We’ve already talked about how annoying buying a used car can be. You already know that you might get fooled into buying an awful car. In our last article we’ve talked about how important setting a budget is. This will not only help you buy the car that you need, but it will also narrow down the search. One other important step is to thoroughly research the car model you need to purchase. This will help you get an idea on what problems might appear in the future. And, like I mentioned in the last post, if you really don’t know anything about cars, then you might want to talk to a friend who does and ask him to help you out…
Worst case scenario, you can also talk to a mechanic and even convince him to check out the car for you.
Now that you’ve set the budget and did the research, all is left for you to do is to is to actually go car hunting. However, dealerships are not the only places you can buy used cars from. You can also check out craigslist or other places where people put up these kinds of ads. If you have the time, you can actually check them all, so that you have more options to choose from.
However, I would personally recommend you look up used car auctions. These events often take place, even in small towns. In other words, it would be a great opportunity for you to save a lot of money. The only disadvantage you have at a used cars auction is that you won’t get to inspect the car you wish to buy and your mechanic won’t have access to it. But if experience has taught us anything is that used cars auctions don’t make a habit out of selling broken cars or cars that have serious problems and need some heavy fixing.
If you can’t find a used car auction somewhere near you, the best place to buy a car would be straight from the dealership. Now, even when it comes to dealerships things tend to get tricky, because they have lots of options and lots of types of used cars. You should by all means avoid the Certified Program Cars. These cars are nothing else but previous rental cars, and that’s definitely not something you wish you would own.
If you ever rented a car, then you know what I mean by that. You probably know just how people have a tendency to treat rental cars and believe me, you don’t want that. Instead, you can look for cars that were sold new by the same dealership. This means that their previous owner had a great experience with them and was willing to come back. It also means that the previous owner may have used the dealership for service, so they will be able to tell you if the car was well taken care of or not.