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New data has revealed that used car buyers are still reluctant to purchase a car that has accrued more than 100,000 miles, despite the average car on UK roads now being older than it has ever been. 

According to a survey by eBay, 72% of drivers would be scared off by six figures on an odometer, while 52% would avoid a car that had surpassed 50,000 miles. 

Yet DVLA data shows that the average car on UK roads is now 10 years old, up from nine years old in 2020 and eight years old in 2018. 

Furthermore, a new study of almost 30,000 quotes by Car.co.uk, which buys cars for scrap, found the average age at which cars are being scrapped has increased to almost 17 years, from almost 15 years in 2021. 

Indeed, the so-called mileage myth of yesteryear isn’t the reality any more, one used car dealer told Autocar. Paul Toomer, founder of CarPod, a dealership near Southampton, said that cars are much more reliable than they once were and so are living longer lives. 

And as prices have risen across forecourts, Toomer has seen buyers’ attitudes towards high-milers begin to change. 

“A car with 80,000 miles today costs as much as one with 50,000 miles did six years ago, before Covid,” he said. 

“As long as the service history is watertight, they’ve had few previous owners and they’re in proper condition, we certainly don’t struggle to sell high-mileage cars.” 

Toomer even claimed that “they look much better value against low-mileage ones”, explaining: “I’ve just bought an Audi Q3 1.5 TFSI S Line with full Audi service history, registered in 2021 and with 125,000 miles and one previous owner that I will retail for around £14,000. The same car with 50,000 miles would cost around £20,000. 

“Meanwhile, I have a friend with £30,000 to spend who could buy a new car but has chosen instead to buy a 90,000-mile Mercedes GLC. “At the right price, there’s a market for everything.”

Hybrids and EVs stand test of time

The DVLA’s data also shows that electrified cars are covering high mileages. More than 93,000 hybrids, for example, have done in excess of 100,000 miles and nearly 32,000 have covered more than 200,000 miles. 

Meanwhile, one classified sales website is displaying 50 examples of the electric Tesla Model S with more than 100,000 miles – 10 of which exceed 150,000 miles. 

Experts say that such figures challenge the widely held belief that, as electrified vehicles grow older and accrue higher mileages, their batteries degrade to the point of becoming unusable. 

Generational, a company that measures the health of cars’ drive batteries, has assessed the battery state of health (SoH) of 8000 electrified vehicles aged up to 12 years old and which have covered up to 160,000 miles. It found these packs held on average around 95% of the capacity they had when they were new. 

“The data shows that EV batteries are performing far better than many consumers have been led to believe,” said Generational co-founder and CEO Oliver Phillpott. 

Estelle Miller, co-founder of EV Experts, a used EV dealership in Guildford, backed Generational’s findings, saying: “How an EV battery has been charged has more bearing on its health than the age of the car or the mileage it has covered. Frequent rapid charging is not ideal. It’s why an EV with, for example, 50,000 miles can have a worse SoH than one that has done 80,000 miles.”