Every 1,000 Miles You Drive Costs About Half a Percent of the Car
Everyone knows mileage costs money. Nobody has a number for it. I worked out what 1,000 miles actually takes off a car, and the answer is portable across the whole market.
When Only Four People Are Selling Your Car, the Price Guide Is Guessing
Valuation tools return a number for any car you type in. For a lot of model years, that number is built on a handful of listings — and the fewer there are, the more certain it looks.
The Same 2001 F-250 Sells for $2,300 and for $38,000
Every valuation tool gives you one number for a model and year. I looked at what the listings for a single model year actually span, and the range makes the average almost meaningless.
A Seven-Year-Old Sprinter Costs More Than a Three-Year-Old Sedan
Depreciation curves assume a car loses value as it ages. There's a corner of the used market where that barely happens, and the vehicles there are the least glamorous ones on the lot.
Every Car Hits the Used Market at 119,000 Miles, Whatever It Is
I split the used market by drivetrain expecting three different pictures. The mileage came back almost identical across all three, and the number that did differ says something more interesting.
I Priced Every Brand by the Miles It Has Left. RAM Costs Triple What Buick Does.
Everyone compares used cars on price and mileage separately. I combined them into one number — what you pay for every thousand miles the car still has in it — and the brand order came out completely different.
Tennessee Drivers Cover 62% More Miles Than Hawaiians
The same odometer reading means different things in different states. I divided mileage by age across tens of thousands of listings and found a 62% spread between the hardest-working cars in the country and the easiest life.
White Cars Went From 23% of the Road to 40% in Twelve Years
Park anywhere and count. Roughly two in five newish cars are white, and it wasn't always like that — in 2008 it was fewer than one in four. I sorted our listings by model year to watch the takeover happen.
New Cars Do 16,800 Miles a Year. Ten-Year-Old Ones Do 12,000.
Everyone quotes 12,000 miles a year as the standard. The listings say that number is only true for a decade-old car — new ones do far more, old ones far less, and knowing which end you are on changes what counts as high mileage.
The Worst Year for Depreciation Isn't the First One
Everyone knows a new car loses money driving off the lot. The data says the first year is the gentlest, and the real cliff comes later.
The Altima Is $2,200 Cheaper. Half as Many Reach 200,000 Miles.
Two sedans, same age, same segment, $2,200 apart. I checked how many of each are still being sold with more than 200,000 miles on them, because that is the only test of whether the cheaper one was actually cheaper.
How Much Is My Car Worth? The Number Is Off by $8,000
Every valuation tool asks the same four questions and prints a precise-looking number. I checked 159 near-identical trucks to see how precise it really is.