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by kube-system 2262 days ago
Knowing the owner doesn't affect the rate of random failures in the middle of the bathtub curve. The only thing it gives you is maintenance data.

These days, it is extremely easy to get maintenance data for many late model used vehicles. Many manufacturer websites will spit out all of their maintenance records as soon as you register an account on their "owners" portal and put in a VIN.
1 comments
ansible 2261 days ago
This is a good point. That will tell you if the car has been given regular oil changes, which is super, super important.

It doesn't tell you how hard the car was driven. But if you're like me, and mostly in the market for a hybrid, it probably wasn't driven that hard.

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kube-system 2261 days ago
You can get a good idea from maintenance records; hard driving wears consumables faster. Compare a few vehicles of the same model and it'll be easy to see which ones were driven harder.

I also like to take a peek at the tire date codes, to make sure they corroborate with maintenance records: https://images.tirebuyer.com/visual-aids/pages/education/how...

The last car I bought had two original tires on it at 60k miles, and the service history showed the other two were replaced due to nails in the tread. I am confident the vehicle was not driven hard based on this.

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