As prices have gone up, so has mileage, meaning that consumers are paying more for vehicles that are likely in worse condition. For example, in 2019, cars that cost $15,000-$20,000 had an average of 37,032 miles on the odometer, and now they have an average of 60,257 miles. And mileages have ballooned even more for $10,000-$15,000 vehicles.
“During the pandemic lockdowns one of the few things people could still do was take a drive, and clearly many of them did,” explains Karl Brauer, iSeeCars’ executive analyst. “This drove up the mileage across the used car market, but the supply of new and used cars was so constricted that the additional mileage didn’t hurt used car prices – they still went up.”
Unsurprisingly, then, the average price for all used vehicles has grown significantly. Pre-pandemic, the average one- to five-year-old car cost $23,351. In 2023, that average has gone up by 47.7 percent to $34,491. That’s thanks to values increasing for a wide variety of used vehicles, from pickup trucks to compact sedans and just about everything in between.