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.
The Same F-150 Costs $9,700 More in Oregon Than Florida
Same year, same engine, same mileage — a truck should cost about the same anywhere. I sorted our listings by state and the gap turned out to be almost ten thousand dollars.
The Same F-150 Costs $10,791 More in Michigan Than Florida
A truck is a truck. Same badge, same years, same miles on the clock — and the price still swings by more than ten grand depending on which state it's parked in. I always assumed that was noise, so I locked the filters down and looked at what our listings actually say.
What Counts as High Mileage? The Price Curve, Band by Band
I split our listings into 25,000-mile bands to find out what "high mileage" actually costs. The first half of the curve was predictable. What happens after 200,000 miles was not.
Does Car Color Affect Resale Value? Our Data Says No
Everyone knows white and black hold their value best. I pulled 306,046 listings to confirm it, and the whole thing fell apart the moment I compared cars of the same model and year.