To drive or to baby?

[~MRVIBE2006~]

I was thinking of this as my car is quickly coming up to the warranty deadline. I've always been under the opinion to drive the car, do regular maintenance, and not worry about the mileage. Do a lot of you worry about the mileage? I know that the more mileage on the car when you go to trade it in, the lower the trade in value. Or the higher the mileage when you try to sell it privately, the lower the value. Any opinions on this? I do plan to keep the car for a while (Still in great shape!). But one never knows when one gets the itch to get a new car ('09 Vibe GT )!

[kunkstyle]

Quote, originally posted by ~MRVIBE2006~ »Do a lot of you worry about the mileage?Nope. I drive it like I bought it I have yet to buy a car for resale value. Unless you're buying 'collectors cars', there's not much point. As long as you're doing regular maintenance on it, put the miles on. One of two things will happen. 1) you will eventually have to put some major maintenance on it to keep it in tip top shape. 2) You upgrade sooner. Either option isn't really that bad.The exception to this of course is leased vehicles if you plan on turning them in at the end of lease.

[NibCrom]

Cars were made to be driven. If you don't use it, you're wasting it.

[~MRVIBE2006~]

Since I don't see any collector cars in my near future (no winning lottery numbers yet!), I'm just gonna keep driving it. It still gets good MPG (last fill was almost 29 MPG combined city and highway). Plus it still looks good. But you never know, you go to a car lot and you end up test driving something and saying, hmmmm....

[ToolGuy]

Quote, originally posted by NibCrom »Cars were made to be driven. If you don't use it, you're wasting it. Ditto! These kinds of cars (any daily commuter car) will depreciate no matter what. Low miles are great for the next person who buys it but otherwise it does not help you. I have kept 150,000 mile cars looking new and then traded them in to dealers before. Just keep doing what you are doing and keep it running and looking good. Good running clean cars on the inside and out (no body damage or broken parts) will always sell for something regardless of mileage.

[KNINE]

I never look at my total mileage odometer, just because I have so many miles on it. I drive 100 miles a day, so there's no point in worrying about it. I use trip A to keep of track my oil changes, and trip B to keep track of gas consumption. I'll start worrying about total mileage when it's paid off, or it hits 200,000. Moral of the story. Drive it and have fun!

[joatmon]

Quote, originally posted by K-NINE »I never look at my total mileage odometer, just because I have so many miles on it. I drive 100 miles a day, so there's no point in worrying about it. I use trip A to keep of track my oil changes, and trip B to keep track of gas consumption. I'll start worrying about total mileage when it's paid off, or it hits 200,000. Moral of the story. Drive it and have fun!I log the total mileage odometer with every fill up, keep a running spreadsheet. but use the trip meters the same as you. At the current rate I'll probably hit 200k sometime mid/late Spring 09I gave up on expecting resale value a while ago, I'll drive mine till it dies, so I vote for "Drive"