How many miles a year do you cover?

[Copperman05]

I did around 9000 in my S2 last year, but that includes a couple trips to Cornwall and once to Scotland and back, its also my only car so gets used fairly regularly, now I have an unlimited mileage policy I expect next years to be somewhat higher.

So what mileage do you average a year?

Edd

 

[MRGT]

I have covered 16000 miles since buying mine in Sept 08 and feels a lot better for it (previous owner did 8000 miles in 6 years ! )

Howard

 

[ChasR]

According to a few, too many.

I bought mine in June with it on 129,000 miles. It's now up to 134,000 miles and rising.

Previous owner did around 1500 miles a year in it for the past 3 years! Before then it did around 6k a year going to France and back.

 

[Diver944]

When I first bought ours back in 1998 I used to cover 20,000 miles a year, but nowadays I don't need it for the commute so it's only about 8000 a year now [&o]

 

[TheFiend]

Done 8500 miles in 9.5 months of ownership..... it is used and abused daily[]

 

[rav]

Im limited to 5k miles per annum, so have to stick to that.

 

[zcacogp]

Somewhere between 12k and 15k a year in the last few years. However this is likely to drop from now on.

Shame. The more it is driven the better a car it becomes. Leaving 944's sitting doing nothing has to be the worst way to treat them.


Oli.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

I've got a 5000 mile limit, and this year it'll be about 4999 miles. I'm actually having to be careful about what mileage I do for the first time as it's a bit tight. Fortunately the winter meeting is after my renewal! []

 

[DavidL]

About 8K a year for me - mostly to and from work daily but some longer trips. They like being used.
It gets a rest on the nice days in the summer (both of them), more fragile fibreglassmobile come out then!

 

[zcacogp]

Sc0tty,

Machinery that is used regularly, got up to running temperature and driven briskly is usually in better fettle than machinery that isn't, presuming it is maintained well. This applies to both the mechanics and the bodywork; bodywork that sits and collects condensation will deteriorate, bodywork that has air passing across it will dry out and be better preserved.

I don't know the details, but can only repeat my experience. Garage queens don't run well, and cars in museums are well known to drive badly. Give me a well-used, well-maintained example every day of the week. My S2 went from being sluggish, reluctant to start and thirsty when used rarely to starting crisply, pulling harder, doing more MPG and using less oil when I started doing 40-ish miles a day in it.

It's not the milage that matters. It's the way that they are used. Your back to back test of two cars would need a lot more parameters set before it was meaningful. As an example, how about a 15k mile car which is driven to the shops and back twice a week, never fully warmed up and never driven above 40mph compared to a 75k mile car that is driven for very long distances on a motorway, regularly. Which would you choose? I know which one I would be more keen on ...


Oli.

 

[TheFiend]

It costs me £440 to insure mine with a 15k annual mileage, it is parked on the road and for use to and from work. My previous car was a group 6 and was only £40 cheaper to insure. The cost of insurance was a big factor when I made a decision to buy the old girl![]

Using mine as a daily driver is so much fun, and is proving to be very reliable, and it has never let me down.[]

 

[944 man]

ORIGINAL: sc0tty

How can doing more miles make the car any better than a low mileage example? 

It doesnt. Its a Porsche-owner-perpetuated myth (enthusiastically embraced by people whose cars have covered high mileages), now repeated all over forums. Regular use is better than long periods of lay-up certainly, but a 30,000 mile car is a far better proposition than 330,000-er! This truism about cars which arent driven, slowly turned into the now repeated wisdom that higher miles are better.....

 

[pauljmcnulty]

I feel happier keeping mine tucked up in bed, dry !

I agree, if you've got a de-humidified garage then that's going to cause less moisture than a car kept outside. Obviously. The point with the 944 bodywork is that it's and open, ventilated design. This means water gets in, and if there's any dust or muck inside the sills it'll stay there in the corners.

Ideally, if the sills are constantly cleared and treated there's no issue. This isn't practical for many owners, so to me driving the car to air it all through can't be worse than it sitting for extended periods of time with damp muck in the vulnerable areas. And, driving it's more fun than watching it sit on the drive for me. They very soon start to look quite sad, mine hasn't been out for eight days but it's now covered in leaves and muck, the discs are all rusty and it'll be little bit damp inside as the air is moist at the moment. I know that, after a 40 mile run tomorrow, a wash and some air in one tyre, it'll look and feel a whole lot better.

I can sometimes go for a few weeks in winter without the car being used. It will need a boost to start, will sound tappety as hell, will need a while to clear condensation, won't smell good, will need the brakes using to clean them up, might have a clonk as the handbrake frees off, will be a bit lumpy and sluggish until it's had a bit of a blast. On the contrary, when it gets a weekend in the Summer such as Silverstone, where it gets three days of 160 miles use, it'll be a totally different car than that sad winter specimen. In my experience both Lux and S2 are much happier with regular use than periods of even a few weeks laid up.

 

[Pastry]

5k a year, limited by insurance... gonna spend them more wisely next year

mines a low miler and motortune say its in fine fettle despite doing about 500 miles a year before i got it.

 

[DavidL]

I don't think anyone has said higher mileages are "better".
Used cars are "better" we all agree on that (thank goodness) and use adds miles.
Frankly our cars are too old to cast any generalisations at all regarding condition without seeing any given car.
How you use a car is entirely down to the individual - personally a car is for driving. If it needs maintenance then do it, if it corrodes fix it but each to their own.

 

[supersport]

Mine is a daily driver and I expect to add about 12K in the next year. Only had it about 8 weeks so can't say. She gets washed once a week, currently has three coats of Swissvax on her and lives in a heated garage This bit really makes a difference to the morning start up and the car is nice and cosy.

I would say that a regularly used car is best, mine seems to have freed up nicely and become a lot happier with daily use after being sat around.

From personal bitter experience I know that cars don't like sitting around. My 911 was in storage last whilst the house was beaten up and it didn't move for 9 months. Bill for getting it all working properly, purely from sitting around £3.5K, ouch.

In the past I have done 30K+ a year all on motorways and had cars that did 70K on brakes, tyres (amazing) and other consumables.

 

[Suffolk944]

Dodging round the whole mileage argument, I have a 5000 mile pa limit and easily use that up during the year.

 

[Copperman05]

ORIGINAL: TheFiend

It costs me £440 to insure mine with a 15k annual mileage, it is parked on the road and for use to and from work. My previous car was a group 6 and was only £40 cheaper to insure. The cost of insurance was a big factor when I made a decision to buy the old girl![]

Using mine as a daily driver is so much fun, and is proving to be very reliable, and it has never let me down.[]

Seems alot Fiend, how old are you out of curiosity?

Edd

 

[Copperman05]

Regarding mileage, I did get to meet a couple of chaps at the NEC who were talking about the 944, one had his 44,000 S2 kept in the garage where it hadnt been used for the past 9 years, he was asking me about how best to polish it. I told him after he had got it shiny he should take it out for a blast and use it whilst he still could (he was gettin on a bit), alas it didnt seem as something that he wanted to do.

If Scott feels 3000 miles a year is good enough for him, all for him, why not try and preserve your pride and joy for as long as possible. Personnaly I dont have a second car so my S2 gets used for mundain trips too, not that any trip in the 944 is particularly mundain...[]

What I dont understand though is why one would want to keep a car in the garage for 9 years, never used, and not seen by anyone but its ageing owner, its not as if these cars are worth that much even as ultra low milers.

Edd

 

[ChasR]

My last engine is a good example of how low mileage (albeit the wrong mileage) can ruin a 944. Over the past 3 years it didn't do more than 1500 miles a year tops. Before then it was doing around 15,000 miles a year.

I wouldn't say bodywork is affected much by mileage. My last Peugeot 306 had 110k on it and drove better than most of the 50k cars (and they came complete with the 'usual' worn bolsters and dodgy wiring (no issues on mine at all). My current 205 GTi is the same story. People expected it to be a nail when I mentioned that it had 164,000 miles. Bodywork has minimal stone chipping on the original paint, seat bolsters are fine as are the carpets, everything works and the engine pulls very sweetly, smoke and rattle free without using any oil as far as I can tell (now that I have sorted the oil leaks out).

On the flipside, the last MGB I bought with a genuine 53,000 miles was actually very nice! But as said, there are some things that will happen without mileage. Dampers will go worse, bushes will degrade (rubber ages just like anything), tyres will get hard, and this was apparent (even though the bushes had only covered 5,000 miles on the car (over 8 years...). My last Mondeo did 400,000 miles fine with the valve guides just starting to go on the engine (compression was still surprisingly acceptible!). People thought I was lying about the mileage. Admittedly it did have new shocks etc. at 200-300k mark, but it still worked out cheaper than my dad buying a low mileage car and piling the miles on.

However I'm not one to talk with having one of the mid-high mileage cars on here.

Like anything, there are variations. I have seen some beautiful high mileage cars out there that are as tight as a drum but also some downright nails that portray the mileage that they have done from a mile away.