I'm looking to buy another Focus and while perusing some used car sites I found an advert whereby, the owner was selling his 2000 Ford Focus with 53000 miles done. Now, as I was only browsing, I didnt really have time to actually speak to the owner about the vehicle. He is selling for £500 but, even so, this cannot be legit, right? 53000 miles for a 15 year old car?

You buying from America?

My mistake, that should have read £500...

It isn't unheard of, find out more!

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GNU STP

For a car of that age, it does sound very cheap.....would have a thorough check over it and check the log book for the genuine miles. if it is all there, that is still a bargain!!

Ah ok,thought you were having it shipped over! lol

Ok imho you have to think of very very low mileage cars in a similar way as a very high mileage.Now that may sound strange but if you are planning on using the car for a normal amount a year then the car might not be up to it (But at £500 its not a major loss if it does all go wrong) . Case in point is my mum has a V reg Rover 200 and only has 50,000 miles on it . Its only been used for 3 mile type journeys with the odd 5 mile one . I started borrowing it for a few months to drive 60 miles each weekend and after 5 months the engine is now dead,just started knocking like crazy and misfiring all over the place. So its trying to find that safe somewhere in between high and low.

As others have said check over all the paperwork....and then check over it again. Not really economical to get the RAC etc to come and look as it will cost a third of the value of the car (And the company i got to check my focus missed a dodgy clutch and waterpump as well as the exhaust on its way out!!!). Very best of luck,sorry to sound cautious but just dont like seeing people losing money.

I've a 1999 ford focus that was left to me, and currently doing it up. It only has 39000 on the clock, all legit, just the owner couldn't afford to run it fully.

I sold my 2005 Mondeo ST TDCi last November with just 48k on the clock - so low mileage cars are out there, although £500 does seem cheap, it's worth more investigation i.m.o.

Thank you so much guys, for all your brilliant help. I will definitely investigate further because it does sound like a bargain, but almost too good to be true lol...

The biggest killer on a 15 year old focus will without doubt be rust! The could be reflected in the price.

My 2000 Mk1 is just shy of 32k, mines had one owner though, not really any rust, so it can easily be true, that price seems low for the mileage though, I've seen similar mileage for closer to £1.5k.

I would guess it's not a desirable engine/colour/spec maybe?

I have seen quite a few very low mileage cars from the 90s, owned a couple myself even!

Problem I often find is they're usually a big petrol engine with auto gearbox (expensive to fuel) or a really low spec as the original buyer didn't care what the car was as they only do 5 miles to Church and Tesco each week. If it's a good spec in a nice colour with a desirable engine (diesel or small petrol) then I would question why it's so cheap!!

See loads of automatic Foci around here with low mileage. Most owned by older people who only ever use them around town.

A neighbour has an X reg Nissan Micra since new.

Never done more than 750 miles a year.