When I worked for Shell, we had a name for older, very low mileage cars: "Aunt Minnies".

Aunt Minnie owned a 12 year old Buick sedan, with 8,000 miles. She drove 3 miles to church Weds and Sun, and 5 miles to the supermarket weekly.

She had the oil changed religiously every 3,000 miles (about every 5 years).

The internals of her engine looked like a coal mine. Anyone buying her car soon regretted it.

Meaning no disrespect for the differing opinions, I would rather buy Aunt Minnie's car than Uncle Maxie's car with 100K+. Simple reason for me is that I'll feel less bad if I need to do $5000 worth of work. Aunt Minnie's car might go another 100K and Uncle Maxie's is now a rolling parts car.

I believe both opinions are valid and much has to do with the overall care and quality of the machine. And luck too for that matter.

But one thing always holds true with the general public (correct or not), low mileage sells easier, faster and for more. This is an important factor when you turn over vehicles like I do.

I think I have to agree with you in principal Corey. My 1993 F-250 just turned 36,000 miles. I paid too much for it when I bought it last year and then dumped another grand in getting all new fluid and hoses on it. It was a poor investment if you look at the year, but if I had bought a brand new one it would have depreciated more than what I have invested in it. I also will drive it for many years with no payments and no interest. I guess there are several ways to figure value.

I used to restore BMWs mostly "M" cars. Although it is a popular opinion that a very little used, old car, is worse the a high mileage version of the same year. I found it took far less $$$ to get the little used car back to mint condition and would require far less on going maintenance. Things like transmissions, rear ends, wheel bearings do not suffer from lack of use. Age doesn't bother these things either.

Rubber and plastic parts would need replacing whether used or not, age and/or heat would get them so that cost was fixed. Wire insulation would deteriorate on both but at a higher rate on the high mileage car do to temperature cycling.

The engine??? Well that was another story, If the engine was extremely low mileage but NOT run briefly, just stored, would be in good shape although some seals/gaskets may need replacing. More then just seals on a high mileage engine may be needed. If the PO believed that a brief run every month was good, the engine was shot at a very low mileage. Carburetor engines were the worst, when started in cold weather, the choke was on, the fuel mixture was very rich, if the engine was not run for more then an hour each time, over time fuel would contaminate the oil, thinning it and causing bearing/cylinder wall damage. Further, there was always water collection in engines that were run briefly and not given enough time to "evaporate" the condensed water. I would pull the dipstick and smell/examine the oil, gas smell? offer price went straight down, pull the oil filler cap and see lots of rust? more reduction in offer price.

Anything that flexes, rubs or otherwise has a moving lifetime IS degraded with use and not necessarily with time.

I also would prefer a low mileage vehicle as a starting point!!

Not to mention less sales tax, lower insurance, and lower registration fees.

Last year after months of searching for the perfect Explorer Sport Trac for Cheri, we found a 16,000 mile 2006 for literally half the price of new. So far I haven't spent a dime beyond regular maintenance. My 2003 M-3 had 50K, not a dime spent beyond maintenance. My Barth was the exception when at 16K and 10 years old the genset went bad, but I believe it would have gone bad at 10 years regardless of miles.

"Low-mileage" and "Aunt Minnies" aren't the same. An "Aunt Minnie" never gets driven far enough for the engine to warm up.

I bought a '71 MB 250C in '81 with 44K on it. SOld it for a profit with 250K. Had to replace the A/c compressor, the A/C switch, water pump (aluminum impellers don't ike tap water), and the distributor bearing. That was it.