I notice on a lot of the internet car sites that dealers are offering for sale cars with 15 to 20,000 miles on them. Why would someone trade in a car with so few miles? Are this dealer demos or do people just get sick of them? Is it safe to assume that this cars are worth buying? Thanks
probably leased autos
There are as many reasons as there are people. People lease cars for two years and turn them in. People move or get married, or decide they don’t need a car. You never know. I recently bought a low-mileage used car from a fellow who was moving to Japan to teach English.
There is no reason to be suspicious of low mileage. Auto auctions all across the country are full of low mileage, late model used cars.
They may be fleet cars. You see a lot of low mileage cars from a leasing or rental business.
Also a lot of people think that cars two years old or older are ready to fall apart, or just get tired of them, or want to impress the neighbors, or their needs change (another child will do that) or they leased it (bad idea most of the time by the way).
Sometimes life situations changes, eg 3rd child or even first child making a car impractical.
Chances are they’re ex-leases or ex-rental cars. Usually rental companies get rid of their cars after a year or two, which puts a good bunch of low mileage newish cars on the market.
Local dealerships around eastern Ontario sell mainly off-lease and ex-rental cars… actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of used cars on new car lots are of these varieties.
Their Leased vehicles. You’re only allowed 12k miles/year on a lease. So after 2 years the lease is up the car should have less then 24k miles…If not the owner is paying a big penalty for miles OVER the 24k.
IMHO…stay away from Lease vehicles. Several people I know who lease do this every couple years to get a new vehicle. They don’t bother to do ANY maintenance…that includes oil changes. One guy had OVER 20k miles on his car when he traded it in…and NEVER had an oil change. I sure wouldn’t want to buy that vehicle.