rayra
Expedition Leader
I think the OPs' premise is grossly skewed if he thinks a 3yr-old vehicle normally has 100k mi on it. Stay aay from that sort of heavily used vehicle. national average is 15k mi per year. Your 3yr-old find ought to have 50k, not 100k.
And these days, anything of modern manufacture I wouldn't worry about anything under 100k. Just do your due diligence to exclude models and years that have known failure issues. Outside of those, fair game. There's still lots of 'value' in those used vehicles it you can just do a modicum of maintenance work yourself.
If you're the sort that has to - or chooses to - pay for basic maintenance services like brakes and transmission service or a water pump swap, then pay your metaphorical tax and buy new. Me, I dislike paying a mechanic more than I make an hour to do work I can do.
Took me over a year of shopping to find my '02 K1500 Z71 Suburban, which I purchased last fall. It's in very good mechanical and cosmetic condition, has all the options offered then, and was mostly used as a mom taxi. 1 previous owner. clean carfax, everythign in working order. The 5.3L Vortec shows the expected intake gasket seepage but no performance issues. 118k mi on it and the trans feels just a bit sloppy when it's hot. Might need a trans in a year or three, but I'm not driving it more than 5k mi / year. Cost me $6k total. Another grand in new tires, alignment, I did the brakes and the rest of the recommended 100k mi service stuff, just to set a known baseline. Still plan to re-do the whole cooling system, but it isn't showing any problems right now. Likewise change the fuel pump, also no current trouble but I intend to take it deep in the desert southwest and want to eliminate that potential problem. Again work I'll do myself.
And these days, anything of modern manufacture I wouldn't worry about anything under 100k. Just do your due diligence to exclude models and years that have known failure issues. Outside of those, fair game. There's still lots of 'value' in those used vehicles it you can just do a modicum of maintenance work yourself.
If you're the sort that has to - or chooses to - pay for basic maintenance services like brakes and transmission service or a water pump swap, then pay your metaphorical tax and buy new. Me, I dislike paying a mechanic more than I make an hour to do work I can do.
Took me over a year of shopping to find my '02 K1500 Z71 Suburban, which I purchased last fall. It's in very good mechanical and cosmetic condition, has all the options offered then, and was mostly used as a mom taxi. 1 previous owner. clean carfax, everythign in working order. The 5.3L Vortec shows the expected intake gasket seepage but no performance issues. 118k mi on it and the trans feels just a bit sloppy when it's hot. Might need a trans in a year or three, but I'm not driving it more than 5k mi / year. Cost me $6k total. Another grand in new tires, alignment, I did the brakes and the rest of the recommended 100k mi service stuff, just to set a known baseline. Still plan to re-do the whole cooling system, but it isn't showing any problems right now. Likewise change the fuel pump, also no current trouble but I intend to take it deep in the desert southwest and want to eliminate that potential problem. Again work I'll do myself.
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