Low Mileage Car

[iRage]

So I was surfing around the web site of the guys who sold me the BZ-Touring and I can across an interesting Corolla GT

Pretty standard stuff considering these guys' yard is full of these things. What caught my eye with this one was...

Yes...total mileage of 500km ! One owner Year of first registration 1997 ! Called the guys up and they confirmed that it was actually 500 km and they had all the service records !!!

Would you buy a car that that is roughly 17 years old with an engine+drive train that has hardly been broken in ?

- Even if the owner started the engine and let the fluids circulate and reach op temp; that still doesn't mean the gear box etc got the same work-out

- since it is only 500km I wouldn't know is these constituted drives that actually allowed the engine and drive train to reach a decent operating temperature (i.e. could actually be considered to be "hard usage"based on Toyota's very own definition)

but then again the shop says the car has been taken care of and the bushes and even the tires are not dried up and/or cracked.

So if you came across this little gem (or demon in disguise)....what would you do ?

More of the car :

http://west-river.jp/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8F%A4%E8%BB%8A%E6%83%85%E5%A0%B1/%E5%B9%B3%E6%88%909%E5%B9%B4-%E3%83%88%E3%83%A8%E3%82%BF-%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A9-1-6gt-4at-4%E3%83%89%E3%82%A2-%E3%82%BB%E3%83%80%E3%83%B3-ae111-4a-ge-%E3%83%AF%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC/

Edited April 21, 2014 by iRage

[Hoonigan]

I remember reading about an AE86 that was doing the rounds on the interwebs with a somewhat similar story. The owner bought the car and drove it home and parked it in his garage....and never took it out until sometime within the last 12 months. This car was immaculate! inside out clean as you would find a car in a dealership today.

I can't see your pics yet (office PC) but I'm sure it must be in awesome shape. How much are they asking for compared to a normally used car of the same model and vintage? And by service records, I assume the owner periodically changed fluids and kept up with the services not going by the more conventional milage intervals?

About the car being broken into, isn't it general practice to go easy on the car untill you hit a few thousand Kms? At least 1K? In which case, I doubt anyone pushed a brand new car to the ragged edge within 500Kms.

[Crosswind]

More importantly, what do u plan to do with it?

Once you buy it and use it, it will no longer be a low mileage car will it? and the low mileage appeal will be gone.

I would rather buy a car which has done about 20-30k in 17 years, if I can find one. You never know what kind of deterioration it has gone thru with the lack of use. And Corolla GTs aren't exactly rare...

BTW I see half a tank of petrol. is that also 17-years old?

Edited April 21, 2014 by Crosswind

[iRage]

They are asking for 698000 yen plus delivery and registration so comes to about 900,000 yen. Which is pretty high as you can buy a 5 year old Axio about the same price.

Don't think it has been hacked and sure as heck doesn't look like it. So even after 17 years the engine can be broken in to ? and treat it as a band new car that needs to be treated gently ?

Yes there was a similar AE86 GT Coupe, I think they had it on speedhunters.

[iRage]

More importantly, what do u plan to do with it?

Once you buy it and use it, it will no longer be a low mileage car will it? and the low mileage appeal will be gone.

I would rather buy a car which has done about 20-30k in 17 years, if I can find one. You never know what kind of deterioration it has gone thru with the lack of use. And Corolla GTs aren't exactly rare...

BTW I see half a tank of petrol. is that also 17-years old?

Yes exactly my thought ! 17 years is a long long long time !

LOL....it would be funny if the guy bought the car with a full tank of petrol and never used it for 17 years !

[Hoonigan]

They are asking for 698000 yen plus delivery and registration so comes to about 900,000 yen. Which is pretty high as you can buy a 5 year old Axio about the same price.

Don't think it has been hacked and sure as heck doesn't look like it. So even after 17 years the engine can be broken in to ? and treat it as a band new car that needs to be treated gently ?

Yes there was a similar AE86 GT Coupe, I think they had it on speedhunters.

In this case, I guess there's no point in paying a premium and taking a risk. Especially since it's not a rare car to justify the hassel of fixing it up should something go wrong.

[harshansenadhir]

I personally don't believe in low mileage as most of these low mileage cars tend to break the moment you put into day to day use. Even the most rubber components would've gone passing their usable life span. Heard many such stories about low mileage cars.

Rather I buy every day proven yet well maintained one but having less number of owners is certainly a concern

[Rumesh88]

I wouldn't drive a car on 17 year old tyres even if it was kept on jack stands all the time! Usual expectation for a brand new car of this grade is that you should be able to drive it for the next five years or 100,000 km without a problem. Can you expect the same from this car? Chances are that a five year old Axio with 50,000 on the meter would do much better.

BTW just in case if you happen to ship it to Sri Lanka you would have hard time even recovering your 90 man yen because nobody is going to believe the story of this much low mileage here .

[iRage]

BTW just in case if you happen to ship it to Sri Lanka you would have hard time even recovering your 90 man yen because nobody is going to believe the story of this much low mileage here .

LOL true ! No this can never be bought to Sri Lanka....I still am having heart ache of having to someday sell of the touring wagon

[Jaliya48]

LOL true ! No this can never be bought to Sri Lanka....I still am having heart ache of having to someday sell of the touring wagon

I know how you feel!

[Hoonigan]

LOL true ! No this can never be bought to Sri Lanka....I still am having heart ache of having to someday sell of the touring wagon

I know how you feel!

The club is crowded

[Charith H Jayasinghe]

I love this Corolla GT

[iRage]

I love this Corolla GT

rather than an AE100 series Corolla GT; personally I find the Marino and Ceres a lot more sweeter....

[kmeeg]

rather than an AE100 series Corolla GT; personally I find the Marino and Ceres a lot more sweeter....

If i'm not mistaken Marino & Ceres both are AE100 & AE101 right? (Please correct me if i'm wrong). Only the body is different from the Corolla right? And i believe when you have a good condition Corolla AE100 it brings more respect (Not sure whether i used the correct word). I see a very good condition Corolla AE100 where i live (in Denver, US) and i believe the owner is giving very good care for that car and pleasing to see it every day.. IMHO Corolla AE100 is one of the best Corolla's built. (including KE72's).

If i had a chance to buy a genuine low mileage Corolla AE100 with good condition i would not think twice A classic i love very much.. <This is just my opinion and i can be very wrong..)

Back to main question. Is their a reliable source where a customer can check the genuine millage and the facts about the car when you buy from a Japanese auction? Something like carfax.com where you give the vin number and check (depending upon ur membership)? (Sorry i have no idea about auctions)

Edited April 22, 2014 by kmeeg

[iRage]

Yes the Marino and Ceres are also the E100 series. For the most part the frame between the Corolla and the Ceres/Marino are pretty much the same with the latter having some minor tweaks here and there. Apart from that it is mostly the outter shell that is different (and the interior of course).Yes the E100 Corolla was probably the highest level the Corolla ever got to and it seems to have gone downhill from there. I have nothing against E100 Corolla..just that this particular GT is a bit off. Also for this particular generation of Corolla if I was to go for a 4A-GE variant I would much prefer a Ceres/Marino (but then I can't preach as I ended up buying a paddy wagon instead).

I guess the original question was if you were to buy a low mileage car this old, how low would low be? In my mind something with just 500km, although low in mileage, would have the potential to be a whole different bag of problems. Which seems to be everyone else's feeling as well ?

Something like the 500km Corolla might be perfect as a showroom piece or maybe for a monthly run to the shops or so but then who buys a Corolla for that <especially one with a 4A-GE in it..those things LOVE to sing high>?

So even if one does consider "low mileage" a primary selection criteria, it should be within reason <after all what is more important is not how low the mileage is but how well the car has been used whilst doing those miles> even when you do know the mileage etc...is genuine.

The whole auction sheet mileage and verification has been discussed before on few other threads so you should be able to find it if you do a quick search. There are some services that will check if the JAAI certificate is valid.

In Japan things like carcheck are not that popular <for locally traded cars at least> because cars being sold in Japan are not tampered or problems masked out. Since most cars are sold through dealers the cars also come with warranties (the 500km Corolla comes with a 6 month no questions asked warranty, in the case of my wagon they extended it to 1 year for the engine and gearbox beacuse I asked about the timing belt). Also because the Japanese roadworthy certificate checks (shaken) is quite strict you can't fake yourself through it and any major damage etc are declared at the time. Furthermore, usually these cars have the service record book which you can go through to check if everything is okay. Also typically a car would be maintained at the dealership it was bought at (especially if it is a new car) so you can always check over there.

So if you go straight to an auction the auction sheets that are on the car are pretty "honest". The problem arises when the few car dealers with dirty paws who go to the auction on behalf of you get their hands on them. Then services to check the JAAI certificate, etc come in handy, albeit it may work only for new cars. So if you are buying a car from auction either go to a dealer that you trust and know to be decent. If not, there are dealers out there who give their clients direct access to auction databases so they can see the cars and auction info themselves but not do the final bidding.

Edited April 23, 2014 by iRage

[Crosswind]

There's no rule on how to define a healthy low-mileage car, but I would not consider one that had done less than 1000km a year. Going by this thought, your car should have done at least 18000km to be healthy and low mileage at the same time, provided rubber parts and fluids have been maintained properly.

If you ask me, 10000km a year with on-time maintenance will be better than something that had done 1000km a year.

Perhaps it will be easier if you mention why are u thinking of this car....

is it because u need a good corolla GT? - there must be plenty of well maintined ones in japan

is it because u want to have a car with as low mileage as possible? - remember, once you start using it, the odo will start rolling and soon, it will lose its 'low odo' appeal. unless u plan to keep the car in storage forever, as an ornament

is it because u need a car? - how about something cheaper and newer?

Edited April 23, 2014 by Crosswind

[Sampath Gunasekera]

There's no rule on how to define a healthy low-mileage car, but I would not consider one that had done less than 1000km a year. Going by this thought, your car should have done at least 18000km to be healthy and low mileage at the same time, provided rubber parts and fluids have been maintained properly.

If you ask me, 10000km a year with on-time maintenance will be better than something that had done 1000km a year.

Perhaps it will be easier if you mention why are u thinking of this car....

is it because u need a good corolla GT? - there must be plenty of well maintined ones in japan

is it because u want to have a car with as low mileage as possible? - remember, once you start using it, the odo will start rolling and soon, it will lose its 'low odo' appeal. unless u plan to keep the car in storage forever, as an ornament

is it because u need a car? - how about something cheaper and newer?

Just a hypothtical question.

In case if someone got this as a gift, what are the maintanace you advice to bring this car to safe running condition?

Edited April 23, 2014 by Sampath Gunasekera

[iRage]

For starters this is not for me...it is for a friend of mine (in Nagasaki) but the guy was looking at a Carina GT and then we bumped in to this so there was some temptation for it on his part. Since the shop confirmed that all the rubber parts are in tact and fluids changed and was in good condition his temptation grew (mind you these would be covered by the warranty anyway). As for rarity, the 6M/Ts are pretty rare...also because cars get shipped out of Japan these things are becoming rare within Japan almost by the day. What ever is left is mostly in the hands of boy racer types who have modded it. The guy's reasoning was that it is a good base just like out of the factory car. I do not have any attraction for it as it is an A/T and for this particular type of GT you still do get a few M/T with decent mileage on them

My concerns were cited earlier which also seemed to be the general consensus as well. The car which will be eventually purchased will be a second car but will be used. The guy had a Honda Stream but wifey wanted a minivan as an upgrade as consolation for the guy was a practical cheap fun car

[iRage]

Just a hypothtical question.

In case if someone got this as a gift, what are the maintanace you advice to bring this car to safe running condition?

On the presumption that you got this as a gift in SL...(I say SL because in Japan the dealer would do most of these checks as part of the mandatory shaken/maintenance check required for registration)

Personally as a start I would check

- inspection of the timing belt

- brakes including the lines, pads, rotors getting warped, etc....

- check for hoses being dried up

- suspension check for bushes drying up,etc..gas/oil leaks of the dampers

- tires

- Also I would check both engine and gearbox oil to see if there are metal shavings in it <at least excessive shavings...after all we do not know how this car was used for the 500km and whether the break-in was gentle>

- also check for signs of rust and lot-rot creeping in

and the list will undoubtedly go on a bit more....

[iRage]

Just for the record...this car was purchased by my friend. We were all very curious to see it... the service records indicated regular fluid changes (usually at an interval of about 8km) and shaken inspections.So the car was literally used to be taken to inspections and fluid changes and back ! The car came with new tires..not sure if they were changed by the previous owner or Westriver. He did not have any issues apart from running repairs. He did not even change the timing belt as Toyota had told not to bother. Strange....He sold it off after about 3 years of having it for an Evo X (which was a purchase from his dad). I think he put about 5000km or something when he sold it off.