,000 miles a year they would have to have owned the car for 20 years to reach this level so they might actually be other beings on their way to reach enlightenment like all you super beings.
He got £300 scrap, which is hardly peanuts when you're talking about the difference between £800 and £1000. Saved £800 bill, got £300 scrap for old car, bought new car for £1,000 so effectively got 10% cashback on buying the car. Sounds alright to me.
300 in pocket - 1000 on new car = spent £700 to swap to an unknown car instead of spend £800 to fix a known car.
what I was getting at is that to me the £100 difference is not worth the risk of swapping to an unknown replacement car, that could almost be swallowed immediately on insurance change admin fee, + difference in petrol in the tanks of the two cars etc.
maybe just me, but I would rather fix a car I know than go through the risk and hassle of swapping.
(obviously my opinion only, you don't have to share it, I was just putting it forward)
Don't they say that cars are now designed to last for 7 years due to the expensive electronics, airbags, etc. Whats an average annual milage, 10K to 15K? So 106K is about right.
Al you need is for the computer to die, ABS and traction control to play up or airbag system to fail and then on a lot of cars it is just to expensive to fix. I am sure I read a while ago that airbags have a shelf life or at least a best before date when manufacturers say then should be changed. I bet thats not cheap.
My last few cars have done OK
Gold Mk3 sold at 125K, another Golf Mk3 sold at 135K
Currently on the drive
Vectra estate @ 140K and going fine
SAAB 9-5 estate @ 90K aquired last year
Dont think the make is that important to be honest
I look after my cars (servicing & anything need doing gets done)which is key
Anything that gets neglected, used & abused wont!
But as pointed many people dont actually drive that far. If they only do 5,000 miles a year they would have to have owned the car for 20 years to reach this level so they might actually be other beings on their way to reach enlightenment like all you super beings.
What's wrong with a 20 year old car? You don't have to own the same one for those 20 years (That'd be pretty bloody boring!) For those who get rid of them, if they can afford to do so, why not?
But it does seem like a massive waste to me, that perfectly good cars are neglected and subsequently crushed. In a world of finite resources, it has to end somewhere.
[i]maybe just me, but I would rather fix a car I know than go through the risk and hassle of swapping.
(obviously my opinion only, you don't have to share it, I was just putting it forward) [/i]
Me again.
Don't disagree, as in the past I've spent probably £500 (+servicing/tyres etc) a year on keeping it in good running order. A £40k car even if I only paid £2k for it still costs serious money to run.
But this time we've also moved, from a SE commuter town to a hamlet down a single-track road deep in the country, so bought an £1100 X-Type with AWD instead 😀
Seems a reasonable figure. As long as repairs are expensive and old cars cheap, most people won't bother keeping higher mileage stuff on the road.
If I don't get at least 250k out of my 300tdi before it needs rebuilt I'll be pretty upset mind...
So the same article suggests average annual (in UK) mileage is about 7,000.
I struggle to get my head around why it is economically worth running a car for that.
It also makes me realise that the argument for an electric car is a good one...
And meant to add that £800 was the starting 'estimate'...
Even for Singletrackworld this thread is particularly full of self satisfied smugness.Well done to everyone who has got their car past 100,000 miles.
But as pointed many people dont actually drive that far. If they only do 5,000 miles a year they would have to have owned the car for 20 years to reach this level so they might actually be other beings on their way to reach enlightenment like all you super beings.
Sanctimonious, much?
My 51 plate Octy TDi is currently on 111800, it was on 85000 when I bought it in '05, and it cost £560 to go through the last MOT, but that included a service, two tyres and labour. I don't plan on getting rid of it anytime soon, it runs beautifully on longer runs, like the trip down to Burnham-on-Sea today, around 150 miles or so, and it's very comfortable.
If I had to replace it, it would be for another Škoda, either an Octy or Fabia VRs, just for the extra poke and better handling. As it happens I average less than 5k/year, because work is less than a mile away.
Aye, every new car that gets crashed at 5000 miles throws your assumption for this stat out.
That said- my old Focus nearly went to scrap at 110000. Perfectly solid car but one big mechanical- slave cylinder- hit it with a repair bill that was half its resale value. Also while the overall condition was good it'd become a bit of a swine to work on- everything corroded together, lots of slightly worn parts. I chose to replace it and a local motor mechanic with spare time chose to fix it but it could easily have gone for scrap.
"smugness"... "they might actually be other beings on their way to reach enlightenment like all you super beings."
Lolcopters! You are so right. Guilty as charged 😀
Just to join in with the smugness, my 03 diesel passat has done 150k and is still going strong!!
I do use a very good vw specialist garage that don't charge me too much to keep in going!!
To beat ads678, our 1995 Audi A6 has done 280k miles, albeit only 200k on this engine. Still does 40mpg and doesn't depreciate, cheap cheap car.
Another thing that kills cars amongst my non petrol head mates is lack of servicing.
Maybe. Mine is likely to get scrapped sometime soon - currently on 156k and 13 years old. Since it went through ~90k it's had an MOT (and work done to get through that) along with an oil change every year, nothing much else in the way of servicing. I don't think the big stuff which is starting to go wrong would have lasted any longer if I'd spent lots more on servicing - not the sort of stuff which they do anything to in a normal service. Meanwhile the amount I'd have spent on full servicing is far more than the car would be worth if it was immaculate (which it wouldn't be even if it did have a FSH).
Another one where the upcoming repair bills are just too much compared to the value of the car - I was looking at ~£1k for the work required to get it through the last MOT if they'd done it properly, but they bodged it cheaply to get through. Also overdue a cambelt change. I don't think there's an awful lot wrong with my economics given what I've not spent on caring for it lovingly.
It'll change over the next few years:
ABS, ESP, DPF, DMF, Airbags, Electronic Differentials, ECUs, cambelts....... + The new MOT = lots of failiures
The manufacturers have lobbied hard for all this, so they can reduce the likely timeframe of a car (rust has been killed by galvanising and mechanicals are great) to keep sales up. The electronics are essential in achieving the EU emissions tests.
I asked my F-I-L who used to work in diesel engines and power train, why would you go for a Cambelts over a chain? He mentioned that "it seemed a good idea at the time but we couldn't help notice BMW and Merc stayed put. Turns out they got it right"
Petrol engines are making more sense, especially the new crop of small capacity turbos as diesels are going to become more and more fragile and costly.
My 12plate is on 5k. I drove a 47k 12plate van last week. So 10k a month and within a year it'd be done then??
Whenever I see vans with car average annual mileage advertised I 😆
Clocked or a big big chance if its ex commercial..
I'm still running around in my Jan 1992 Peugeot 605 that I've owned for over 17 years. I'll tempt fate by saying that despite the odd gremlin it's alwys started first time and always got me home, even when I bent a con rod. I came very close to buying a new Citroën recently but felt the odds of it starting after being left for a couple of weeks at altitude in Winter were much lower than the old Pug.
The dealer said that disconnecting the battery to take it into the appartement to warm it up would result in the electronic box needing a reprogramme for 50e. And that if I serviced it myself... . Remember those jokes comparing a Windows PC with a car that ended by saying nobody would put up with a car as quirky as a PC. Well cars are now quirkier than PCs.
The definition of cars must have omitted Land Rovers because that would have kicked the average up by 50,000 miles.
[i]It surprises me because every car I have owned, I have kept for more miles than this, or sold on at similar miles in perfectly working state...[/i]
But that just reinforces the stats as the average age of your cars when you sold them was 110,000 miles...just 4,000 more than the statistics 🙂 Now obviously someone else bought them but most of them may have been bought as 'disposable cars' that will be run for only another year or two and a few more thousand miles until a bill comes in.
The cars that seem to hit stellar miles are '1 or 2 careful owners' examples who's drivers keep them running for sentimental reasons/just to see how far they can go. As soon as they hit the secondhand market your 'super reliable tank' suddenly becomes a big old thirsty barge that 'doesn't owe me anything' so when a big bill starts looming scrappage is likely.
Sunday Times readers aren't going to drive bangers are they?
Its not that long ago that the majority of cars only had 5 digits on the odometer - so theres a folk memory that 100k is some sort of threshold for the useful life of a car. After that point a lot of people will be shy about spending money on larger repairs. Whats economically viable as a repair is completely subjective - it either is or isn't a sum that you feel like spending. Most people see any kind of repair or service bill as a punitive tax, they're happy to pay higher capital and bigger depreciation in the hope of not having to pay those bills. They'll see the prospect of paying that bill and then having a car thats no more valuable as a result as reason not to pay the bill
My dads of that mindset - even after 20 years of retirement and averaging 4k a year he'll replace a car as soon as its out of warrentee for fear of having to stump up for an exhaust or battery.
Personally - I see maintanance and repair as money well spent - I'd rather pay for that than watch money evaporate as depreciation
I run high milage stuff, my vans I typically buy with 250k already on the clock, I've got one with 310k and one relative spring chicken at 140k at the moment. But I'm happy to spend more than the resale value of the vans on servicing and repairs...... because they are vans - they earn money.
To beat ads678, our 1995 Audi A6 has done 280k miles, albeit only 200k on this engine. Still does 40mpg and doesn't depreciate, cheap cheap car.
Applauds. I want to reach the 200k milestone before i get rid of mine. Although i have started thinking of getting a Sharan!!
Whats economically viable as a repair is completely subjective - it either is or isn't a sum that you feel like spending.
Not necessarily. I'm looking at upcoming bills for mine (as I mentioned above, not for stuff which a more expensive servicing regime would have put off) expensive enough that I could instead buy something else several years and tens of thousands of miles newer with the money. It really does no longer make economic sense to keep it. If I add in the money I've saved by not religiously servicing to the schedule I can knock another year or so and ten or twenty thousand or so miles off what I buy to replace it (in reality I'll chip in a bit more than that, and live with a bit more depreciation than optimal for the cheapest motoring).
With regard to the age/mileage thing, I'm busy trying to make my mind up on that compromise when buying something new. The head tells me that a 4yo car with 80k miles is better value than a 5yo with 50k, but something still puts me off getting something so close to that psychological 100k mile barrier (even if I've gone significantly past that with my current one).
I had my Sharan from new and it went for scrappage with 128,000 miles on the clock, it still started first time every time and had the original battery and exhaust. It was a terrible waste really but I doubt that I would have got 2 grand for it otherwise.