Acceptable Milage On New Cars

[Top~Dog]

So - we've all been there, gone to the dealership and test drove. Question is...when buying a NEW car, what would the members of this prestigious community say was a "fair" amount of miles on the odometer?

[AdamZ]

New?

3-20

Once past that it's been test drove/played with too much.

[PalmerGA]

One that has been on the original dealer's lot? I'd say no more than 50 miles. In my case, they had to go to Atlanta to get my car, which is almost 200 miles. When I took delivery, mine had almost 250 on it.

[hunter1660]

We test drove a new car that had 600 miles on it...I ask the salesman at what point was it not considered new...his response was it was considered new until it was titled and that the warranty would start from the recorded mileage forward ....my opinion is a new car should have less than 100 miles off the lot...less than 50 if ordered

[the_fast_one]

Mine had 230 on it but it was transferred ie drove from one dealership to my dealership 180 miles.

[baum]

i would say under 300 or so.

my camaro was a dealer trade also so it was driven about 40 miles from the other dealer plus whatever milage was put on during test drives there.

when i purchased my ram they let me do a 60 mile test drive. so its not un-realistic to get a few miles on a vehicle for test drives

[kevinw]

i would say anything under 250 to 300. if car has been on a lot for half a year or more, with test drives, expect it to have a few. and if transferred from another dealer, maybe a few more.

[FenwickHockey65]

Under 50 if it was delivered straight to the dealer for me. I can understand more if they had to drive it over from another dealer.

When we got our Terrain there was a model on the lot the same color/trim as ours but it had almost 100 miles on it. We had the dealer trade it out for another one, took delivery with 32 miles on it.

[Lord Ryan]

Mine had 35, I'm OK with that.

*Edit around 10 of those miles were from my test drive.

[sloSS]

I believe warranty begins from miles on odometer at delivery to the first owner. So if the car had 3,000 miles on it at delivery, bumper to bumper warranty would expire at 39,000 miles and powertrain warranty would expire at 103,000 miles. Standard warranty time frames apply from date the car was "punched" which means reported by dealer as a sold unit.
I learned the information during the short time I worked in the car biz. It may still be accurate.

[FenwickHockey65]

Warranty still begins from whatever mileage you take delivery at.

[mcdoogle6969]

Well, I work at a dealership and they usually come off the truck with 1-3 miles on them. After that, they need to have a PDI done on them (Pre-Delivery Inspection) which usually puts 6-7 miles more on the clock. That's how they sit until a salesman takes it out for a test drive, ect...Usually there's only two reasons why we'd have a car with 150-400 miles on them is if the owners uses it for a personal vehicle for awhile or if it's dealer traded to us.

[jd10013]

Originally Posted by hunter1660

We test drove a new car that had 600 miles on it...I ask the salesman at what point was it not considered new...his response was it was considered new until it was titled and that the warranty would start from the recorded mileage forward ....my opinion is a new car should have less than 100 miles off the lot...less than 50 if ordered

this. over 200 and they need to knock some off the price

[jd10013]

Originally Posted by FenwickHockey65

Warranty still begins from whatever mileage you take delivery at.

factory warranties run from 0. it's covered till 36k miles, not 36k miles plus whats on the odo when you buy it. extended warranties work the same. the car is warrantied to a certain mileage, not that mileage plus what's on it when you purchase.