Used Car Buying Tips

Here are some tips from John Paul aka "the car doctor" on buying a used car.

Q: What are some of the common mistakes you see used car buyers make?
A: The common emotional mistake is people fall in love with the car, and they buy with their heart and not their head. They buy the red convertible because they always wanted one and then find out it wasn’t the car for them.The real mistakes is they don’t take it to a professional to have it checked out before they buy it. Sometimes what people do is they fall in love with the car, they buy it, they get it registered and then they take it to their local repair shop and say, “I just bought this -- what kind of shape is it in?” Sometimes, they find out it was two cars once that were welded together.The basic rule is, Don’t sign on the dotted line for anything until it’s been inspected by a good repair shop.

Q; What if you’re buying from a dealership and they offer to give you a Carfax report?
A: I don’t care. Let’s face it. You’ll lose an awful lot of negotiating power once you’ve paid for the car. Before you hand over your check, you have a lot more control. For instance, you may be looking at a reasonably sound car but the tires are 75 percent worn. If you have the car checked out, you can go back and say, “The tires have had it, I think I’ll be interested in it if you put four new tires on it.”

Q: There’s constantly more pricing information available to consumers, such as web-based price calculators. Has that impacted used-car buying?
A: To quote Sy Syms, “An educated consumer is our best customer.” The more you know going in the door, the better off you’ll be. Don’t go in and say, “I can afford $300 a month.” They can always find something for you for $300 a month. You want to know what the car’s going to cost. Deal with the payment separately.The more informed you are with price and regional pricing, the better you’ll do. From the dealer’s point of view, you’re not going to waste their time. If you walk in and say, “That car is worth $9,500 that’s what I’m willing to pay for it,” they’ll see if they can do the deal and get you out the door.”You buy five cars in your lifetime, they sell five cars a day. They’re a lot better at negotiating than you are.

Q: If a person does their research, gets a Carfax report, gets the car inspected by a mechanic, do you have a preference whether they buy from a dealer or a private party?
A: You can certainly save some money with a private party, but what you’re not getting from the private party is warranty. Be very careful of private party sales that always seem to have a car for sale once a month. I’ve seen what appear to be private party sales in the ads, but I notice the same phone number is appearing three or four times. It’s somebody running an illegitimate car lot.

Q: Are you seeing new scams surfacing?
A: I don’t know if it’s new or not, but what I’m seeing is documentation changes. For instance, you’re going to take out a loan at 7.5 percent and when you go to buy the car it says 9.5 percent. So carefully inspect all the documents that go with the sale agreement.With all the recent floods, you should pay attention to flood damage. If you look at a used car, and the title says it came from a flooded area, and it either smells like an old refrigerator or like the perfume counter at Macy’s -- either way, something’s up.