Mileage and Caterham's

[RLK500]

How does mileage affect a Caterham ? I realise a lot depends on maintenance, but lets assume for the sake of argument that the car has been maintained correctly. Is it something major to consider when looking at used models ?

TIA

Roops

[Dorchester]

In the past I have always gone for Lotus' with a reasonable mileage over those of extremely low miles. As an engineer I feel that a car has to be used to be kept in a reliable condition and the fact that a car has notched up some miles generally shows reliability. Obviously the caveat to that statement is to ensure that the car is used regularly and not had one long blast to a far-off place that racked the miles up.
Not so much a problem on current Caterham's but my Europa when not used for a while, had sticky throttle and clutch cables (more likely then to chafe and break) and once even had the clutch plate seize itself to the flywheel - After that I made sure that the Europa was used more often.
That said, I suppose that a low mileage car, kept in a carpeted and dehumified garage, regularly moved to ensure dampers, tyres and brakes etc are free, with all cable lubricated may also be a good buy...
My opinion - price shouldn't be much varied.

[DCL]

The Caterham is a light car that is pretty easy on the mechanical components so it's not going to wear out quickly when used as a road car, particularly the lower powered ones. Bushes, shocks, and wheel bearing do give trouble on high mileage (or old) cars but they are almost consumables and easily put right. Corrosion is probably more of an issue.

Track use is very different and I would be careful with a car that has lots of track time. The costs could be higher with gearbox and engine rebuilds on the list.