Small budget, high mileage car buying | News & FAQs

My husband and I are in the market for a new car. We have a very small budget of £3000 and we need something large and economical. We have looked around and discovered that we could afford a high mileage diesel Ford Mondeo. We have seen one that we like, an 02 reg that belongs to a local car dealer. The car has a full comprehensive service history and up to 130k miles belonged to a company, so a majority of the miles are motorway. The car now has 153k miles on, and we have been offered it for £2950. Are we crazy?

Hope you can give some advice. We have instructed an AA inspector to look at the vehicle as we can see that the bodywork and interior are clean but have no idea about under the bonnet.
 

Are you crazy? Possibly.

You are right, motorway mileage is good news and means you can relax a little about big numbers on the clock. Especially if the car has been looked after.

But the dealer is making the classic pitch that it is a cheap new car because it has high mileage. You are almost always better off buying an older car that has low mileage, because it is less worn.

The classifieds are stuffed with slightly older cars (like a 2000 Mondeo 2.0 TDCi with just 70,000 miles) for about £2,900. Many of these will have clocked up their miles on the motorways too, but have only done half as many!