Would you buy a 'new' car with 100 miles on the odometer
- Thread starter rickypicky
- Start date
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- 2015 CX-5 Touring 2.5L FWD
The best I ever got was, I was waiting for a Honda Civic to come in, in a new color that they didn't offer before. They called me when the truck came in, but, when I got there, it hadn't even been prep'd yet. I think when I took deliver it had 9 miles on it.
Guess it doesn't get much better than that.dragonteeth
Member
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- '15 CX-5 Touring AWD w/ Bose ★
Mine had ~205 miles when I bought it "new." I don't really find it a problem. It was the only one with the specific color + cloth seats + roof racks that I wanted on the lot, otherwise I would've had to wait.
CX5T Lover
Member
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- 2015 Mazda CX-5 Touring
288 Miles At Purchase...
The model, exterior color, interior, etc. we wanted wasn't on the dealers lot. Dealer found one at another dealership 196 miles away, but still within the state. He offered it to us by next day delivery at a reduced cost, plus a couple of additional extras that wasn't on our original list.
Even though we took it having 288 miles, if you subtract the other dealership which was 196 miles away, it really had 92 miles on it when it came from the other dealer. 92 miles? I don't have a problem with that!
CX5T Lover
The model, exterior color, interior, etc. we wanted wasn't on the dealers lot. Dealer found one at another dealership 196 miles away, but still within the state. He offered it to us by next day delivery at a reduced cost, plus a couple of additional extras that wasn't on our original list.
Even though we took it having 288 miles, if you subtract the other dealership which was 196 miles away, it really had 92 miles on it when it came from the other dealer. 92 miles? I don't have a problem with that!
CX5T Lover
Technically it is "New" since it had never been titled before. However, with 100 miles on the ODO it sounds like it had a few "demo" rides in it. This would be especially true if it had been listed as a "Special" in the dealer's advertising. Is it "normal" I would say no but it would be a good negotiating point.
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
I've sold a new car with over 7,000 on it before. Now THAT is rare! (It was a manager's convenience ride who abused his position at the dealership, loaned it out to his secretary, on and on and on. It was an SVT vehicle, as well...huge no-no!) Used to work for a Ford dealer. Most new cars will have between 3 and 20 miles on them. What you probably saw was a vehicle that someone was sent home in, and either decided or could not buy it. Or maybe it was a vehicle used during a product familiarity session where the managers each took it home for a night to better learn the vehicle. Or any other number of mundane and boring meaningless to the new owner things that new cars are put through from time to time. When I bought my Z06, I was told that GM would randomly pull a car and put miles on it. Higher-ups at the Bowling Green plant would take it home for the night. Drive it around.This is all before it even shipped ANYWHERE. My Z06 wasn't done this way, but I was told that sometimes it is done, and is normal and a matter of course. Then the car is gone over with a fine-toothed comb to check for rattles, quirks, or any other foible. It's part of the random QA/QC testing. If it were a machine part, this would be known as "batch/lot testing". Or maybe it was transferred from 1 dealer to another dealer 100 miles away, and they paid a driver instead of a flat-bed to do it.
So, yeah, 100 miles on the odo is meaningless...except to you as the customer. It's infuriating to have a customer who uses it as a haggle point, knowing what I do about it, but it is a legit move...so haggle man, HAGGLE!
So, yeah, 100 miles on the odo is meaningless...except to you as the customer. It's infuriating to have a customer who uses it as a haggle point, knowing what I do about it, but it is a legit move...so haggle man, HAGGLE!
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
My Z06 came with VERY specific break-in instructions. I followed them to the letter. The first 500 miles, I used about 3/4 quart of oil, and the tail-pipes were BLACK! After that, I changed the oil, and wiped the tail-pipes out. The oil level NEVER moved again after that, and the tail-pipes were spotless. Mind you, I detailed the car and had it wrapped on the dealer floor, so it's not like it was delivered with sooted/oiled tail pipes. That happened during break-in/before break-in.Mine had 8 miles on it IIRC... I did look for one that didn't appear to have anything other than maybe the dealer prep drive on it. I admittedly did romp on the demo I tested the week before pretty hard. The hardest was full throttle into that corner merging onto the Boeing freeway east near factory for the locals that know.
I'm open to both arguments on engine break-in but gentle & variable has served me well over the years.
What did I do and why?
For the first 1,000 miles, no real WOT. I would accelerate to 3-4K rpm leisurely (some load, maybe 30%), and then back off the throttle allowing the rings to suck against the cylinder walls...and also for the backs of the teeth in the transmission and diff to be negatively loaded. People forget...engine is NOT the only or even the most important part of this process!
As I neared 1K miles, for the last 500 miles, I slowly worked up to the 7K rpm redline. 600 miles saw me at 3500-4K when I played with it, load was 50% ish. Anyway, by 1K miles, I was doing WOT runs in it. Great car. Never a whine, whirr, or drop of oil used.
It is a machine and mechanical. There is ZERO BASIS for an abusive break-in process. It's stupid, to be quite blunt, unless you think the way to sharpen a knife is to ram it into a grinder as hard as you can...no, you gently profile it. Same goes for gear-teeth faces and other things metal.
Look at aircraft engines and very expensive industrial engines. You will find specific instructions about load variance, throttle and RPM parameters per run-time total, etc. out the wazoo. It's not there for s**** and grins.
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
Negative. Used/new is determined by the inservice date. Ie. Titled. Now you can try that argument...but thats your technical answer.
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- 2015 Mazda CX-5 Touring FWD
What do you want, 0 miles? They are driven off the end of the assembly line, they are driven out to outside parking, they are driven to car carriers, they are driven off of car carriers at the dealer, and if there is a dealer trade, and the mileage is reasonable they are driven to the next dealer. If the mileage is above a certain point they will be trucked to that next dealer. This could be a new money maker for the manufacturers. For a premium above the standard shipping cost you get a 0 mileage car.
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
I don't know about a CX5, but my corvette was driven at the factory over a ton of bumps and angles and then force road balanced at 50mph on a rolling dyno type affair. There is absolutely no way it could be properly built and QC'ed without at least a few miles on it, even if little forest gnomes carried it on their backs to the shipping method and whatnot, lol.
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123373
No, many people beat the crap out of vehicles on test drives, they floor the car and jam on the breaks! I have even seen dealer sales reps do this. My Mazda dealer keeps a few of each model available for test driving. The one you buy has never been driven. Once I said yes I had the dealer prep my car and then I test drove it before signing the deal.
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- 2015 CX-5 Touring 2.5L FWD
We signed our deal, even though they didn't have the color/model we wanted in stock, they had to get it from another dealer. We agreed, with the understanding we were going to go over it with a fine tooth comb and reserve the right to reject it if it has any scratches. Fortunately it was fine. It had 113 miles on it, but, of course some of that was from driving it in from another dealer. I wasn't too worried about the 113 miles.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
If every Corvette is going through road test in the factory to make it better tuned, so be it. It is part of break-in process for Corvette. But these miles were being putting on by "professionals"! Not by random customers who mainly want to find out the performance and ride, and highly likely will "abuse" the new car during the break-in period. For the miles being putting on by the dealer trade, these were mostly highway miles with constant speed driven by somebody who definitely didn't care about the proper break-in. Chances are these new cars been test driven or from dealer trade may not have any issues in the short term, but nobody knows in the long run. I've seen at least one new car of friend is burning oil since new, and he bought the car with over 100 miles on it. The factory was refusing to fix it and claimed it is "normal"! I want to avoid even just one out of hundreds possibilities if possible. We ordered our new CX-5, got it in 23 days, and had only 3 miles on odometer! That makes me feel conformable!
Some dealers may designate several new cars for test drive only. But in our area you can pick any new car in the lot and do the test drive. I don't like this but that is the way it goes right now. That makes me think any new car with more than 10 miles on it has to be gone through some sort of test drive.
(edit): I re-read your response and see you were not talking about idling, but about the car just sitting there. That's not ideal but not a huge deal unless it's sitting there through blazing summer heat or through multiple seasons.
I agree.
I don't understand the American fetish of leaving cars idling. In fact, when I first went to look at the CX-5 upon it's release, the first thing the salesman did was reach in and start the engine while we talked. After a few minutes I looked at him and said "why did you start the engine?". He got that deer in the headlights look like this is how he always does it but he doesn't want to say why. I reached in and shut it off. Most customers would not be so pro-active which means plenty of new cars with almost no miles on them spend the first hour of operation idling in the dealers lot (at least at this dealership). That's when I decided to order my new CX-5 from Japan.
Odd thing is, dealerships lose all enthusiasm when you tell them you want to order one from the factory. That puts the sale is at least a couple months in the future. American business and sales culture is all about money now! This week or this month. Not next quarter. Very short-sighted to the point of idiocy. Dealerships should be cultivating long term business relationships but that can't seem to see past getting the money now. I'll never go back in there again because they act like idiots in almost every way.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
So you're the one of the very few like me ordered a new CX-5!
I totally agree with you on many people here don't care about leaving cars idling. That makes me miss the nice feature of "i-stop" CX-5 has but not available here in US! Apparently Mazda believes Americans don't care about leaving the car idling and left out this very nice and economical feature for US market.
There is another issue related to this. My city, Plano, Texas, had spent millions of dollars installed fully computerized traffic light control system with camera on every traffic light. Motor Trend even reported this news saying this would improve the traffic flow and reduce the pollution. But the system, although the traffic light cycle and wait time are now may be shorter, but it makes cars stopping at EVERY intersection! What is the system good for if it makes every car stop-and-go at every traffic light? I can't imagine how much more fuel got wasted and pollution got generated by the idling, frequent start-up and braking. What a waste of the money!
Absolutely right! American big corporations are very short sighted and they want to see an immediate profit or you're fired! Fortunately my Mazda dealer is a little better than the rest and was willing to order a CX-5 we wanted with decent discount. I did appreciate their service and brought more business to them later. My friend got an even better deal due to multiple sales and it's a win-win situation.
Grraauuggh
Member
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- Soul Red 2016 Mazda CX-5 GT w/ Tech & iActivesense
My 2016 CX-5 GT w/ Tech & iActivesense had 103 miles on it. I live in Topeka, KS and that's about the equivalent of a drive to Kansas City and back, or about a 1 1/2 hour drive altogether. Probably about 20 of the miles were put on by me taking test drives. No complaints whatsoever.
If I were to pick something to complain about, it would be the fact that I chose to pick up the car immediately as soon as I made a decision, rather than waiting a day or two to allow them to go get the car detailed. Or, more importantly, I would complain about the way they taped the temporary tag to the vehicle and it left behind a bunch of tape and glue that I had to pay a car wash place to remove for me, along with some glue that was on the inside of one of the doors where someone had peeled off a large sticker. I guess that's what I get for not inspecting the car more closely.
According to the research I did on the internet, one of the articles I read said that anything over 200 miles or so you should either consider a different vehicle or ask them to reduce the price slightly due to the mileage, because the car was likely used as a "show car" or driven a long distance to get to another dealership. 100 miles is nothing, though.
If I were to pick something to complain about, it would be the fact that I chose to pick up the car immediately as soon as I made a decision, rather than waiting a day or two to allow them to go get the car detailed. Or, more importantly, I would complain about the way they taped the temporary tag to the vehicle and it left behind a bunch of tape and glue that I had to pay a car wash place to remove for me, along with some glue that was on the inside of one of the doors where someone had peeled off a large sticker. I guess that's what I get for not inspecting the car more closely.
According to the research I did on the internet, one of the articles I read said that anything over 200 miles or so you should either consider a different vehicle or ask them to reduce the price slightly due to the mileage, because the car was likely used as a "show car" or driven a long distance to get to another dealership. 100 miles is nothing, though.
