Lower Mileage and Old or Higher Mileage and New?

[GJD]

Hi Forum

 

There are a lot of words in this post, but it all ends up in one simple question at the end.

 

Having initially gone for an auto TT, I've decided to consider stretching the budget and look at manuals. I got some useful advice here last time around so I thought I'd pick your brains again. I guess I should mention that I'm looking at unmodified cars.

 

There's a selection of imported manual TTs from the 1993-95 period, in the 60k to 80k miles range, but I'm a little surprised at what seems to happen to the price outside those brackets. Younger vehicle and/or lower mileage increases the price, naturally. I would expect an older vehicle with lower mileage to command a higher price than younger vehicle with higher mileage. After all, today a '93 car is 50% older than a '98 car - quite a difference, but in 5 years time the '93 car will only be 33% older - less of a difference. 5 years after that, the '93 car will only be 20% older, etc. On the other hand, regardless of the age of the car, if it has done higher than average mileage per year, the only way to reduce the average annual mileage is to not drive it for a couple of years, and who wants to do that!

 

What this all means is that I would instinctively consider paying more for a '93 car with 55k miles than a '98 car with 75k miles. But the prices I see advertised don't agree with me - higher mileage doesn't seem necessarily to hurt the price of a younger car as much as I'd expect.

 

Is there some other effect I'm missing? Perhaps the world reckons that, even with low mileage, a Supra won't do much more than 20 years, so a '93 car is nearing the end of its life? Or maybe Supras are good for 150k miles or more so 75k is still a baby? Or do the newer cars just have more bells and whistles - I think the VVT-i engine came in around '98. Maybe that sort of thing makes a difference.

 

Those are my rambling thoughts. If you've made it this far, thanks for staying with me. Here's the simple question I promised:

 

Everything else being equal (condition, service history, number of previous owners - all those other considerations), which unmodified, J-Spec (but fully converted and registered for UK), manual TT would you pay more for, and why:

 

a) 1993 model with 55,000 miles, or

b) 1998 model with 75,000 miles?

 

Thanks in advance

GJD

[Tee from China]

Hi, I feel it all down to choice and some prefer the pre 96 with the three dial dash layout and digital clock and odometer whilst others prefer the facelift five dial dash(I do) with the analogue clock and odometer so if the 98 is a VVTi with 75K and the 93 is say an RZ-S with 55K its all down to what you are looking for as to colour,spec etc and 20K is nothing to a 2JZ-GTE anyway! Thats what I think anyway.....but what do I know:eyebrows:

[carl0s]

Condition overall, but basically newer car for me.

I swapped a 102,000 mile '94/95 UK Spec car for a 105,000 mile '96/97 Jap car and the Jap car looks and feels like it's done half the miles.