I battled with the same decision. Eventually I did enough research so that I felt comfortable with what I called the "final cost." (Of course, I also considered the likelihood that there could be even MORE expenses due to unforeseen issues.)

Example 1: Low miles, high price, nothing more needed to be done.

Example 2: Higher miles, lower price, but I would have to factor in the cost of... a new timing belt for example.

There are a lot of common problems with these vehicles and I called around to get estimates on how much it would cost to fix those issues. Then I just had to weigh how comfortable I felt about those two type of vehicles.

Some of the higher mileage VXs I considered showed that I would have to spend a LOT to make it equal to the higher priced VXs. Sometimes the lower priced VX would be the bargain, sometimes the "final cost" would be more than the asking price of the "expensive" examples. And sometimes the higher priced VXs were simply over-priced.

Lots of research and TONS of patience paid off. I finally found the exact condition-price balance that I wanted. (For me it was something that would require some work - part of the fun in my book! )