What is a good mileage for a used car?

A rough guide is around 7,000-8,000 miles per year of the car's age — so a 5-year-old car with 35,000-40,000 miles would be considered average. This is roughly the baseline your vehicle check report uses when it rates a car's mileage against its age.

• Higher than average isn't necessarily a problem if the car has full service history showing regular maintenance was kept up
• Lower than average can be a genuine selling point, but unusually low mileage on an older car is also one of the patterns associated with clocking, so it's worth verifying against MOT history

Mileage on its own is less important than whether it's backed up by service records and matches historical MOT readings. A well-maintained higher-mileage car is often a better buy than a neglected low-mileage one.