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Following the Skoda Octavia thread - what's the highest mileage car you've bought?
I took a punt on this for just over £2k six years ago - an '09 plate Freelander with 205,000 miles on the clock and patchy service history.
Cosmetically it was in great condition - top HSE spec with full leather interior and drug-dealer tints!
Kept it 15 months and put 12,000 miles on it.
Electrics killed it for us in the end - it just kept completely shutting down at random bringing the car to a stop. Not safe when towing!
Apart from that I loved it, one of the best cars I've owned.
1998 Astra 1.7 diesel - asked father in law to have a look a his local garages in the Midlands as mid Wales can be slim pickings. Said come over at the weekend they have put you one aside and he had already put a deposit on it - bought for £700 with 237k on the clock and took it to 253k
2006 Astra 1.7 diesel - pretty much the same story but newer version for £4000, 148k on the clock and went close to 189k before the head went
Boring 8 years of driving a Kia before it got written off. Didn't have courtesy car on the insurance so bought a 1.4 Astra on a 08 plate (ok its a theme/problem i know but i had a manual, and mats that fitted, and some spare wheel trims) at the end of last summer from the scrap guy in the village, thought a petrol with 126k on the clock, no service history and missing the oil cap was going to be a disposable item but only planned for it to cover me until the insurance came through. However now on 135k, just went through the MOT with no issue and a complete bargain for £600.
232k to 312k on a 2005 Passat 1.9pd.
Lots of oil changes and tyres but the only hardware were a caliper and pads.
The car with the highest mileage I ever bought was a pitifully low compared to the above 85000. It was a 10 year old Alfa Romeo 1600 Junior in 1986. To show how things have changed since the 70’s in terms of build quality and longevity, it had been professionally resprayed twice, it was on its fourth brake master cylinder and third exhaust according to the paperwork that came with it and the interior was looking worn. My partner has a 10 year old VW Polo which has just had its first new battery since she bought it new and there is no rust, it’s exhaust system is still intact and the interior looks great.
It could have been any of my first few cars (Mini 1000, Escort 1300L, Mini 1275GT, Metro HLS etc etc) – all bought with average mileage but with telltale slightly wonky odometers...
Bought a sprinter with 250k on the clock and drove it for 7 years, putting another 100k on the clock before selling it on.
Bought an Audi 80 for £52.12p on eBay one evening in 2005, had 192k on the odometer but that had stopped counting a few years before going by the old MOT slips. Used it as a winter beater for two years before it decided to shear an engine mount and set off the safety system that pulled the engine forward and buckle the firewall (as it was designed to do!) on a speed bump. I reckon it had done north of 240k by then. My current Skoda that I've had from new is catching that up though, currently on 218k and in a far better condition than the Audi was at this stage!
2003 Passat estate with 100k, sold it (to someone on here) with just shy of 200k. I was a bit gutted not to see it click over.
I really hope it lasted a while longer, I'd assumed it was good for another 100k!!....
My current Merc Viano was bought with 87k and now has 122k, I'm intending getting it to 300k at least. Unless I win the lottery!
250k-ish for a W plate Frontera. Used to be a site/engineer car for my dad's company and they were selling it off. My dad said that it was a three door, 'van' and had been driven at high speed about everywhere the service engineer had been working (quarries, building site, etc). I got there to pick it up and it was a 5 door Limited with a leather interior. £750 later and I was on my way home.
Great car, loved it, but it started having EGR issues and the heater matrix rusted out and was going to cost a fortune to fix (basically a whole new AC system and the dash out to do it). I kept it going for a while by bypassing the heater with a length of copper pipe, but one winter drive back to Cambridge from Coventry (via Cannock Chase) had me nearly hypothermic and I had to let it go.
2 year old rover 200 SD ex-police car with 80k miles, which had had a front end shunt. Cost 4k when in theory worth 12k.
Got it to 217k miles when someone pulled out in front of me to write it off.
- "RNP to the thread..RNP to the thread"
😉
2001 VW T4. Somewhere north of 410k when I bought it. I had it for 7 years I think.
I’ve only owned two cars but this one was bought with 106,000mi on now taken to 134,000mi, Passat 2.0tdi. It’s clean underneath and has had three MOTs in a row with no advisories so it’ll continue on for a while.
I’ve only owned one car with under 100k miles. An 89 Sierra Sapphire with 73k miles at 3 years old.
My current 944T was bought at 160 iirc, it was a giant automotive LEGO kit of somebody else’s failed project. It’s knocking on the doors of 180k now I think, but very little is original. Oddly most of the exhaust is.
Probably the most heroic was my first car, 1983 Datsun with nearly 130k. That’s a lot for cars of that era. It had a misfire at idle, the clutch was so heavy the pedal box broke more than once and it had a sticky choke but survived getting thrashed to death by a new driver.
Only one, my Octavia, which had 82,000k at four years old when I bought it for £5k, other than a new battery when it was 13 years old, and whatever it needed to pass MoT’s, it never had a service, I gave it away at 19 years old, with 160,000+ on the clock after 15 years of my ownership.
Probably my well sorted TD5 110.
Had about 200,000km on it. We did another 100,000. Wish I hadn't sold it really. Would be worth a small fortune now.
Historically:
2004 Mondeo TDCi that we took to 240,000 and was still going strong
1990 VW Golf 1.6 'Driver' that I bought at 160,000 and took to 196,000 before selling
Currently:
2013 Mitsubishi L200 which has just ticked over 130,000 with no major issues
VW caravelle - 2years old with 170,000 on the clock. Had it 12 years now on 310,000 with no major issues
Bought a W reg Renault Scenic with 167k miles and "tatty as f***" off a mate for £200 as a favour in 2012 when I was out of consistent work... I saved him over £1k when buying its replacement, so he let me have it for nowt and said "just give me the first £200 when you sell it"... What a weapon that thing was! Mechanically it was pretty good, had had a replacement engine and gearbox (low mileage, not new) at 140k so drove a lot better than its miles suggested, but my god it was tatty! I did tidy it up a bit, fixed a sticky EGR valve, gave it a damned good italian tuneup etc...
Sold it on here in the end for £500 to someone who was after a "pre beaten up" car for his missus to use to run the kids around in, as it was "only going to be bumped into the scenery anyway" and he was over the moon with it!
Also had a 2005 BMW 330D touring that was previously a doctor's car. Bought it in 2015 iirc with 155k on the clock. Absolute luxury that thing was! Proper grunty motor too... Returned 50mpg on a run, never worse than 40mpg and still did 0-60 in sub 7 seconds! Sold it only about a year later when I'd decided I really needed a van, and funnily enough, it went to someone on here again (I reckon I've sold almost as many cars on the classifieds here as I have bikes over the years!)... Think I got back very nearly what I paid for it to be fair, albeit it was a Bank Holiday when he came to pick it up and needless to say online banking wasn't what it is now back then, and it took the best part of 2hours in my kitchen of him making various phone calls to the bank to get the money into my account (all of about £3.5k iirc)... 😂
2 relatively low milers compared to some on here I know, but those are my highest...
jimw, what you’re comparing there isn’t an old and a new car… it’s an Alfa and a VW!
I bought my Octavia Scout with 150k about six years ago
It's currently on 206k and running fine (touch wood)
Managed to find the pic I took when I got it plugged in to activate the cruise control that I’d fitted 🙂
Luckily the guy I bought it off was honest as the dash had been replaced so under read by about 300k miles!
I was also honest when I sold it on but saw it a year later advertised with those 300k miles missing 😞
my current car, a Megane R26 is the highest mileage car i have purchased. I bought it on 88k. I was worried, but after reading this thread, its barely run in. Although it is french.
Bought a Ford Falcon XE wagon in Darwin with what we thought was 240k (km) on it but as the odometer didn't work who knows - after we had driven it around the entire country and then back through the middle to Sydney it still had those 240k......nothing broke apart from a door handle and some punctures from driving too fast on dirt roads! It was a 4.1 litre automatic and probably had less acceleration than my 600cc Citroen 2CV back home in the UK. Sold it for $500 more than we bought it for. Happy days.
We bought an Aygo with 85k on the clock (12 years old) as a run about for son. Had it nearly 3 years and he's racked up another 40k in it. Had some jobs to be done on purchase - new brakes/exhaust/air con leak etc but been trouble free since.
jimw, what you’re comparing there isn’t an old and a new car… it’s an Alfa and a VW!
my first car was a 1977 VW Golf Mk1 1600GLS. It was six years old and was already starting to rust round the usual places- rear wheel arches, where the aerial was let into the top of the wing etc. and when I sold it nearly years later and bought the Alfa the tailgate was crusty round the edges. So VW’s of the same era were a bit better than Alfa’s in terms of interior quality but it wasn’t until the later Golf’s that corrosion management improved
Ford Focus with 180k. We took it to over 250,000 before enough bits went wrong for us to call it a day. The engine and gearbox were still going fine at that point.