A used car listing gives you two numbers that people compare separately: the price, and the odometer. Neither means much alone. $18,000 is cheap for a truck with 40,000 miles and terrible for one with 160,000.
So I combined them. For every listing in our data I worked out roughly how many miles the car has left before it hits the point most vehicles get retired, then divided the asking price by that. The result is one number: what you're paying per 1,000 miles of remaining life.
| Brand | Per 1,000 miles left | |
|---|---|---|
| RAM | $187.49 | Most expensive |
| GMC | $152.02 | |
| Toyota | $128.75 | |
| Ford | $125.42 | |
| Nissan | $69.32 | |
| Hyundai | $64.97 | |
| Buick | $64.58 | Cheapest |
Nearly 3x between the top and bottom
RAM at $187.49 against Buick at $64.58. You are paying almost three times as much for each remaining mile of a used RAM as you are for a Buick.
Trucks take the top three positions and it isn't close. GMC $152.02, Ford $125.42, both dragged up by their pickup lines. Toyota sits at $128.75 — high for a brand whose reputation is built on value, and squarely in truck-and-SUV territory.
The bottom of the table is where the unglamorous sedans live. Buick, Hyundai and Nissan all land under $70.
This is resale value viewed from the other end
The spread isn't about how long these cars last. It's about how strongly the used market prices them.
Trucks hold value ferociously. A five-year-old pickup with 90,000 miles still commands a price that assumes years of hard use ahead, because the buyers competing for it are contractors and towing customers who will genuinely use those years. That demand is real, and it gets baked into every listing.
A five-year-old Buick sedan has the same physical life left in it and nobody bidding for it. The metal is equivalent; the market is not. We saw the same effect from the depreciation side in the cars that hold their value — strong resale is great news if you own the car and expensive news if you're buying it.
Reading it as a buyer
If you need a truck, you pay the truck tax. There's no clever way around $187 per 1,000 miles when the alternative is not having a truck. But it does mean the gap between a good example and a bad one is worth far more money on a RAM than on a Hyundai — the same tired condition costs you triple.
If you don't need a truck, the bottom of this table is the whole point. A Buick or a Hyundai delivers the same physical mileage for a third of the price per mile. That's not a small saving, it's the difference between one car and two.
The number only works if the odometer is honest. Every figure here rests on the mileage being real, and rolled-back odometers are the single fastest way to turn a good price per mile into a fictional one. A VIN check pulls the recorded mileage history so you can see whether the readings move in one direction. We looked at what unusually low readings do to price in a 15-year-old car with 40,000 miles.
Frequently asked questions
Which car brand costs the most per mile of remaining life?
RAM, at $187.49 per 1,000 miles left, followed by GMC at $152.02. Trucks take the top positions because the used market prices them on expected hard use rather than on age.
Which brands are cheapest per remaining mile?
Buick at $64.58, Hyundai at $64.97 and Nissan at $69.32 — all sedan-heavy brands with weak used demand. They deliver comparable physical life for roughly a third of RAM's cost per mile.
Why is Toyota expensive on this measure?
At $128.75 Toyota lands in truck territory, because its resale strength means buyers pay a premium up front for the reliability reputation. Strong resale is good if you're selling and costly if you're buying.
Does this account for odometer fraud?
No — the calculation assumes the listed mileage is accurate. A rolled-back odometer makes any price-per-mile figure meaningless, which is why the recorded mileage history in a VIN check matters before you rely on the number.
Denis Kataev is a serial solopreneur and the founder of ForCar. With 15+ years in software engineering and 10 years in SEO, he builds data-driven products end to end — backed by a sharp eye for design. At ForCar he mines proprietary vehicle datasets, turning raw numbers into buying advice you can actually trust.
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