nsxt2000
10-30-2007, 12:46 PM
My wife and I are in the process of selling her 2001 MDX with 116,000 miles. We bought it new and now have a replacement MDX. We thought it was sold but the buyer is having a problem raising the money. However I know we will find a good home for it and the MDX will make a safe and reliable ride for the purchaser.
This got me to thinking about high mileage cars. I sold my first NSX, a '91 with 98,900 miles (and still on the original clutch!) to the first person who looked at it. He still owns the car and it is worth fairly close to what he paid for it - try that with most vehicles. See an earlier post where I recently happened to be at the dealer when my '91 was being serviced. It was a happy reunion and brought back many fond memories.
My second NSX, a '95 I sold with close to 100k too, and that fellow still has it and it is running great! The third NSX I sold with only 80,000 miles or so.
All of these relatively high mileage cars I sold with no problem because the buyer trust the quality of an Acura. I could have bought something like a Corvette for much less money than the NSX's, but the first hurdle to overcome would be to get it to run 100k miles without having to mortgage the house. Next you have to locate a buyer willing to trust a Corvette with 100k miles and the amount offered will be substantially less in porportion to the original cost than the NSX.
The other thing that prompted me to make this post is a conversation I had with a dealer who specializes in buying & selling high mileage vehicles. He said as a rule he will not even look at an American high miler because the money he would have to put into it to sell it with confidence would never be recaptured. His primary brands are Honda, Toyota, Acura and Lexus because of their reliability and customer demand. On ocassion he will take in a Mercedes, and even rarer a Porsche. This speaks volumes about automotive build quality.
As an aside, many many years ago I bought a Volkswagon Scirocco that had about 50k miles on it. At the time an American car with 50k miles was a candidate for the scrap yard. I figured that due to fine German engineering the Scirocco would be a nice family alternative for a sports car. WRONG! There were more electrical grimlins and strange mechanical problems that would pop up than I care to go into here. The moral of the story is that I should have bought a Honda, since Acura was non-existant at the time.
What thoughts about high mileage cars do other forum members have? Would you buy a Jaguar with 100k miles on it and still expect to still have money available for retirement or would all those $$$ go towards maintence???
-Mike S.
This got me to thinking about high mileage cars. I sold my first NSX, a '91 with 98,900 miles (and still on the original clutch!) to the first person who looked at it. He still owns the car and it is worth fairly close to what he paid for it - try that with most vehicles. See an earlier post where I recently happened to be at the dealer when my '91 was being serviced. It was a happy reunion and brought back many fond memories.
My second NSX, a '95 I sold with close to 100k too, and that fellow still has it and it is running great! The third NSX I sold with only 80,000 miles or so.
All of these relatively high mileage cars I sold with no problem because the buyer trust the quality of an Acura. I could have bought something like a Corvette for much less money than the NSX's, but the first hurdle to overcome would be to get it to run 100k miles without having to mortgage the house. Next you have to locate a buyer willing to trust a Corvette with 100k miles and the amount offered will be substantially less in porportion to the original cost than the NSX.
The other thing that prompted me to make this post is a conversation I had with a dealer who specializes in buying & selling high mileage vehicles. He said as a rule he will not even look at an American high miler because the money he would have to put into it to sell it with confidence would never be recaptured. His primary brands are Honda, Toyota, Acura and Lexus because of their reliability and customer demand. On ocassion he will take in a Mercedes, and even rarer a Porsche. This speaks volumes about automotive build quality.
As an aside, many many years ago I bought a Volkswagon Scirocco that had about 50k miles on it. At the time an American car with 50k miles was a candidate for the scrap yard. I figured that due to fine German engineering the Scirocco would be a nice family alternative for a sports car. WRONG! There were more electrical grimlins and strange mechanical problems that would pop up than I care to go into here. The moral of the story is that I should have bought a Honda, since Acura was non-existant at the time.
What thoughts about high mileage cars do other forum members have? Would you buy a Jaguar with 100k miles on it and still expect to still have money available for retirement or would all those $$$ go towards maintence???
-Mike S.