How many miles is too many on a used car?

What counts as high mileage on a used car?

There is no legal limit and no magic number, which is why no honest dealer will give you one. "High mileage" is only ever high for the age of the car and the sort of life it has had. A car that has covered a lot of motorway miles with its services done can be in better order than one with half the reading that has spent its life on short, cold trips around town. The useful question is not "how many miles?" but "how were these miles done, and what has been done to the car along the way?"

How do I work out whether the mileage is high for this car?

Compare the car with its own record rather than with an average. Anyone can check a vehicle's MOT history free on GOV.UK using the registration number: you get every test result, the advisories and failures, and the mileage recorded at each test. Write the readings down in order and you can see what the car has done year by year. That tells you far more than the single number on the advert.

In England and Wales a car needs its first MOT by the third anniversary of its registration and then one every year, so a car over three years old should give you a readable run of annual mileages.

What should the mileage pattern look like?

Steady is good. Look for:

• Readings that climb at a fairly even rate, year on year
• No reading lower than the one before it
• No year with almost nothing on it, unless there is a reason for it
• Advisories that build up slowly rather than appearing all at once
• A gap-free run of tests, with no missing years

If the pattern is odd, that is a question, not necessarily a problem. Our guide to telling whether a used car's mileage is genuine covers what the record can and cannot prove, and how to check a used car's MOT history shows you where to look.

Is a low-mileage car always the better buy?

No, and this is where buyers lose money. Very low mileage for the age of a car usually means long periods standing still, and standing still is hard on a car: brakes seize, tyres go hard and crack regardless of tread, rubber hoses perish, batteries sulphate, and oil that has sat for years has stopped doing its job. A ten-year-old car with a small reading and no service record is not a bargain; it is an unknown. Age and mileage are two separate things, and you have to read both.

What wears by miles, and what wears by years?

Roughly speaking, miles wear the moving parts — clutch, brakes, bearings, suspension bushes, tyres, the gearbox and the engine itself. Years tell on everything rubber or liquid: hoses, belts, bushes, seals, coolant, brake fluid and the battery. That is why the service record matters as much as the odometer. A car with a thick folder and a lot of miles has usually had money spent on it at the right times; a car with a thin folder and few miles may have everything still to come.

So how many miles is too many for me?

Work backwards from what you want the car for. Run through this before you decide:

• What will you use it for — short local trips, a long daily commute, towing, occasional weekends?
• Has the car had the services and the cambelt or chain work its mileage calls for?
• What does the MOT record say about rust, brakes and suspension, which is where miles and salt show up first?
• Is the car's body style suited to the miles ahead of it, or will you be fighting it?
• What will it cost you to put right the things that are plainly near the end of their life?

For a second car doing a few thousand miles a year, a higher reading with a good record is often the sensible buy. For a long motorway commute, service history and condition matter more than a low number on the dash.

Does high mileage change my rights?

No. Buying from a dealer, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires goods to be of satisfactory quality, and a fault found in the first six months is presumed to have been present at delivery unless the trader proves otherwise. What counts as satisfactory quality takes the car's age, mileage and price into account, so nobody expects a high-mileage car to be as-new — but it does have to be what it was described as. This is general information rather than advice. Used car fault in the first six months sets out the detail.

What does ONECARS do with a higher-mileage car?

Every ONECARS car is checked on 34 points by ONEFIX, our own workshop on the same site at Plas Acton, Chester Road, Wrexham, and the list is published at how we check our cars. Anything that needs doing is done by ONEFIX before the car is handed over, and a car with work outstanding from its check is not handed over until it has been put right — that is a rule in our system rather than a promise over the phone. Every car page shows the photographs, the full spec and, where the car is old enough to have been tested, its MOT history from the DVSA test by test with the mileage recorded at each test, so you can read the pattern yourself before you ring us.

Every car also comes with a free three-month warranty on the engine and gearbox, up to 2,500 miles, with repairs done by ONEFIX on the same site, and longer paid cover if you want it. After the sale ONEFIX is still next door to service, repair and MOT the car. There is no admin fee: the price shown is the price paid.

Two fair examples from the forecourt: the 2012 Vauxhall Astra 1.7 Club Ecoflex at £1,295 and the 2010 Volkswagen Polo 1.2 S at £2,995. Both are the kind of car where the test record tells you more than the reading does, and both have theirs on the page.

What to do next

Pull the free MOT history for any car you are serious about, read the mileages in order, then go and look at the car with what to check when you view a used car and drive it with what to look for on a used car test drive in mind. Our used cars have all been through the workshop before they go up, and if you want the history on one, get in touch.