I'm truck shopping for a used truck. For my budget I'm looking at two trucks.

2016 gmc 1500 4x4 100k miles
2018 gmc 1400 4x4 130k miles

Everything else being equal, is it better to have two years newer or 30k less miles?

I’d be looking at the number of previous owners and the location where it lived. There’s no way everything can be equal.

Last time I bought a new vehicle in 2021 right before they all got sky high I was finding a 1 to 2 year old vehicle with 100K was only a about 10K cheaper than brand new.

Is this still the same today?

Agree 100%. And from there maintenance intervals as well as you can tell from the Carfax or dealer/owner-provided history.

How many miles do you put on it a year. If you put 10K per year, then that is a big difference. If you put 30-40K a year, then it is the same truck.

They are the same. There is no difference at that age. If the 2018 has an 8-speed, it should be the choice. Anything with a 6L80 or 90 will eventually fail.

Right at 160K miles in my case.

I just wouldn’t buy one with AFM. They are both out of warranty

I would rather have a truck with 200k that was meticulously maintained than one with 100k that was neglected. I would view those two trucks as practically equals it would boil down to how well they were taken care of to make the decision for me.

Also pretty much all vehicles now show engine hours if you toggle through the display. You might look at that and divide the miles by the hours and get the average mph. If one was used a lot on the highway and the other in stop and go traffic one could have twice the hours. I would much rather have the lower hour truck.

130k is a lot of miles. I know trucks can go past 200k, but that's just too much for my personal comfort.

With modern vehicles it really isn't. My dad drove a ton for work as he was regional director for Ducks Unlimited for 18 years. He would buy new chevy 1/2 ton pickups and drive them to 250k miles and then trade. Never really had any major issues doing this with multiple trucks. We bought the wife a new Lexus SUV in 2008. She drove it a few years and then we upgraded and sold it to her little sister. She still drives it today and it has over 300k miles on it now and she hasn't had to do anything major just brakes, tires, battery, etc. Properly maintained I wouldn't be worried about 130k at all.

I have a 2023 ram diesel, a 2024 ram diesel, and a 2004 ram diesel. The 04 has 170k miles and I like driving it better than the two new ones. It has never gave me any major issues either.

My budget is around 23k and I'm needing a full size crew cab half ton 4wd. I prefer gmc or chevy. I'm look8ng at a 18 gmc 1500 4wd crew cab with 5.3l AFM with 130k miles. Most of what I had been seeing in my range was 2014-2016 with around 100k miles. I don't want to pay more as I don't want a loan.

With anything made by GM go with less miles.

Years don't matter if they're close; to me, there's a finite number of miles I'm going to reach before it needs to be replaced. All other things being equal, give me the lower mileage truck.

Two things I ALWAYS looked at when I appraised vehicles was the number of owners and the maintenance history. The lower the number of owners and the most maintenance visits closer to 5k miles always got the best money and sold for more. If they say they did the oil and lube themselves stay away from it. Either way you go, I would spent a couple of hundred and get a good mechanic to check them out.


With that said if the 2016 had 3 or less private parties as owners, has a good service record and you have to have a GMC then that is the truck to get.

Good for you! You are smarter than 90% of the population. I would walk before I got an auto loan.

There are a ton of men that care for their vehicles personally….and way better than any dealer or squirt and go.
You can usually tell by looking.

If you can see the owners house how they maintain it carrys over to how they maintain the vehicle

Guess there are all kinds of holes In stereotypes, my yard looks like hell and my vehicles are generally dirty inside and out, but I’m pretty picky about oil filters etc change my trans fluid and filters and typically keep my vehicles a long time.

Anyone able to run a carfax?

I can’t run a carfax anymore but you might try this

vehiclehistory.gov

Thanks ill check it out

Oh and thanks fornthe.info on the transmission. I asked and this truck has the 8 speed transmission.

Carfax is worth what ya pay for it. My 2019 has 89k and i am anal about maintenance. (Ex motorcycle racer). Change oil every 5k and use wix
gold filters. Have all records but carfax show none.

It’s not for maintenance records. A truck that was owned by Enterprise or lived its life on the coast is what I would be looking out for.

I don’t think I’d buy anything with the AFM having been used that much. Nothing good is ever said about it.