are 356 miles on a new 08 Mustang from a dealer a lot?

[jerry S]

I have a friend who just took delivery of a new 08. When he went to the dealer to get it, it had 356 miles on the odometer. I had 70 mile on my last new car when I got it from the dealer but 356 sounds like a lot. and thoughts?

 

[1965coupe]

Yeah, 356 does sound pretty high for a brand new car. My shelby had 25 or so, and my '04 had 64.

Did they throw in any extras? Or maybe add those miles to the warranty?

 

[red93gthb]

idkmy mom just bought a '08 explorer from adealership that had 390 or so... they did drive it from savanah to deliver it though. about 280 mles away. thats probably why it has so many.

 

[08blueskunk]

it could be driving it for delivery and Possible test trives, My dealer ship had a mustang they were using for test drives and the others just sat there, When i test drove it, it had 209 miles on the "test" car. But i know how i test drove it

my car had .02 when i picked it up.

 

[stangdude2000]

My car had 8 miles on it when I picked it up. Almost all mainstream production vehicles have around 4-7 miles when unloaded at the dealership. My first mustang had about 120 miles, but the dealership from which I purchased it traded with another and it had to be driven across a couple states.

 

[autumn_again]

sounds very high. my friend when he put the money down on the wrx after test driving it, had 12 miles on it. kinda pissed me off when i bought my car, the guys from the dealership were taking turns driving the car home and to work the next day.

 

[stanmckinney]

Mine had 2,000 but had been driven by the owner for about three months. I did get a pretty good discount because of that. It is my understanding that the warranty begins when it is put into service and 36,000 miles are added to the mileage on that day.

 

[69mach1-409]

Mine had less then 2 miles on her. Those miles were from driving off the carrier to the service bay and back to me.

356 is ALOT of miles. It was either a dealer trade (most likely driven to the dealer by some pimple faced kid) or it was the dealer demo car..

 

[walter]

I used to sell Nissans and we used to write down the initial mileage on the delivery sheet because warranty started from there.

 

[xtweakerx]

my 07 had 10 miles on it

 

[raverjames]

When I test drove my 08, it had 17 miles on it. I would not accept 356 miles on a new car.

 

[STANGmole]

I think my '08 had 70. That was the highest mileage of any "new" car I've purchased. I bought it two months ago though...in other words it sat on dealers lots for around a year before it finally sold (The build date was 12-07).

 

[racerraj]

My 06 had 12 miles. But, my 88 was a Dealer trade as mentioned earlier by someone else. It had over 350 miles, and I got a better price. Downside - I was only able to put 356,000 miles on the car before I felt the need to get the 06. Maybe I would have been able to go 356,350 if it didn't have those miles!

 

[bigcat]

if the car was originally sold to that dealer, then yes. if it was a dealer trade, and was driven to the dealer from one a long ways away, then no. dealer trades are very common, and they usually drive one vehicle each way and trade.

 

[stanmckinney]

Mine was from a dealer trade and they went a long way to get it.
I have also been told by my dealers that warranty begins with mileage on the car when you buy it. If that is wrong, I have been lied to for many years.

 

[PoopDawg]

My car came from Kansas City, MO.. so it had a little over 200 miles on it when I got it cause they drove it to Wichita. My previous black 07 GT had over 300 because they drove it in from another state. It's common, as others have said, if it's a dealer trade.

 

[Five Oh Brian]

First off, warranty starts on the day the car is sold at the miles on the odometer at the time of delivery to the customer. However, the warrenty ends when the odometer hits 36,000 miles (bumper-to-bumper) or 36 months after the day it was sold. They do not add 36K miles to the starting mileage, it just plain ends at 36K. Therefor, you get less than 36K miles of warranty in reality, but you get the full time of warranty (assuming you run out of time before miles). The typical new car arrives from the factory with 2-8 miles on the odometer and is sold with 5-20 miles on the odometer.

We don't use one specific car for test drives, so there isn't a "test drive" car with tons of miles on it. Any car on our lot can be test driven, as each customer may want to try out a vehicle with different trim & equipment levels. A few test drive miles on a car is no big deal, and it is incredibly rare that someone would trash a new car on a test drive. We require a salesman to go on any test drive of a high performance vehicle to prevent thrashing on the hot cars. Spirited driving is OK, but tearing up tires & clutches is not.

Dealer trades are very common. We do about 70 of them monthly to get specific vehicles our customers want when we don't already have it, or to accomodate other dealers in the same position. We only trade within the Pacific NW and prefer closer dealers to distant dealers, but it is still common for dealer traded rigs to have 20-300 miles on the odometer. When I bought my 03 Mach 1 (brand new) we had to get it from out of state and it had 405 miles on the odometer at the time of purchase. Not really a big deal to me. If we trade in a vehicle for a customer, we always let them know it will have miles on it before we make the trip.

Most dealers that we trade vehicles with employee older, retired people to do their dealer trades, by the way. All 4 of our drivers are gray haired and they are accountable for any damage to the vehicles they bring back if it wasn't noted on the paperwork before they left the other dealership.

Dealer "demonstrators" (commonly called a demo) are getting rarer out there. Technically, they can be sold as new (and get the factory rebates) as long as the odometer doesn't go past 6,000 miles. Most dealership owners have a demo. Our owner is currently using a Lincoln MKS as his demo, for example. His last demo was a Ford Flex and it's on our lot for sale now at a sizable discount (has 1,885 miles on the odometer). Most demo's are discounted heavily to account for the miles. Demo's are typically loaded up models that are driven responsibly (consider that it's usually the dealership's owner using the vehicle), so they make pretty good buys if you get the right discount.

I hope this insider's look will help explain how miles "happen" on new vehicles.

 

[88GTtom]

my car had 21 miles and i would not buy any car that had to be delivered. i worked for a car dealership once and every time they would deliver a car or just transport a car from a different location they would beat the cars down. if i found out a car had to be delivered, i would think of some punk putting the pedal to the metal every chance he got as well as taking turns way to fast. my $.02

 

[DBMSTNG]

First off, warranty starts on the day the car is sold at the miles on the odometer at the time of delivery to the customer. However, the warrenty ends when the odometer hits 36,000 miles (bumper-to-bumper) or 36 months after the day it was sold. They do not add 36K miles to the starting mileage, it just plain ends at 36K. Therefor, you get less than 36K miles of warranty in reality, but you get the full time of warranty (assuming you run out of time before miles).

that was not the case with my 98 ZX2 i bought in 97. it had 276 miles on it when i bought it because it was a dealer trade from detroit. my warranty was good until 36,276 miles.

 

[Five Oh Brian]

that was not the case with my 98 ZX2 i bought in 97. it had 276 miles on it when i bought it because it was a dealer trade from detroit. my warranty was good until 36,276 miles.

That's not how it works today. I've worked at a Ford dealership since 1999. Spent a couple of those years doing finance, which means I did all the paperwork, explained the contracts, financing, warranties, etc. I had to go over the mileage the coverage is good til about a million times.

The only time it does work out like you mentioned is when you buy an extended service plan (ESP). Lets say you take delivery with 276 miles. The factory coverage ends at 36,000 miles, but let's say you bought a 75,000 mile ESP - then coverage goes to 75,276 miles on the odometer.