Hi all,
Need a new car as old one written off. Looking for something that will last long and fuss free eg. Japanese/Korean.
Looking at going down the following options:
2015 Aurion (80,000km) - $20k
2014 i30 (130,000km) - $15k
Brand new I30/cerato - $28k driveaway.
Which matters most when considering potential issues - age or km?
Also any other models people recommend?
Thanks
Garaging doesn't change the exposure to air and moisture, plus oils/greases/combustion byproducts/etc that will affect plastics and rubbers.
Also, in some ways low KMs for the age is worse regardless because many people service by the k's and I wouldn't want to buy a car with the brake fluid left corroding the calipers for 4 years just because they keep it garaged most of the time.
As other commenters have said, not enough info to make a decision, more important to know what sort of driving was done and how often and well it was serviced.
I would say Toyota or any other Japanese car if you dont want to have big repair bills. If you want something with luxury then Lexus which is Toyota. I would definitely keep to below or close to under 100,000k. Above that mileage you would be better off if you learnt how to do your own repairs.
The most important factors are maintenance history and how the car was used.
Do not put too much emphasis on millage because a low millage car thats used in rush hour traffic in a city is worse off than a high millage car spends most of its time on a highway.
For example, consider two cars:
Car A is used for daily commuting 25km one way (50km round trip) in rush hour traffic that takes 1 hr each way, therefore spends 2 hours driving 50km.
Car B is also used for commuting, but drives 50km one way (100km round trip) on a highway which takes 40mins one way. Therefore only spends 1hr 20mins driving the 100kms.
Car B may rack up twice as many kms as car A, but B spends most of its time cruising at 100kmph on a highway with the engine comfortably sitting at a lower RPM with plenty of air to cool the engine and other components. In contrast, car A will spend most of its life stuck in traffic with continuously accelerating and braking, changing gears, with the engine revving more despite travelling less km. And lets not forget all the other components of car A from the infotainment unit, to the AC and seats get used for longer as well. All while driving at low speeds with less air to cool everything. Therefore at the end of the day, despite the odometer reading, car A has had worse time in harsher conditions than B.
This is something lot of people often overlook, many would pay more for a ultra low km car, thinking less km means less use and a better car, but in reality km means very little UNLESS the car was maintained well. Lot of people who drive less often tend to ignore the time interval of scheduled services, and go by distance driven (e.g: if the interval is 15k km or 1 year they may stick to the 15k km interval and go on without servicing their car for 2 years, I've seen this happen). But consumables like oils, filters and belts degrade with time, if you don’t change them on time they can lead to excess wear of the mechanical components. When buying a relatively new car or paying a significant sum of money always check service records, walk away if the records are not there (or if the log book is “misplaced”).
If I have to choose between two equally well maintained cars from similar class/manufacturers, I'd go with the newer one with higher kms than an older with fewer kms, because newer cars also normally have better safety features, and better options.
That's a general reply to age vs km question, but getting back to your example of a 2014 i30 and 2015 Aurion, IMHO those two are not comparable and the age vs km doesn't apply. For one the age difference is only a year (and depending on the compliance date the actual difference could be just few months), also the newer car has less kms and more expensive, normally when people ask about age vs km they compare and older car with less km with a newer one with more kms for a similar price. And finally they are two completely different cars. One is a small 4cyl hatch and the other is a 6cyl mid-size sedan, and there is also no mention of trim levels or options.
Not sure why so much talk about the effects of city driving. After all, Facebook Marketplace is full of used cars that have only been driven on highways. So many to choose from!
I'm going to be negged to death with this but the Aussie made Avalon and Aurion which is the same thing but Aurion had the better looking body wasn't that good mechanically. Low ks and low age already tappet gasket gave out… would expect bit more before needing that or if it was just built bad that could be it. One upside was that it was spacious so most overweight people can fit. Fuel guzzler is a given because of the V6. Mechanical wise the Japanese built Toyotas are just so much better.
jap toyota suck
still beats a Holden Apollo aka Toyota Camry
Why are you comparing a toyota aurion with an i30.
A toyota aurion is a medium car with a pretty powerful v6 engine - car weighs 1615 kg and it is not very fuel efficient.
An i30 is a small car with a standard, small economy engine and weighs 1251kg.
You should be comparing a toyota corolla with an i30.
Decide what size car you want before you start comparing models.
Not really if kept garaged.