The problems with a low miles older car are: 1) Lack of regular use has likely resulted in some seal/gasket deterioration, shrinkage.

While there may not be any leaks now they may appear later while the car is under your ownership.

2) The car is still a "new" car based on the number of miles it has covered. While some owners manage to avoid any real issues with their cars as they use them, some are not so fortunate.

I'm in the latter group.

My 03 Turbo had quite a bit of warranty work mainly dealing with rattles when it was in the original owner's possession.

I bought the car with just 10K miles in 2009. The car came with a 2 year, 100K mile CPO warranty.

I'm glad.

While my 02 Boxster was trouble free for its first 80K miles the Turbo developed some issues. Noisy idler roller bearing; failed radiator fan motor shaft; shifter failure; a 6-speed selector shaft leak (tranny replaced under warranty); clutch accumulator and slave cylinder.

Out of warranty (at around 60K miles) since then the car has required a new power steering tank to address a noisy valve; a spoiler; RMS; a water pump; and the driver's side radiator fan motor; leaking front diff flange seals.

My inclination right or wrong would be to blame (if that is the right word) the RMS, the spoiler leak; the front diff flange seal leaks on the car's lack of use early on.

I have an 02 Boxster that I brought new and save for an RMS leak at 25K miles the engine and tranny has remained oil tight. The car now has just under 275K miles.

The above is not necessarily intended to discourage you from this car. But you need to have in mind there is some risk to a low miles car. If you can you should try to get some mitigation on the price but that's tough. The seller is going to believe the low miles demands a premium price but after a few years low miles starts to become a liability, especially with no warranty.

 

OP, I bought a 2002 X50 with 17k this April. Needed a clutch accumulator right away, everything else has been perfect so far (21k miles.)

MSRP on the car was $148,500 (lots of leather upgrades and the X50), and ask was 57, I paid 55k.

Personally, I don't think 8k is too few miles at all.

I have consistently put 500 miles a month on my Porsches, so I don't treat them to low miles once I get them, but I like to buy them with very few miles on them.

 

I dunno.. for some reason I'd rather buy one with 60k on it than 8k.. Just seems like it's gonna be trouble. Something that's not used is as bad / worse than over used. Maybe that's an old wives tale....


For disclosure my car had 50k miles on it when I bought and I replaced the slave and accumulator, otherwise has been perfect. Seems like that dies on most cars mileage or not... There are TTs into the 200k miles territory which still run strong, low miles just doesn't appeal to me that much.