KICKING TYRES

Time for our final look at the top 10 ‘to the moon and back’ high-milers. Curiously missing from the top end of the stats released by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency about the models that have comfortably sailed beyond the 100,000-mile mark were the Japanese. And the German Brits. My default recommendation position used to be, if I couldn’t be bothered to think very hard, to buy Japanese. The situation is now more complicated than it used to be, but it brings us, of course, to the Spanish-built Toyota Yaris. Nearly half a million of these small Toyotas have cracked 100,000 miles, and 5.4% of them have got as far as 900,000. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a basic 130,000-mile 1.3 VVT-I example from 2001, with decent CDX specification. That’s an old car by modern standards, but it has alloys, air-con and front electric windows. For £995 from a dealer it actually seems a tad under-priced. Next up is a Nissan, obviously. Not a Sunny or Primera, but a British-built Qashqai. This is the model that pops up on a regular basis, simply because we love it here and the build quality is excellent. That explains why 579,000 of them are comfortably over the 100,000mile mark, so they’re perfect for the family that wants to go places. It’s also why I would choose an automatic to make everything easy and straightforward. Specifically, I’d look for a revamped 2007 example with a healthy 2.0 petrol in Tekna trim and which is poised to tip over to 100,000 miles. It’s ULEZ compliant and the CVT transmission really does help matters. For £2000 you get a lot of kit, including climate control, cruise and wipe-down leather. British-built cars do well, and it’s reassuring to see that the Oxfordshire Mini is in the mix. A Mini Cooper is very likely to score 100,000, and 470,000 of them already have. It just depends which year you have a preference for and whether you think they got better or worse over time. The original is certainly looking less like a pastiche now and more like a classic. It is possible to get sub-£1000 cars with issues, but better to go for something twice that price, like a 2006 Mini Cooper S with 107k miles and a pretty standard spec. Not a lot of miles recently and the recent MOT history is reassuringly unspectacular. So £2350 seems like a reasonable deal, and I’m sure it will get to the moon. And back.

❝ The British-built Qashqai is perfect for the family that wants to go places ❞