Mileage and buying a used car with rebuilt engine

With 40k on the ‘rebuild’, at least you know it was not a duct tape and wire rebuild. Under no circumstances should you ever buy a used car that claims “Engine freshly rebuilt”. If they had done a good job rebuilding the engine, they would be keeping the car.

Rebuilding gasoline engines to be as good as a new engine is a lost art in this country. 30 years ago, there were a number of high-quality rebuilders in the US that had seasoned professional technicians and built hundreds or thousands of engines a year. So far as I know, all of these firm have gone out of business. It is more cost-effective to buy a whole new car built by a robot than to buy a new engine that was hand-machined and rebuilt by a skilled technician.

I would price it as a car with 210k miles on it, and assume that they are getting rid of it for a reason.