How many miles is to many miles for a used TV?

[Belbein]

I hate to ask this, because it risks getting into the old Ford vs Chevy and Toyota vs Datsun (yes, I said that) fights. But I need to replace my Tacoma, and the prices of even the used TV are just effing absurd. So: how many miles is to many miles for you to consider buying a used TV? Assume no floods, no plagues of locusts, no accidents, good clean car... But 30k, 40k, 50k, 100k...? What's the danger zone in your opinion?

[CRH]

Depends on the vehicle, how it was maintained, and intended use....

[A W Warn]

Depends on how the vehicle was maintained.
I used, for a daily driver and towed with, one Silverado I bought new 225,000 miles before I sold it to another guy. He towed with it for a couple more years before I lost touch. A well maintained truck will last a long time.

If I was buying used I would be looking for a 3 year old with 50-60k if gas.
If a diesel 70-100k would be ok. A lot of people are looking for these. That's why they are expensive.

[OTRA15]

Good answers so far -- lots of variables -- hard to give a precise answer.

This time of year is probably the worst for locating a tow vehicle IMO, because the "high season" for camping and towing is upon us. If you can wait until the fall, prices may be better, especially with the new 2019 model year being fully released.

Supply and demand . . .

Good luck!

Peter

PS -- Personally, I would try to find a vehicle that still had some of its extended warranty left, which could be transferred to you.

[Isuzusweet]

Agree with others......you can buy the most reliable rated used truck on the market, but if it has never had an oil change..........

My tip is to never buy off a dealership, as they tend to have vehicles traded in that have little to no maintenance. If you eye ball a seller, selling their truck you'll get a feeling for how they took care of it, maybe even receipts.

Whatever vehicle you are planning on buying, it is always good to take the VIN number to the closest dealer of that marque and get them to run the VIN and print you off a service history, (or have the owner do that); if they are unwilling to do that.......run.

Carfax doesn't tell the entire story; in most cases Carfax leaves a lot to be desired IMHO.

Cheers
Sidekick Tony

[Belbein]

My clients who are auto dealers tell me that they do not trust CarFax. They use AutoCheck exclusively.

The thing about the VINs is a great reminder. Just so y'all know, if you don't: for most vehicle manufacturers (at least Americans) there are sites giving a "VIN Decoder" that gives you the original Spec Sheet for the vehicle. So if some salesman says, "Oh, yeah, this has the towing package," you can go on the VIN Decoder and find out. It's not 100% reliable, but it's another valuable datapoint.

[wavelength]

Being a loyal long time Toyota owner I would say “what’s wrong with your Tacoma”? I’m towing our 25 ft classic with a 2007 Tundra with 107000 miles and will think about a new aTV when it hits 200,000.

[tjdonahoe]

Used? New? With all the floods makes you wonder,buyer beware....very aware

[prostar]

I am a big Toyota fan putting 287,000 on a 86 4 runner and 180,000 on a 2004 4 runner that we still have. These are not my TV but daily drivers but do show how well they hold up if maintained. I talked with a guy that had a 2006 2500 chev with 100,000 miles on it. Sounds great but he lives were roads are salted and the frame was shot. There are a lot of varibles but if yours doesn't live in this kind of environment and been maintained keep it longer.

[FilmGuy]

I would dissagree with the "never buy off a dealership" thinking. I buy most of my vehicles off-lease from dealerships. Sure, you have to do a bit of due diligence, as with any major purchase, but the vehicles I've found have been well-maintained and are in great shape. Most off-lease vehicles have reasonable mileage (because it costs a lot if you go over the lease-specified mileage) and many of them have had free oil change/maintenance packages for most or all of the life of the lease. You're often looking at a 3-year-old vehicle with aroung 40K miles. Not bad, but you can do better if you look around. The two most recent TVs I've bought off lease, a Denali and a Mercedes GL diesel, had 18K and 25K respectively. Both were in mint condition.

Originally Posted by Isuzusweet

Agree with others......you can buy the most reliable rated used truck on the market, but if it has never had an oil change..........

My tip is to never buy off a dealership, as they tend to have vehicles traded in that have little to no maintenance. If you eye ball a seller, selling their truck you'll get a feeling for how they took care of it, maybe even receipts.

Whatever vehicle you are planning on buying, it is always good to take the VIN number to the closest dealer of that marque and get them to run the VIN and print you off a service history, (or have the owner do that); if they are unwilling to do that.......run.

Carfax doesn't tell the entire story; in most cases Carfax leaves a lot to be desired IMHO.

Cheers
Sidekick Tony

[banderabob]

Originally Posted by A W Warn

Depends on how the vehicle was maintained.
I used, for a daily driver and towed with, one Silverado I bought new 225,000 miles before I sold it to another guy. He towed with it for a couple more years before I lost touch. A well maintained truck will last a long time.

If I was buying used I would be looking for a 3 year old with 50-60k if gas.
If a diesel 70-100k would be ok. A lot of people are looking for these. That's why they are expensive.

Ditto the above. Though I might disagree with A W WARN. Purchased my last 2 TVs from a dealer, the most recent was 3 years old at purchase with 40,000 miles. Still towing with it seven years later, now at 215,000 miles, and a new long block 30,000 miles ago. “Well maintained “ is the key.

[banderabob]

Originally Posted by banderabob

Ditto the above. Though I might disagree with A W WARN. Purchased my last 2 TVs from a dealer, the most recent was 3 years old at purchase with 40,000 miles. Still towing with it seven years later, now at 215,000 miles, and a new long block 30,000 miles ago. “Well maintained “ is the key.

Oops, meant to disagree with ISUZUSWEET on the dealer issue!

[k0lw]

My TV is a 2002 F-250 Power Stroke with 295,000 miles. Last two trips were Lake Charles, LA and Mena, AR from the Kansas City area. It was over the 290K when we took those trips with our wonderful old 31" Silver Twinky. There can be issues, but we had our house with us and all went well. Still driving the F250 and will give it up when it decides. I love the 7.3L Power Strokes. Next trip is Wyoming in June and I'm not worried about either the TV or AS. I do keep AAA with RV and 200 mile tow, I'm not that much of a gambler.......

[SeeMore]

Much of what has been written before my reply is excellent advice or insight. I happen to be an owner who performs regular maintenance at/or before mileage or time dates schedules myself after dealer included services are exhausted. I also maintain paint, fabrics, etc. Because I do the work neither CarFax nor AutoCheck provide sufficient insight into care and maintenance to a potential purchaser.

I keep my vehicles for decades and run up mileage well into 6 digits. By example, I have owned two Suburbans (an '82 & '96 used as my TV) which remained under title to me for 23 and 18 years respectively. Both exceeded 290,000 before being sold. I knew the owner of the second who added another 80K before it was totaled in an accident.

My current Ram TV is now 7 and is used almost exclusively for towing my Airstream. It gets regular maintenance with the best available products. For example, Rotella T-6 has been used as the oil choice since the original 600 mile break-in change. My friends have informed me that they would gladly acquire any of my vehicles when/if they become available. I have a '91 and '02 used as daily drivers and have no intention of selling them for many years.

Hopefully you can find a similarly cared for vehicle in your search just as A_W_Warn stated.

[JCWDCW]

My Dakota is now 15 years old with 250000 Km (150000 miles more or less). It is obviously a marginal TV for a 7000lb trailer and it does work hard on the hills! It has never missed a scheduled service and I intend to put another 100000 Km on it. Not bragging, but if a used vehicle is well maintained...which includes fixing what needs to be fixed every time, then it should be serviceable. That being said, what is your tolerance for failure on the road. More years and more miles equal greater probability you will have a problem. I had a $700 front caliper failure (+ replace all pads and discs) in Florida this year after having traveled some 10,000 km in winter vacation. A while back I lost the AC clutch traveling to Florida and after replacing nearly everything under the serpentine belt I had a $1500 USF bill. Both entirely reasonable expenses and it did interrupt my travels for a few days. But that is still cheaper than $700 per month for a new vehicle. I'm solo and I can roll with these setbacks. That is not necessarily true for everyone.
If I had to replace my Dakota I would be looking for an adequate used vehicle about 3 years old with not more than 90-100,000Km (60-70000 miles). Deprecation makes it affordable and today's vehicles easily have 200-250,000 miles in them.
Do your homework and find out what the weaknesses are for the vehicle you are considering, then decide if you can handle that potential failure. For me a transmission or engine is a critical loss and I won't be spending 1000s on replacing either. I will then have to go find a dependable used unit....my finances won't support anything newer.
JCW

[switz]

My 2007 Mercedes ML320 CDI v6 turbo diesel I ordered in October of 2006 and took delivery of in November 2006 has been given oil changes every 5,000 miles and is being used to tow our 2015 23D International Serenity at 177,250 miles. I can not replace this drive train at Mercedes, so will keep this running until we decide to quit towing the 23D.

There have been some very expensive repairs at the MB dealership, but we have now moved to an independent shop with a factory trained (in Germany as a German) mechanic that was able to find and fix a problem that the dealership completely mis-diagnosed and wanted to charge for major parts that were not necessary.

[vintageracer]

All but one of our families 6 PU trucks have over 200,000 miles. The highest being 353,000+ miles on a GAS 6.0 LS Original Engine Chevrolet 1500 HD PU that my daughter drives daily to school and work. "I" would not give it a second thought to jumping into anyone of the PU trucks including the 353K mile truck, hook a trailer to it and drive cross country.

When it comes purchasing a used PU truck it's not the miles that matters near as much as answering this question:

"Does the price match the condition"?

Some of the worst used vehicles I have seen and/or purchased were older low mileage USED vehicles. In most situations these low mileage older vehicles are just that for a reason and that reason typically is not the owner didn't drive the vehicle much over the years. The real reason has to do with the problems they had with the vehicle, that it was always broken, in the shop, been wrecked or the owner lost faith in the reliability of the vehicle and did not drive it very much.

In any case "low miles" does not necessarily mean that it's a good vehicle.

[Glenn T]

Originally Posted by Belbein

My clients who are auto dealers tell me that they do not trust CarFax. They use AutoCheck exclusively.

Absolutely, NEVER trust Carfax - I bought a used BMW several years ago that looked like new and had a clean Carfax. When the transfer case went out at 7,500 miles, BMW refused to honor the warranty because the vehicle had previously been "totaled" due to being dropped from a crane while being unloaded from a ship!

My purchase carfax was clean, but 6 months later the major accident showed up...

NEVER TRUST CARFAX!!!!

[vintageracer]

Carfax and Autocheck BOTH are reporting services.

Nothing More.

Garbage in then Garbage out.

They both report information they gather from many of the same sources both public and private.

I once purchased a Mustang that was reported by Autocheck as a complete wreck salvage write-off with a "None Rebuildable" title. Pretty interesting as this particular car sat in Police impound in Georgia for 15 years as part of an ongoing (being nice) court case. Autocheck reported the car as salvage 7 years after the car was impounded and 8 years before release. How could the car been involved in an accident resulting in the complete destruction of the car when the car was in Police Impound? The answer is "It could not and did not" get damaged or totaled. I was able to purchase the car from impound after the case was finally adjudicated.

One call to Autocheck with documentation from the court showing the information they reported was false and impossible and the Autocheck is now CLEAN for this vehicle. Autocheck would not reveal their source of the FALSE information however they were more than happy to set the record straight!

Garbage in Garbage out!

I have seen the same thing from both of these services more times than I care to discuss. As a licensed motor vehicle dealer I see this happen far more than it would IF both of these services would require better vetting of the information reported to them and better vetting of their sources of that information rather than posting WHATEVER is reported to them as the truth about a particular vehicle.

Both Carfax and Autocheck have done a WONDERFUL JOB branding themselves as the "See All Know All" of every vehicle produced after 1981. Nothing could be further from the truth! They are just another source of information (Good and Bad) for your "Consideration" when making a vehicle purchase.

Please don't believe everything you see in those TV advertisements from Carfax and Autocheck. The actual truth about a vehicle "might" just might be very different from what they report.

Maybe Good Maybe Bad unfortunately not always the truth!

[Pat.Mann]

For a Toyota or Nissan, I use 100k as a cutoff. If another brand, I would use half that based on Consumer Reports ratings of major system failures in first 3-5 years of ownership.