All Highway Mileage:

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I love searching through local classifieds for things I “want” but don’t really need. Particularly, I love perusing pages and pages of cars for sale, to pontificate and dream about the cars and car projects I’d love to own, but have to be realistic about which is, I will never work on it, and if it’s a project, I am not prepared to spend the money to get it to a reliable drivable vehicle. One thing that comes up all the time, particularly for a high mileage car, is that the miles were put on “all highway miles” …as if to somehow allay my concern for the car being high miles. Let’s take this, and other common car advertisement phrases apart in a few ways why this doesn’t really mean anything…and you should still conduct an inspection of said vehicle. 

  1. Cars wear and tear is relatively consistent whether a person drives in a city or all highway. One may argue that a regularly city driven car will “die” faster than a highway driven mile, may be correct, except is likely due to whether a person serviced the car regularly. A regularly and properly serviced car can last to astronomical miles. Brakes, fluids, OIL! especially oil, need to be done regularly in order to maintain a vehicle. So, while a person who only drives in the city, may go longer than the normal in time, before they change the oil in their car, because the amount of time it takes to reach a recommended oil change takes shorter when driven a lot on highway versus in the city. (i.e. it takes longer to drive 5000 miles in a city than if you commute on a highway a longer distance every day).
  2. There is an assumption that if someone spends a lot of time in a car, they are cognizant of maintaining their mode of transport. So, it is possible that an all highway driven high mileage car is owned by someone who takes better care of their vehicle that maybe true, but it’s up to you the buyer to ascertain whether the seller seems to be a person who takes care of their vehicle (i.e.proof of work.)
  3. Take “I do my oil changes myself” with a grain of salt. 
  4. If someone says needs a little bit of work about their vehicle, it usually needs a lot of work. 
  5. If someone says they cannot finish their project car, unless they’ve become debilitated, it usually means that the final hurdle to completing the job is so costly or so much more time, than you may want, unless of course it’s such a potentially valuable asset, and you are farming the work out, and prepared to pay enough money to get the job to completion. 
  6. All highway miles usually means there is fecal and human debris all over the car, that is more gross to think about than you may want to…at least to me the thought of how much “previous owner of vehicle” is left in the vehicle is more than I want to think about. 
  7. If you want to buy a project car, buy it for your enjoyment, not because there is a real ROI (return on investment). If it is truly a car for a collection, and you are not a professional restorer, your chances of successfully “flipping the car” are marginal. If you are a car collector and regularly “flip” cars, most of the stuff written here you already know, or you already have a method to be successful in your business.
  8. The cost to complete a project, will likely outweigh what you can fathomably collect on the open market for a project car.  This is likely less applicable if you are mechanically savvy and can do the work yourself. 
  9. If a car has been sitting on an open market for a while and has not been sold, likely the person is asking too much for said vehicle, and if your exit strategy is to sell it back on the market, remember how long it was on the market before you bought it. So unless you’re willing to take a ‘hit’ on the price, or hold for a long time, factor that into value. 
  10. Most people selling valuable cars, know the value. They take the time to do the research about what the market can handle for their car. Occasionally people will put their car up for super cheap, because they have been living under a rock, but this is really lucky. 

That’s it for now. More to come…