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Can someone tell me if GMC Yukons tend to last a lot longer than 100,000 miles?
I'm seeing a lot of yukons/tahoes with high mileage for around $20,000 before I go spend that on one I'm wondering what the average mileage is for a strong vehicle or if high mileage means issues right away. I know there is no guarentee on anything but I'm just wondering. Thanks
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Answers
You do see a lot of older Yukons and Tahoes on the road. Some of that is because they last and some is because they are a versatile body style. Plus, since you are in the market, you probably are just paying more attention to them and noticing them more. I recently got a higher mileage Dodge Grand Caravan and I'm seeing them everywhere.
Like you say, there's no guarantees on buying a used car and the risks increase as the car gets up in miles and years. And $20,000 is a lot of money to spend on a car with higher miles. When I got the Caravan I sold my beater Nissan minivan for $750. It was running fine but at the stage where lots of stuff was breaking and it wasn't reliable, not to mention that it had 200,000 miles on it.
To lessen the risk of dumping more money into a used car right away, get a vehicle report on it (like a Carfax), try to get copies of the service records and it's cheap insurance to get your own mechanic to check out any used car before you buy it. Some dealers will also offer some sort of warranty or a right to return or exchange a used car (usually for an extra fee).
I think you have to approach this question statistically rather than from one or two people's anecdotal experiences. A modern vehicle should be able to run 175,000 to 225,000 miles before it wears out so much that constant repairs are not worth doing.
Given this, you'd have to look at a 100K vehicle as having about 1/2 its life left, and that won't be the warranty half, or the trouble-free half.
In theory you can keep a vehicle running for 5 million miles if you want to, so it's a question of balancing the use you get out of it vs. the cost to keep it going.
100K would be premature for an engine failure, but transmissions, alternators, suspension--those things can possibly start failing at 100K.
Best thing I could suggest on a high mileage vehicle is a) get a big discount for the mileage and b) have a thorough pre-purchase inspection done on it before you buy it.