Which does the most damage to a car?

Question

Age or Mileage?

Pick only one and explain why you chose it.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Age, hands down. Rust and corrosion are both expensive body and sub frame killers. It also destroys brake calipers, rusts rotors, wheel cylinders, steel brake lines and  degrades brake hoses. Age eventually rusts gas tanks, tank straps and if you make ten years the radiator is very suspect. Along with that, all cooling system hoses and clamps plus heater core is a question mark.

I'll take a newer car with more quick miles rather than an older car that's seen one too many Winters. The secret is finding out all service records if possible before laying out your hard earned money.

Answer 2

all depends on the way you take care of it. I have many cars that went 150k+ miles, I used synthetic oil and when the guy who bought it took the engine apart, it was like brand new.

Body was in great shape too.

Now a buddy of mine does no maintance, never washes his car and it fell apart... body rusted apart.

so for me? Milage I guess... cause most of my cars were well over 10yrs old too, still looked like brand new!  

Answer 3

i would say millage because if i have a 1962 impala and i dont drive it much it will still be running no matter how old it is. If i have a new 2009 car and i barely bought it. I over drive the car like crazy then the new car is going to brake down more easily that the old one that is not driven that much

Answer 4

depends what kind of damege were talking about crash damege water damege fire damge etc...

Answer 5

Not sure yet, my 89 Sunbird has 257000 miles and is nineteen years old. Im leaning more towards mileage.

Answer 6

There is nothing worse for a car than for it to sit.........I agree with country boy.  

Answer 7

mileage, after awhile a vehicle exceeds it's mechanical driving limits, wear and tear ect.....

Answer 8

It is mileage.  Mileage is a guarantee that components will fail on a nearly predetermined basis, and the costs are very high, almost too high to justify at different points.  I keep cars 10 - 18 years or more.

Re age:  I bought and drove a car stored 25 years, out onto the dark highway and in a rainstorm, came home 100 miles.  A brand new '57 Chev BTW, unrestored.

When you combine the two, mileage and age, since I do, the stat is skewed towards mileage, but age comes in and runs pretty close - then, I wish it didn't exist.  this means replacing parts that don't have enough miles or wear, but just deteriorated.

Answer 9

Mileage. If you only drive twenty miles a month you could have a 30 year old car with fewer than 7500 miles on it, practically brand new. You could also drive 4,000 miles a month and after three years your car would have 144,000 miles -- a hard, hard life for any vehicle no matter how well maintained it is.