How many miles can be on a car for it still to sold as "new"? (I live in California, if that makes a difference.)
I am looking at a new A3 with 55 miles already on the odometer. This is at a big dealership, and so I assume new cars are delivered directly to their doorstep. So is the 55 miles from test drives?
I know this borders on OCD, but my previous new cars had 10 miles each, and 55 sounds not quite virginal.
Thanks.
Bill
"Bill T" wrote
I think up to 1000 miles they can still sell it as "new". When I bought my "new" A4 in 2001, it had 380 miles on the odometer. I wasn't happy about it, but it was the only car in the entire US available with the exact options I wanted, and it was too late to place an order for another one to be built from scratch (the were already starting the B6 production), so I took it.
Pete
Where I live (South Africa) some cars are delivered by road from factories up to 600 miles from the dealer. Many cars are also delivered by transporters. Dealers also sometimes get cars (of the required color or specification) from other dealers and these cars are driven on the road. My Golf was driven about 400 miles from Pretoria to Kimberley but when I got it the distance on the odo was about 12 miles.
The reason:
Dealers have to connect the odometer as soon as a buyer buys it. It keeps the car "new" until sold. Whether this is acceptable is debatable...
55 miles is nothing. The car drives out of the factory in Belgium or Ingolstadt and then to and fro ships and then to importers, dealers etc. Although the odometers have a one time only reset, normally it is not used for such small distances.
Ronald
I've bought a car described as 'used' with less miles on the clock! The explanation is that it was registered to Toyota UK, and used on a static display.
On the other hand, I took delivery of my RS6 with over 50 miles on the clock - the reason being that all RS6s were road tested by the factory, which involved being driven around a 30 mile set route on public roads.
I think 'newness' is indicated by whether or not the car has been registered to a private owner (versus the dealer), not the number of miles on it. So, a car could have 1000 miles on it and never have been registered, and considered 'new', but another car could be driven off the showroom floor with 10 miles on it, and be considered 'used' once it is registered to a private owner. That's how they can sell demo's as new cars (although I think dealers may now put them into their CPO programs in some cases).
Dan D '04 A4 1.8Tq MT-6 Central NJ USA
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