Engines are very well made and different to vehicles many years ago, but when buying a “nearly new” vehicle, how many miles would you limit your search to for a new vehicle? I’m soon to be purchasing a facelift vRS and of course I’m wanting to buy with as little miles as possible, but I’m wondering at what point I should be limiting myself to in terms of mileage. Are engines “run in” anymore?

I would say its down to personal preference

 

I set my limit at 6 months old and no more than 5k on the clock

 

With this I saved 10k on the book price of the car I ended up buying

 

For reference an April 2018 Superb Sportline with 4300k  when bought

"Nearly new" are often fleet cars, and unfortunately for the next owner there's nothing as fast as a rental car.

 

So I personally wouldn't buy another one, not when pre-reg dealership cars have zero miles on but are as cheap as the ex rental one.

 

Even better, pre-facelift stock are often almost given away by dealers just to clear them out.

 

Search autotrader with an input maximum mileage of just 100 and see the huge discounts.

 

 

 

 

Edited 18 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

For me, nearly new is under 1,000 miles.

Looking at a facelift VRS on autotrader today. Registered in Jun 18. 14 miles. £5900 off list.

Bearing in mind that nearly new will also include the remaining warranty too, then you can afford to be a little less picky on mileage etc in my opinion

Well that's true enough, but if the price is similar, I'd much rather have the undriven one than a rental or courtesy car/demo vehicle that has been driven by an unknown number of punters of equally unknown mechanical sympathy.

 

The ex rental motor I bought my wife may well have been a Friday car at the factory, but it also seemed to have had a hard life in its previous 10 months as a hire car, and was an ongoing pain in the arse for several years.

 

 

Edited 18 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

18 hours ago, camelspyyder said:

Well that's true enough, but if the price is similar, I'd much rather have the undriven one than a rental or courtesy car/demo vehicle that has been driven by an unknown number of punters of equally unknown mechanical sympathy.

 

The ex rental motor I bought my wife may well have been a Friday car at the factory, but it also seemed to have had a hard life in its previous 10 months as a hire car, and was an ongoing pain in the arse for several years.

 

 

Well that's a given really, I think everyone would chose the undriven one, but if there is a 10k price difference as there was with mine, for me it was a no brainer

The OP is looking at Octys though and the price difference is a lot less. Indeed I've found a zero miles car cheaper than cars with 3000 or 5000 miles or in some cases more.

 

I would call newly new as less than 6 months and under 5000 miles

 

Pre-registered I would expect to have less than 100 miles

 

Dealer demos are usually about 6 months old and 2-4k miles

 

Ex rental tend to be 5-9 months and 10.5-13k miles