The analyst said rates of depreciation increased sharply for three-year-old cars with mileages of between 60,000 and 100,000 on the odometer but then began to level off.

Adrian Rushmore, managing editor at EurotaxGlass's said: “As soon as a car passes the 60,000 mile threshold the penalties increase because perceived desirability falls.

He said “an additional stigma” was attached to cars with more than 100,000 miles on the clock which led many owners to sell their cars before hitting this “psychological barrier” because they were afraid of instant devaluation. But Rushmore said such fears were unfounded. “The fact is the rate of depreciation actually slows after this threshold has been reached,” he said. EurotaxGlass's used a three-year-old car with 40,000 miles as its benchmark. It found that if the same model clocked up 50,000 miles the trade value would fall 4 per cent. But from 60,000 to 100,000 miles the car's residual value would drop 5 per cent for each 10,000 miles travelled.

Beyond 100,000 miles, however, the same car's fall in trade value reduced to 3 per cent for each 10,000 extra miles covered. EurotaxGlass's found that cars with below average mileage did not benefit from an improvement in value equivalent to the loss incurred on higher mileage models. For each 10,000 miles short of 40,000 miles covered by a three-year-old model, it claimed the trade value improved by just 2 per cent.