Lower mileage + warranty vs higher mileage + decent battery health?

Popular_Register_440 | 2026-03-13 15:41 | 26 views

Hi guys, I do about 15k miles/year and the fuel bill is starting to hurt so I’m in the market for a Model 3 LFP, mainly in White or Grey. I have a budget of about £15k but could stretch to £16.5k-ish if the piece was worth the extra money. I’m aware the standard RWD Auto warranty (basic) runs out at 50k miles or 4 years and battery warranty is 8 years or 100k miles. I’m looking at 2 pieces atm. Ones at 90k miles for £13,500 with 93% battery health. The other is at 45k miles at £16,100 (15,600 with £500 finance agreement deposit) but it’s BigMotoringWorld who don’t do battery health certification and only the in-screen Tesla battery health test. Is battery health more important than battery warranty? Would you save the extra couple £k, favour the guaranteed decent battery health instead? Apologies for the perhaps basic question but I’m new to both the EV world and Teslas in general.

Comments (7)

_ascii_ 2026-03-13 17:27

What's the age of each car. Makes a big difference if one is the 2021+ model refresh and one isn't, for example.

Popular_Register_440 2026-03-13 17:39

They’re both 2022 LFP RWD Auto models.

_ascii_ 2026-03-13 17:50

Ok cool. Personally I'd go lower mileage. My 140,000 mile M3 has had various issues with suspension, which emerged at 110,000 miles and cost over £2k to sort. I also had a heater issue which was £600+. Again that happened once I got to about 100k. So your cheaper option is far closer to this. So given there's such a disparity in the mileage I think the more expensive one would be long term better value given there's less wear in the car generally.

Popular_Register_440 2026-03-13 18:34

Unfortunately the more expensive one is reserved now. My hesitation is slowly killing my options. I think I’ll just reserve this higher mileage one and hope that the lower one comes back. If not, pocket the £2k and leave it in reserve for any problems that arise.

Academic-Forever1492 2026-03-13 20:12

I bought one on 45k miles and it turned out to have a slow battery drain. The warranty was an absolute godsend as they replaced the whole entertainment pc after loads of "fixes" and investigations. Mine could be a one off, but I was very happy to have a warranty to deal with!

JonG67x 2026-03-15 07:26

Battery failure tends not to be via increasing degradation, it tends to be either a block of cells failing catastrophically, water ingress etc. These won’t show up beforehand from a simple battery health check so there isn’t always a lot of warning (there may be some) that it’s say months away from being a paperweight. Buy with warranty.

thishitisgettingold 2026-03-15 12:34

Buying a car that is close to the 100k warranty is not a great idea. Go for the 2nd option.

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