Indicators of true mileage

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rmunns
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Indicators of true mileage

Post by rmunns »

Dilemna.

I have the MoT history of the 2004 Xsara Picasso and they all tally. Total miles of 17000 in first three years, then about 5500 each year. So total in July 2011 was 39800. I got the car this week at 43400.

But there are some pointers to a much higher mileage. Clutch pedal rubber very worn. Door pulls inside (front doors) worn. Pretty rusty underneath. Engine bay scruffy. Gearchange vague and sloppy.

(are the gearchanges made with cables?)

Any people with this model? I'd like to get some ideas as to whether this wear is normal.
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by SaabC5 »

Door pulls become scruffy very quickly. Other things that giveaway a higher mileage are worn drivers seat sides/squab, smooth steering wheel, digital odometers are supposed to be secure but they can be wound back suprisingly easy with the correct software.
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by Ratheram »

Clutch pedal rubber worn and sloppy gear change could indicate that its ermmm, changed gear alot? Maybe was a taxi in a city? (could explain the door pulls too).

The steering wheels do go pretty quickly, wear on the gear lever if its got an aluminium bit with the numbers on gives away it could be high milage and yes, drivers seat wear.
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by Citroenmad »

I have found the clutch pedal rubber can wear quickly. I put a new one on my last C5 and it looked worn after the 18K miles I owned it. Also my C5 with 33K miles has a slightly worn clutch rubber too.

Door pulls do wear badly and can be made worse if the driver has long nails or has a habit of pulling the door while having the keys in hand etc.

Rust will no doubt depend on where it has been used, often if cars are used in the wet and then garaged for a few days is when rust really creeps up, as it stays moist.

Gearchange, have you tried another to see if that is not how they are?

It could well be a car which has been used daily but for only short trips. With this type of use it gives similar wear on the interior, door pulls, clutch rubber (lots of city use etc) as you would expect on a higher mileage car. This is sometimes a concern as the car might not have been at running temperature very often.

Ideally, if you like low mileage cars, you want to find one which has been a second car or had very infrequent use, rather than one which has been used daily for short trips. In that case there is an arguement for buying a higher mileage example.

Look at its tyre, its possible it should still have its original tyres on the rear at 39K miles. Check for stone chips on the bonnet, if the brakes appear original, how worn the steering wheel and gearknob are, etc. It can be difficult to tell but for a car to be clocked it surely has to have done some serious mileage and so you might well be able to spot the results of high miles.

If the MOT history backs up the mileage then I would not worry :)

I went to look at am XM some years back, it had done 3 miles between its last MOT and about 100 since the previous one. 3 Miles would not even get it back from the MOT station as it lived in the sticks and it was a shabby thing for its low miles. Something not quite right there!
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by RichardW »

Sounds like it's been used for lots of short journeys, this would account for the wear inside.

I was surprised at how rusty ours was on the bottomof the subframe at only 7 years old - not as surprised as when I had to have the sill welded shortly after though...

The gear change is cable, but there are rods and bell cranks both ends, so plenty of points to wear, especially if it's been used for lots of short trips....
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by robert_e_smart »

Citroenmad wrote:
I went to look at am XM some years back, it had done 3 miles between its last MOT and about 100 since the previous one. 3 Miles would not even get it back from the MOT station as it lived in the sticks and it was a shabby thing for its low miles. Something not quite right there!
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rmunns
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2019 C4 Cactus manual. Didn't like it, lots of niggling points. sold.
2011 C4 Picasso excl. - shaping up to be a disaster, bought June 2019. P/X'd
2009 Citroen C5 X7 exclusive, auto, LHD, 207500km (129000miles) now sold
Citroen Xsara Picasso excl. 2004 2.0 Hdi, RHD, 64000miles. (sold)
Citroen C3 Picasso excl. 2016. sold.
Two Xantias, one petrol, one diesel. sold.

In the past: Renault 16 (in about 1977, for a year). With front pass. seat out transported full bathroom suite from Cambridge to Derby!)
Renault 4TL (in 2011, for a year)
x 9

Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by rmunns »

Thanks all, you have re-assured me. The car was bought unseen (except for lots of photos) - not the best thing to do, I know. But we are on a budget and secondhand cars in France fetch absurd prices, so to buy from UK means you have to do that un less you are lucky and have someone still in UK who can have a look.

I have a 2000 Xantia which I bought 3 years ago from Doncaster, also not seen before I bought it. That car was utterly immaculate and had clearly been well looked after and had all the garage bills.

But I should look positive about this - after all, I picked the car up on Wednesday this week in Dover, drove it to Peterborough, stayed overnight with Mum, then returned to Dover and drove down to here in one go, arriving Friday morning. Total 1480km. P***ing with rain 75% of the time.
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by Old-Guy »

The perfect s/h vehicle is immaculate inside and out with little sign of hard use, never been in an accident, one private owner, low milage, full main agent service and MoT history -just like our Xantia was. In the real world, they are few and far between.

Personally I would far rather buy a nice tidy higher mileage car than a lower mileage scruffy and worn one. The former will have been looked after (probably) by owner(s) for whom a reliable car is essential, the latter will have led a hard neglected and neglected life. Long-trip miles are far less wearing on engine, transmission and interior than short-trip urban miles.
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by Citroenmad »

I'd not want to buy a car unseen, there are just so many bad examples and dishonest people around. Often upon viewing a car you can guarantee that it will differ from what the seller has told you over the phone, sometimes only slightly but sometimes they could have been talking about a different car, some people will try and sell anything!

Ive travelled the country trying to buy cars and probably only bought a 1/4 of what I have seen, as they often dont match how they were described.

Im picky with cars but realise that they are used cars and so will not be perfect. Some things you can work with, others its best to just walk away as the right car is there, it just takes some finding.

All our cars have very full service history records, want for nothing, serviced at half service intervals, have early cambelt changes etc etc and have any problems dealt with as soon as possible with no expense spared. If only this was the case with more owners.

Ive been looking for a car with a friend today, there are so many awful cars around its a bit off putting. One seller said his other car has had the engine management light on for over 18 months. Well, why have you not got it fixed? Im hardly likely to buy your for sale car then am I, especially as it has the EML on too! :lol: Ive looked at 8 cars today and im still looking ... :twisted:
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Northern_Mike

Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by Northern_Mike »

Citroenmad wrote:
All our cars have very full service history records, want for nothing, serviced at half service intervals, have early cambelt changes etc etc and have any problems dealt with as soon as possible with no expense spared. If only this was the case with more owners. :
Let me make it clear that I am NOT having a go at you, or doubting you in any way before I start!!..

The last two cars I've bought have both had full service history, with bills to prove - not just stamped books, but bills from garages. Both cars were ok to drive, looked ok.
When I needed to do work on them, it quickly became apparent that a lot of the work that had been billed for hadn't been done by the garage. For example, the Puma supposedly had new plugs in 4000 miles ago. I had to remove them when investigating a misfire. I had to use a 2ft breaker bar on them to loosen them, and they were so old and knackered it was obvious they'd never been changed since the car was new.

Even if the work *has* been done by a garage, there is no guarantee it has been done right. I had a recon alternator fitted on the MX-5 just after I got it by a respected Mazda specialist in Reading. The belt snapped after a week. I put another belt on, that snapped too. Further investigation showed that they hadn't cleaned the pulleys when fitting the new belt, and the bottom of the "V" in the waterpump and crank pulleys both had bits of old belt melted and stuck in the bottom. This has been cleaned out, and another belt fitted, and now it's fine.

I *never* trust a service record, and I rarely trust bills either. The only thing you can go off when buying a reasonably old car is condition and the way it drives. This is why I tend to buy my expensive cars from people I know and trust, and why I've bought a few from Savoy Citroen..
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by R9UKE »

The last two cars I have bought have been completely unseen and turned out to be very fine examples indeed. You can tell a lot by the way the seller talks and words things. Also, Renaults are very good at showing mistreatment very apparently, just from pretty poor images you can tell pretty much everything you need to know...
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Re: Indicators of true mileage

Post by Citroenmad »

Of course its not a guarantee of a good car, but just to show it has had oil changes at the right times is a big bonus. Obviously there is no assurance of the garage carrying out the work which has been paid for but you would hope it had been. Something like a cambelt change I would not trust in the history and so always get it done to be sure.

Most of the work on our cars is done by ourselves and so we know its done and done right. I still keep a track of it in the service books and keep all receipts for parts. When they do visit a garage for work its also recorded and I would know if the job had not been carried out. Though your quite right that for previous work you dont know what has been done. Often the best cars can be found through people you know, if you know the car has been looked after well during their ownership.

Its quite easy to tell if a car has had regular servicing or not even without a service rocord, but I would much rather have a service history to back this up.
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