Original miles

[mauro12]

Hi everyone! I wanted to ask you if there is a way to know with sureness the original miles of the car. I don't have any documents or history of service in my car but  only the odometer which mark 9000 km so likely my car has 109.000 km . You think is high rate for this engine?

[Rolf-Dieter ✝︎]

Hi Mauro,

One unfortunately never knows without the cars service documents from the start since as you know our odometer turns over to zero after 99,999 KM or Miles.

I purchased a 1987 BMW is new in 1987 and we managed to put over 400,000 KM on that car. My daughter had her for 10 years and just sold her to a BMW Mechanic. Now this car had all the records and the odometer does not turn over after 99,999 to zero.

So yours could be 109,000, 209,000 one just don't know. Be happy if you have matching numbers and she runs well. There may be a way once you disassemble the engine and look at wear and tear what the true mileage would be, that as you can imagine is expensive and something I'm sure you don't want to do.

Enjoy the car.

Dieter

[Benz Dr.]

 A couple of quick checks on some easy to see pieces can often tell a lot.

Fine cracks in the steering wheel usually denote age unless it's been changed.
Heavily worn pedal pads are a good sign. Look for wear on the edge of the brake pedal pad.
Look inside the glove box. If the paint is a lot brighter than the surrounding dash it's not a low miles car or it sat outside a lot.

 Most of this advice goes out the window on a restored car however, few people restore rear view mirrors - good place to look for signs of age or at yourself for any clues.

[mauro12]

In every case do you think 109.000km is high for this car? im almost sure this is the original rate of mine

[Cees Klumper]

109,000 km is very low for a car fifty years old. That would make it 2,000 average per year. What would worry me more is if the car sat completely unused for a long period of time, that is never a good thing for any vehicle. Anyway at this age it's not important how many kms the cars have done (except for people who think that is important for some reason) but what does matter is the shape everything is in. I wouls much rather have a 500,000 km car that is in great condition than one with 50,000 that is in poor condition. After all these cars, properly maintained, can easily do a million or more kms.

[hkollan]

In every case do you think 109.000km is high for this car? im almost sure this is the original rate of mine

Hi,

Without a complete documented history the original mileage is anyones guess.
109000km is as Cees says extremely low mileage for a 50 year old car, and would be very rare if it is the case. If you believe the car to be this low mileage based on the condiition, I would enjoy the fact that you have a nice car and worry less about original mileage.  Maybe if you put up a few pictures of the car, including interior and engine
You could get some better answers to your question.

Hans

[TheEngineer]

It is notewordy that Mercedes in the workshop manual, page 00-5/5 publishes: cylinder wear is 0.01 mm for 10,000 Km. Therefore, if you still have the original engine, as indicated by the data sheet, and if you measure the bore and if you find that it has never been bored by having the original pistons, like 86.5 mm diameter for a 280SL, you can correlate the wear and the indicated mileage.  For example: you measure 86.7 mm diameter this gives about 200,000 Km

[mauro12]

Here some picture! The car was not restored, it has the normal signs of the time