"High mileage" is a phrase everybody uses and nobody defines. Is it 100,000 miles? 150,000? I wanted a real answer, so I split our listings into 25,000-mile bands and looked at what the market actually pays for each one.
| Mileage band | Listings | Avg price |
|---|---|---|
| 0-25k | 7,688 | $38,175 |
| 25-50k | 15,182 | $30,341 |
| 50-75k | 21,034 | $22,981 |
| 75-100k | 30,172 | $17,514 |
| 100-125k | 34,853 — most common | $13,981 |
| 125-150k | 31,173 | $12,237 |
| 150-175k | 20,333 | $10,694 |
| 175-200k | 11,756 | $9,483 |
The first 100,000 miles do almost all the damage
A car under 25,000 miles averages $38,175. By the 75-100k band it's $17,514 — 54% of the value gone, and most of it lands in the first three steps: -$7,834, then -$7,360, then -$5,467 per 25,000 miles.
After that the curve flattens hard. Moving from 100-125k all the way to 175-200k costs $4,498 in total, less than a single 25k step at the top of the table. That's also where the market lives: 34,853 listings sit in the 100-125k band, more than any other. Somebody else already paid the cliff.
Then, past 200,000 miles, prices stop falling
| Mileage band | Listings | Avg price |
|---|---|---|
| 200-225k | 6,219 | $8,693 — lowest in the data |
| 225-250k | 2,353 | $9,399 |
| 250-275k | 1,115 | $9,278 |
| 275-300k | 475 | $10,361 |
The 200-225k band is the cheapest point in the entire dataset at $8,693. Then it climbs: $9,399, $9,278, $10,361. A car showing 275,000-300,000 miles averages $1,668 more than one showing 200,000-225,000.
That's survivorship, not magic. Add up every band past 200,000 miles and you get 10,162 listings, against 34,853 in the 100-125k band alone. Almost nothing makes it that far, and what does skews heavily toward trucks and big SUVs that were expensive new and still carry real money worn out. The cheap sedans are scrapped or traded long before the odometer gets there.
So the tail isn't telling you a 280,000-mile car is a bargain. It's telling you the only things still listed at that mileage are the durable, expensive ones, and you're paying for the body style, not the odometer.
How I read the bands when I'm shopping
The 75-100k band is where I spend my own money: $17,514 on average against $38,175 near-new, with the steepest part of the curve already behind it. The 100-150k range is fine when the maintenance history is real, because the market charges so little for the 50,000 miles you'd be avoiding. Past 150,000, the odometer stops being the useful number and the paperwork takes over — run the VIN before anything else, and if you're the one selling, check what your car is worth at your actual mileage instead of guessing. If you want the mechanism behind that curve, here's how depreciation actually works and how to run the numbers on your own car.
Frequently asked questions
Is 100,000 miles a lot for a used car?
Not really. The 100-125k band is the most common on the market with 34,853 listings, and by then the steep part of depreciation is already gone — the average sits at $13,981 versus $38,175 for a near-new car.
Why do 250,000-mile cars cost more than 200,000-mile ones?
Survivorship. Only 10,162 listings in our data pass 200,000 miles, and they skew toward trucks and large SUVs that were expensive new. Cheaper cars leave the market before reaching that mileage.
What mileage is the best value?
In our numbers the 75-100k band, averaging $17,514. It has absorbed 54% of the depreciation the 0-25k band still has to pay, with service life left.
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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