I've watched so many YouTube videos where someone will say this car has only 100,000 or 125,000 miles and say it has low miles, or someone will suggest buying a car built 20 years ago. When did this idea that cars with over 100,000 miles or that are 20 years old have a lot of life left in them for daily driving become normal? I even see them say it even on some (definitely not most or all) American cars as well, not exclusively Japanese.
When I grew up in the 70s and 80s, cars didn't have odometers that exceeded 99,999 miles, and don't recall anyone driving a 20 year old car daily (maybe some 10 year old cars with low miles). A car with 100,000 was certainly considered at the end of its life.
Older Japanese makes, particularly Toyotas from the late-90s run like no tomorrow. Scotty has a 1994 Toyota Celica. It still runs like a scaled ape and has over 250k miles. It has an issue with the car's torque converter and it vibrates when idling if you leave it in Drive.
If they're American makes of the same era, unless you're talking about trucks, American cars aren't nearly as reliable as the old Toyotas. How many Toyotas from that era do you still see driving around vs American cars of the era? Almost none.
Somebody who doesn't know American cars from 20 years ago probably wrote the advertisement to feel better about asking for too much money. People didn't drive nearly as much 20 years ago as they do today. 100k miles 20 years ago is "lower mileage" today, but they conveniently forgot to include the fact it's 20+ years old.
With Proper maintenance and have the ability to replace parts, cars and truck from the 60s and 70s can last well over 100, 000 miles. Back in the early 70s I had a 1963 Ford F100 bought use with about 125,000 miles on it that was a government surplus sale, and a 1970 Chevrolet C-10 that was purchase from Bell Telephone as surplus with over 100,000 miles. I watch the speedometer go over 3 times while owning them. They both had inline 6-cylinder engines and manual transmission which made it easy for me to work on. The Ford had a 223 engine and three on the tree and the Chevy had a 250 with a granny 1st gear four speed. If you invest a little time by greasing all the grease zerks, changing oil and tuning them when the maintenance plan calls for it and not driving them like a mad man, your vehicle will from this era can last a very last time. Especially when I was younger, I would wash the under carriage of the trucks any time when it was above freezing when I lived in Kansas to keep them from rusting. Back then if you were willing to put some time in maintaining a vehicle, they would last a very long time before a rebuild was needed.
What's been estimated that over 30% of American cars on the road now have over 100,000 mi on them. The average car age is 12.6 years old so there's quite a few of them over 20 years old too. Now, if you buy a Toyota Corolla or Camry or Honda, many of them will go through 400,000, or last 30 years
