Another 10,000 km takes 1% to 3% off a used car's asking price in Qatar. A year of age takes far more.

Ask anyone in Qatar what a used car should cost and the answer starts with two numbers: the year and the kilometres. Most buyers treat them as about equally important. We wanted to know how much each one actually moves the asking price, model by model, so you can tell whether a low-mileage car is worth the extra or a high-mileage one is the bargain it looks.

How we measured it

There are 13,534 live listings on BuMotar today. 12,445 are used cars, and 11,669 of those state a mileage. We kept 2010 to 2025 model years with between 1,000 and 500,000 km and an asking price of at least QAR 5,000, and removed obvious duplicates, which leaves 9,817 cars.

Then we compared cars only against their own model and model year: a 2018 Patrol against other 2018 Patrols, never against a 2015 one. Within each group of at least five cars, we measured how the asking price falls as the mileage rises. Nineteen models have enough cars to do this, 3,691 cars in all.

What 10,000 km costs, model by model

For each model, this is how much less a car of the same year asks for each extra 10,000 km, and what that is in riyals at the model's middle asking price:

• Toyota Land Cruiser — 1.2%, about QAR 1,700. 1,128 cars.
• Lexus LX — 1.4%, about QAR 2,750. 310 cars.
• Toyota Prado — 1.5%, about QAR 1,400. 130 cars.
• Nissan Patrol — 1.8%, about QAR 1,250. 470 cars.
• Mitsubishi Pajero — 2.1%, about QAR 900. 192 cars.
• Range Rover — 2.1%, about QAR 2,100. 358 cars.
• Mercedes-Benz S-Class — 2.4%, about QAR 3,200. 82 cars.
• Jeep Wrangler — 2.9%, about QAR 1,550. 63 cars.
• Land Rover Defender — 3.2%, about QAR 8,400. 118 cars.

The pattern is clear enough to state plainly. The Toyotas and the Lexus lose the least for their kilometres. The European cars and the Wrangler lose noticeably more, between 2.1% and 3.2%. Among small cars it is the same story at lower prices: a Corolla gives up 1.7% per 10,000 km, a Camry 1.5% and a Nissan Sunny 2.2%, all well under QAR 1,000.

On a used Land Cruiser, 10,000 km more on the clock lowers the asking price by about QAR 1,700. On a Defender it is about QAR 8,400.

The first 150,000 km cost the most

Kilometres do not all count the same. Across the Patrol, Range Rover, LX, Pajero and Prado together, each 10,000 km below 150,000 lowers the asking price by 2.3%. Above 150,000 it is 1.3%. On the Land Cruiser the drop is gentler but in the same direction, 1.3% below and 1.1% above.

Two examples show what that looks like. A 2020 Land Cruiser with under 100,000 km asks a middle QAR 168,000 (15 cars, median 76,000 km). Between 100,000 and 200,000 km it asks QAR 150,000 (27 cars, median 141,000 km), and over 200,000 km, QAR 137,000 (23 cars, median 244,000 km). The first 65,000 km of difference is worth QAR 18,000; the next 103,000 km only QAR 13,000.

A 2016 Patrol asks QAR 85,500 under 100,000 km (6 cars), QAR 70,750 between 100,000 and 200,000 (26 cars) and QAR 56,950 over 200,000 (26 cars). That is a gap of about QAR 28,500 between the two ends, on cars of the same year.

Year counts for far more

Putting year and mileage into the same comparison, within each model, shows how lopsided the two are. On a Land Cruiser one model year newer is worth about as much as 75,000 fewer kilometres. On an LX it is about 73,000 km, on a Range Rover 81,000 km, on a Patrol 57,000 km. On the Prado, Pajero, Camry and Corolla, a year is worth between 33,000 and 45,000 km.

For scale, the used cars on BuMotar from 2010 to 2024 have covered a median 15,700 km for each year of age; the middle half fall between 10,800 and 22,700 km a year. So the market charges for a year of age several times what an ordinary year of driving takes off the price.

It also means unusually low mileage earns less than you might expect. Comparing every car with the middle price of its own model and year (4,693 cars in groups of at least eight), cars driven under 10,000 km a year ask 8.7% more. Cars driven 30,000 km a year or more ask 7.2% less. From one end to the other that is a 17% gap: real money, but less than one model year on most of these cars.

What to do with this

• If you are buying — Use the per-10,000 km figure for your model to check a low-mileage premium. A 2020 Land Cruiser with 60,000 km fewer than another should ask about QAR 11,000 more, not QAR 30,000. And if your budget allows either, a newer car with higher mileage is usually priced closer to its condition than an older one with low mileage, on asking prices at least. Then have it inspected, because the kilometres are only what the seller says.
• If you are selling — Do not expect low mileage to carry a weak year. It helps, by about 1% to 3% for each 10,000 km below the average for your year, but even cars driven under 10,000 km a year ask only 8.7% more than the middle of their year. Put the exact reading in the listing; a round number reads as a guess.
• If you are holding — Driving less saves the car's value, but not much: at ordinary Qatari mileages a year of driving costs a Land Cruiser owner about QAR 2,700 in asking price, against a much larger loss from the car simply getting older. If you are deciding when to sell, the calendar matters more than the odometer.

What we do not know, and what would change the answer. These are asking prices, not sale prices; buyers may haggle harder on high-mileage cars than the listings show. The mileage is what the seller typed: 1,801 of the 11,669 used cars with a mileage give an exact multiple of 10,000 km, so many readings are rounded, and nothing here can detect a wound-back odometer. Within one model and year we cannot always separate trim, engine or condition, and a low-mileage car may also be a better-kept one, so some of what we attribute to kilometres is really those. The year-against-mileage comparison treats each model as one car across generations, which is why we leave the Defender out of it, since its 2020 redesign would distort it. Our duplicate check misses a car listed from two phone numbers. The QAR 2,700 figure for a year of driving assumes 15,700 km at the Land Cruiser's average rate.

Read next

• A used V8 Land Cruiser asks about 12% more than the V6. In the same trim, it is half that.
• The same used car is listed 44% apart in Qatar. About half of that gap is a trim nobody wrote down.