15 miles on the odometer of a brand new car?
 

Would you be ok purchasing a brand new car if it has 15 miles on it already? I haven’t purchased a new car in almost 20 years so I don’t know if that is a red flag or not. What do you think? Am I being petty? The car isn’t cheap (at least to me it’s not).

The last new car I purchased was an '87 Supra Turbo when I was a kid .... waited for it ... "fresh off the ship" ... with 7 miles on the odometer... I still haven't gotten over it :D

Enjoy yer new car :)!

I don't think it's unusual for new cars to have some mileage. Moving them around, cleaning, fuel, test drives, etc....

But then I've never bought a new car.

They always have a few miles in them. Turns out they need to test them and move them around.

Yep... or mebbe the big dawg wanted to have lunch 5 miles away and borrowed "his" temporary ride ... his meaning ... "his" or hers :D

No harm ... no foul ....

Just go drive ... and :)

It’s normal. Some mfrs have more than others - anything from 6-40 I’ve seen on cars still in plastic wrap.

15 miles is actually low for a new car.

I remember when I bought my 98 Prelude it had 150 miles on it brand new.
I knew that a good share of those were upper rpms/v-tec miles....but what can you do? I should have been there to buy it before it was test driven by a dozen teenage guys.


It didn't turn out to affect the car...hasn't had one problem yet.

Our new 4Runner had 9 miles on it when we took delivery. No big deal to us. Sometimes they move the vehicles from one dealer to another. We got it recently to still have a pick of a gas powered vehicle before the mandates really kick in.

Normal. Not a concern.

IMHO miles normal. My last 2 new cars were swaps from another dealership, with around 50 miles.

If it's a performance car (porsche?) I think an obd scan can show over-revs, etc. If so, ask for a scan?

When I bought our '02 Accord, I test drove it with only 0.5 miles on it. I told them I wouldn't accept it with more than 3 miles showing on the odo as I knew they'd take it down the block to fill it with gas and to go thru the new car prep. It had all of 2.5 miles showing.
Our CR-V was bought off the truck as it was delivered the morning we bought it. My wife actually saw it up on top of the delivery truck and was struck by the color in the sun. It had less than 5 miles on it as they moved it around that day and the gas station was further away.
To me, a new car means I get to break in the engine the way I want, not some lot jockey seeing how fast it'll go for fun. The '02 was one of the best cars I've ever owned. Had it for 9 years and 153k miles before the trans leaked so much from the case gaskets my wife was worried it'd leave us stranded some day so she consented to me getting a new commuter.

When we were shopping for a new car for my wife twelve years ago, One dealership quoted a price on a "new" car that had 362 miles on it. Didn't buy that one. My van had eighteen miles on the odometer when I bought it.

Back in the day, wasn't every Rolls Royce tested before being approved for sale?

Or am I just misremembering?

I worked at several dealers back in the '80s/early '90s and I never paid attention to how many miles the new cars had but with Porsches, they were always expected to have factory testing miles on them as well as being moved at the various ports plus when we gave a test drive, it was from new stock. We never had separate "demos" for test drives. Also, I remember being able to grab the keys for any car that I just wanted to "familiarize" myself with. It was not very controlled, they put a lot of trust in the sales people they hired.

If we needed to do a dealer trade for a different color 911, we always drove the cars between the dealerships within a 100 mile radius or so. Any further and it was flat bedded but with the number of Porsche dealers in SoCal, it was almost always local.

Just curious, what is the way that way that you would want to break in your new engine?

I think I leased an Audi with 15 miles, and a Toyota with 8 miles. They had to drive it on and off containers, I presume, and then around the lot, and maybe a gas station trip...

Here is a small article to ease your mind. In Colorado, I always thought it was 50 miles, but maybe it is more.

How Many Miles Should a New Car Have?
https://www.caranddriver.com/auto-loans/a31543493/how-many-miles-should-a-new-car-have/

Just took delivery of a brand new 900 hp Dodge with 25 miles on it .... Needs new rear tires tho' ....

Is that a problem ;)?

Wasn’t much of a test drive.
What did you do, sit in the lot making vroom vroom noises?

For the '02 it was used as my commuter so it saw a lot of RPM up/down speed with the commute on the 405. No full throttle use until it reached 500 miles (which about killed me as it wanted to GO). It did get runs up to red line, once broken in, on a regular basis.
The CR-V got broken in by driving it home from San Diego to Orange County the day we bought it. That week we ended up going back and forth to SD three times so it saw a lot of freeway with no constant speed driving.

I'd driven other Accords so knew what it'd drive like already.
I was just happy they had one exactly like I wanted (V-6, EX-L, white over tan) and it hadn't been subjected to any shenanigans by the lot jockey's. I'd bought an Odyssey from the same salesman before so he knew how picky I am when it comes to my cars.
He was willing to make sure it was handled correctly while it was in their care.

lol. My first car was a dodge challenger rt-383. I went through rears so often (17yo) I worked at a gas station and used offs my boss tossed out back.

Not unusual, all cars will have some mileage. Depending on the brand, a car some makes at 15 miles might include at least one customer test drive. Others, it will have twiwc that before it ever leaves the factory.

If it arrived at the dealer straight from the manufacturer with that mileage, don't worry. Get a copy of the PDI internal dealer service invoice and note the mileage on that. Ask if the car was a dealer trade. That will tell you everything.

I worked at at Mercury dealership in the mid eighties, we had a new RS Capri 5 speed. I put some "test drive "milage on it. There was a Meckur too, forgot how to spell that one.

Back in the 60's, Porsche advertised that every new car left the factory with something like 45 miles on it's odo. All given a set test run...

They were still doing test drives when we toured the factory in the late '90s. Don''t recall if it was all cars or random sample.

At Kia, we drive every vehicle that rolls out of the plant, every single one. As a test track driver in quality control, I put the first few miles on the vehicle I am evaluating. Most new cars will have a few miles on them due to being moved around from the plant, to the yard where they are shipped out, either by truck or by rail, then offloaded to their destinations, or even reloaded onto a ship. I can see where a few miles would add up, so I would say 15 miles on a new vehicle would be normal.

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That's interesting. Can you tell us the items on your test drive check list, or is it a corporate secret?

I picked up a car with 4 miles

Kia Check list:
Burn out
Drifting
Off road
Road course
Drag strip
Drive to titty bar
Loan to neighborhood kid

Just kidding Marty!

They have to make sure the Kia is able to get stolen easily! Just kidding, I have been to the West Point Plant a few times. Cool place.

The last few Toyotas I bought both came new from Japan (My LC and a manual Corolla since they don't do those in North America) and they both had less than 10 miles on them.

If it was some million dollar hyper car my attitude might be different. Having never bought a new Porsche it has never been a concern.

JFI: My last "New Car" had 80 kilometers on the odometer the day I picked it up.

Without going into too much detail, the process begins with IFC, which is checking every interior function. We then take the vehicle through the "roll booth," where we take the vehicle up to 70mph while it is sitting on rollers and a computer system cycles the brakes and checks the steering angle. It is really cool to be going 70mph while sitting still, and you can move the vehicle from side to side on the rollers a little. The next two processes are also computer controlled checks of the radar, cameras, smart cruise control, and any and all systems such as air conditioning, auto wipers, and the the steering angle is again checked manually. At this time, we also have the hood open, and with the engine running, we use a sniffer that has a light on it, and we check for anything under the hood. The next step is that we drive the vehicle on the track, but first we take it through a steering pad in a "figure 8", and check the steering lock to lock, lots of tire screeching and it is a lot of fun in the rain. Lol.
The next step is to drive the vehicle on a series of different bumps and listen for any rattles, loose parts, that sort of thing. Then it is on to the hill where we go up a steep hill, stop on the hill in neutral, and check the function of the parking brake. On the way down the other side of the hill, we check the downhill braking function. The next step is to get the vehicle up to around 70mph on a long straight and check the cruise control functions and listen for wind noise. At this time, we also check the steering and lane keeping functions. I will take my hands off the wheel and watch the steering do its thing. It's pretty cool to watch. On the way back to the plant, there is a straight section of the track that has some metal plates in the road surface, and when passing over them, give the brakes a good tap to check the ABS and you can hear the tires skid a little, it's kinda cool to hear it and feel the vehicle react. So, that about it. Lol. It's a pretty fun job, actually, and I like making sure things work as they should.
As a side note, the EV is really fun on the track, by the way. I like to stop on the back stretch of the track and floor it from a standstill and feel the rush. The EV 9 weighs about 7,000 pounds, and it will really get up and go. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. Lol.

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Thanks...I've always been curious about that. I'm guessing you don't flunk many cars...

Yeah, cars get moved around, Gassed up, test drives , dealer trades, etc. When I was a lot boy at the dealership ,they used to send me back and forth to Buffalo kind of regularly . They were the best days . I hated that friggin job. Only job I ever walked off of .
The cars were frequently Mitsu turbo Eclipses . I was an 18 year old gear head. You can probably fill in the blanks here . Those cars could launch!!!

My Tundra had more than that from me test driving it.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to hammer it at the onramp apex to triple digits :D

As has been noted several times already, fifteen miles is nothing out of the ordinary and really should be of no concern. Unless, that is, if it's a Jeep product, in which case that number of miles likely puts it awfully close to a trip to the dealership to address what is almost certain to be the first of many such visits to address some sort of defect.

_

Preach it brother !!! lols

I keep coming back to this thread in the hope that the OP states what kind of car he is getting. :confused: