Does mileage really matter??

its never insignificant , mileage is wear on the engine components no matter what. unless your engine was rebuilt or replaced with a lower mileage engine. a running car is worth up to 1000 in my head . now if that car had 300k on it I wouldn't probably want to spend over 500-800 , its a church car , you have to pray that it will get you there every time.

As with larger industrial and transportation devices, like diesel trucks, airplanes, boats, etc., service to extend lifespan is predicated on HOURS of operation, not a silly odometer that measures how many times the tires have gone around. Operation with proper lubricants at designed temperature is what's key. Cutting to the chase, that's why a city-driven daily-use "church" car...especially in a salty winter environment...is usually a very BAD investment compared to a younger highway-driven specimen with even 4-5x "distance" travelled. Engineers know this, but the entire industry operates on this crooked equation wherein mileage means WAY too much. The problem is of course that automobile (motors) don't have operation clocks, so the data collectible is scant; hence valuation systems have only model year and distance as available criteria. I've spent a career chasing highway-driven young'uns that prove to be FAR better longterm investments for my clients than older, "low mileage" specimens that are pricier. In the rustbelt the trick is to drive them enough to extract max value before they rust apart. In warmer climes age may become less important, but distinguishing between a daily city runner and an occasional highway cruiser is very helpful in predicting lifespan. Maybe as means of propulsion become modified in the next propulsion systems we'll start to see operation clocks introduced to denote service intervals...but I doubt it.

One of our festiva friends has over 800k miles, only owner, etc. pizza car. goes everywhere with it. He also just replaced his original fuel filter... pretty epic (bad/cool/surprising). This "topic" has the potential to get ridiculous real quick. Mark, find something wrong with your car and ask how to fix it. otherwise, continue to reduce the shenanigans.

Ha! I was trying to be objective and polite, as we realize that Mark has to find something to do...and maybe that's okay. OTOH....