Garrison wrote:Silk wrote:If you were to put a 3 year old car that had done 150,000 miles up against a 15 year old car that had done the same, it would be immediately obvious that age has a far greater impact than miles driven.
Sorry, I might have been misunderstood. Are you referring to operating hours or time since manufacturing? I thought operating hours and environment of operation would have a bigger impact than age since manufacturing.
Ok, let's look at all the factors that take a car from factory fresh to scrapyard ready: -
1) Environmental - this is damage that occurs to a car by being exposed to the elements regardless of whether or not it's driven.
2) Operating hours - time that the car being driven regardless of distance travelled.
3) Mechanical sympathy - how badly the car is treated.
4) Maintenance.
5) Distance covered.
When you come to sell a car, apart from a brief cosmetic inspection and a quick drive around the block to make sure there's nothing too obvious wrong, mileage is the number one factor when it come to determining the value of the car at trade-in.
If a car has covered 150,000 miles in just 3 years, it's likely to had similar of 1), more but not proportionally more of 2), Better, due to being driven on more open roads per mile driven, of 3) and a lot more of 4).
It's almost certain that a 3 year old car that has covered 5 times average mileage has nowhere near the amount of wear as a car that has done the same mileage but it 15 years old - mainly due to how it's been driven, maintenance (I doubt most people keep up-to-date with servicing after the first 5 or so years or bother to top up with the correct oil if they check it at all) and exposure to the environment. I'm sure you'd also agree that it's also possible for a high mileage car to have less wear than a low mileage car of a similar age. If the high mileage car was clocked back to 30,000 miles, then it's also highly likely that it would be virtually indistinguishable from a car with 30,000 genuine miles, even if it were stripped down and inspected more thoroughly.
Garrison wrote:Silk wrote:Dishonesty is never a good thing. But I'm sure you'll agree there are little white lies and great big porkies, with most somewhere in between. Of all the dishonesty in the motor trade, I certainly wouldn't put clocking at the top. Bodged and hidden accident repairs, repairs charged for but not done and unnecessary repairs are much higher up on the list, IMO. And just because we're no longer talking about "ringing" and "cut-and-shut", doesn't mean it's no longer happening. Then there's outstanding finance that's not declared. The list goes on.
Again, I might have been misunderstood. Are you talking about dangerously or ill-prepared vehicles on the road? Or the ethical issue? Or the financial valuation?
I'm really talking about excessive demonization of clocking to the exclusion of other more important things. Stealing a loaf of bread is wrong, but it's not murder.