High-mileage vs late model?

Would you purchase a car that has 50,000 miles in its first 15 months?

Yes, if it is a good price. Most of those miles were likely highway miles which are not hard on a car.

+1 with our Uncle.
… unless it is a Yugo or used to be a rental.

Depends on how well it was maintained. That’s about how many miles I put on a car in 16 months…And I keep my vehicles past 300k miles without a problem. BUT…I keep up with all maintenance like (oil changes) per the recommended schedule that’s spelled out in the owners manual.

Yes, I would. HOWEVER most (NOT ALL), but most late model high mileage cars are or have been rental cars or fleet cars. Not that there is anything wrong with that as most I have seen are just fine. You just need to be extra carefull thats all.

Okay, I take my definitive statement back regarding rentals. GSR is absolutely correct.
Rental cars can be okay but it may be worth spending a little money to have the carefully looked at by a good mechanic. That could cost you a couple of hundred bucks, one suspects.

Yugos, well… not so much.

My experience in rental cars is as follows, the ones you have to be extra careful of are the low end economy cars. The mid-full size cars are usually rented by families, and business men who don’t beat on the. The same is true with mini-vans. However the ones that get beaten on the hardest are the economy/compact cars. These are the cars driven by young people on vaca, or who have wrecked there other cars. They are also the cheapest cars from new and there for are most prone to not taking the abuse. Not to say that is all of them, I have owned and driven plenty of cheap ex rentals and not had an issue. I sold an ex rental Chrysler mini-van to my dad’s friend who proceeded to put 200,000 miles on it on the original everything !!! The plus side to most rentals are that they are maintained well, as the last thing the rental company wants is to have a car down and out or unsafe for a customer.

If the Acura MDX is about 15 months old, then 50,000 miles is not terrible - as long as the fluids and filters have been changed as required by Acura (or more frequently). Ask to see the receipts for oil changes and air filter changes. This SUV should not have needed any other work in the first 1.25 years on the road.

That’s very sound reasoning. I never gave that much thought. Good to remember.

Thank you all. I was very anxious with the high mileage. This puts me at ease with the car. I’ll have it checked out and move forward.

Back in 1955, the summer before I started high school, my dad bought a 1954 Buick from family friends. The car had 24,000 miles on the odometer when we bought it. In those days, a car was considered a great car if it went 100,000 miles without an engine rebuild, so 24,000 miles in one year was considered a great distance. The couple that owned the car had been retired for a year and had driven the car on a long distance trip from one coast to the the other. The husband of the couple was a chemist with Delco battery and was offered a three year position in Australia with a car to drive in Australia and a new car when he returned to the states as part of the deal. This 1954 Buick turned out to be a great car. My dad sold it to me when I was in graduate school and then I passed it on to my brother. We drove it to 160,000 miles with no engine repairs and after my brother sold the car, it was on the streets two years later.
Highway mileage is easy on a car as opposed to stop and start driving. If the car has been maintained, 50,000 highway miles is nothing.

Acura MDX is never a rental vehicle. If it has <50k it is eligible for Acura’s extended warranty which is here www.curryacuracare.com/contact.cfm at great prices. It is real Acura warranty not those hokey third party’s. You still have 20k left on powertrain though just bumper to bumper (nearly?) expired.