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teacherjess
member
Has anyone purchased a used car recently?
teacherjess
member
DH and I are in the market for a new car, but not necessarily a brand spanking new one (because of cost). We just need to replace our secondary car that mainly gets me to work and back as it's almost 13 years old. We'd like something smaller, like maybe a Honda Civic or a Ford Focus. We've never purchased a used car, before, though. We can't decide if we're better off going through a dealer or someone selling in the paper or on Craigslist or whatever. We feel like the markup might be higher at a dealer, but then the car has at least been checked by a mechanic, so it's kind of a trade-off. Also, at a dealer we could probably trade my other car in, right? Has anyone purchased a used car recently? Any advice?
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Re: Has anyone purchased a used car recently?
Griffin 10/2007
Do you have a mechanic that you use and are comfortable with? How handy is your DH with cars/how much does he know about cars? My DH knows enough that if we drove it he would be able to tell if anything was off about it and we have a mechanic that we use for everything so a few times when we've bought used (we've never bought new and only bought from a dealer once) we ask the current owner if they mind if we take the car to our mechanic for a quick once over most havent had a problem as long as we leave something with them for collateral like our drivers license. The mechanic we use basically does a trip-check and is able to tell if there is going to be anything that needs done plus we do quite a bit of research on the make & model so we know what kind of problems to expect/look out for.
Actually the one car that we bought used that we have had problems w/ we bought from a dealer. I dont think the dealer was dishonest or anything I think we just happened to get a lemon of a car that consistently has little things wrong with it (of course this all adds up). Buying used is definitely the way to go IMO, cars lose value as soon as they are driven off the lot and we dont like having car loans so we pay cash for our vehicles which means anything over $15k is out of our price range. If you are wanting to do a dealer my BIL is a sales manager at a toyota dealer here in Nky (they do new and used sales). I could have him keep an eye out for you and I can vouch that he isnt a skeezy salesman haha ;-)
Dealerships have more markup- but most sell their cars as-is unless you buy a warranty, it is just like buying from a private seller. You can get a car fax report on any car I'd I would highly suggest that.
Dealerships will take your trade in but don't expect a good amount on it. Don't bother with the blue book value, either... They typically look at recent auctions of cars with your make/model/year/mileage and take the mid to low numbers on those because unless your car looks excellent in person that is where it is headed for, so they want to know what they will get out of it.
Any car you care to buy I suggest making an appointment with a trusted mechanic to look over. Let them know you are interested in buying a car and ask if they can look it over for you. They are usually happy to. You would think dealerships ensure that everything is great, but I know a two friends that bought crap from dealerships and the dealers told them sorry, you bought as is. I bought a used car years ago and took it by a mechanic with no problems.
I sold insurance to car dealerships and became familiar with how they worked to some degree. We bought a used Volvo XC90. I won't buy new because I hate the immediate loss of money you have on them! Negotiate the price of the car seperate from financing/down payment/trade in amounts. Settle on the price first, otherwise many will try and do a pencil trick where they keep adding/subtracting amounts in various ways to confuse you. It really ticks me off and I walk out on them. Also, make sure to get ANY warranty in writing signed off on by either the sales manager or the finance manager. Magically sometimes the sales guy that you used doesn't remember or they claim he no longer works there and they never okayed it. (Yes, seems obvious but again, one of my friend's is an idiot and thought "surely he will admit he promised us 90 days!").
Good luck and happy hunting! Also, we have a Corolla my DH uses for back and forth to work. Gets about 35mpg and works just fine even if it is a 98 with 140k miles!
Buying used and buying from a private seller will definately be the cheapest route to go. Like PP said, you can always take it to your mechanic for a complete check before you purchase it. If they don't want you to do that, then I would be a little worried!
Just because you buy used from a dealership doesn't mean it will be any better than buying from a private seller. Most dealership mechanics are instructed to do the bare minimum to get the car in sellable shape (my BFF's husband is a master mechanic at Volvo and this is coming from his mouth) and most of the time, unless you buy one, used cars do not come with any type of warranty.
I bought my first car used from a small dealership and I had so many problems with that car! Good thing my dad can fix anything or I would have been a broke 16 year old paying for a mechanic!
Good luck! Car buying is always stressful to me.