Buying a Used Car

1) Get a blue book value on the car or truck so you know if the asking price is a fair value. Kelly Blue Book is the best in the game in online used car values. Get all the information for the car or truck you are considering then go to Kelly Blue Book Online. You can enter all the information about the car and get a good “guess” for the cars value.

2) Don’t be afraid to haggle. You never know how bad someone may need to sell and it doesn’t hurt to ask if they will go lower on the price.

3) If the car is old you’d better have cash or get a personal loan. If you’re considering a car that is older than 7 years, you’re going to have trouble getting a car loan. It doesn’t matter if you have good credit, banks just don’t loan money on older cars. The alternative is to get a personal loan but you’re going to face high interest rates.

4) You’d better have a mechanic that you trust and have him check out the car before you buy it. Used cars will eventually have problems. That’s just the nature of the beast. If the current owner of the car doesn’t want to let a mechanic check it out that is a red flag. Although, it’s much cheaper to pay for repairs than make regular payments on a new car there is no sense in buying a car and then having to make repairs.

5) Don’t let a dirty interior stop you from buying an otherwise perfect car. It usually costs less than $150 to have a car detailed. So if a dirty interior will get you a better price on a used car just go have it detailed.

6) And last but not least especially if you have young children, you don’t have to worry about messing it up. If it’s already a junker you might as well enjoy it.

I often find myself looking for used cars. We have three high mileage trucks (over 150,000) and with three kids we really do need a car or truck with fewer miles and more room. The main problem is we live way out in the boonies and drive 7 miles one way on gravel roads. Not long after we moved here we purchased a New Chevy Aveo (a compact car) in order to save on gas but to say the least it only took 19,000 miles on our roads for it to fall apart (literally). This means we have to have a truck or suv (preferably a 4x4) which means a higher purchase price. Although a new car is out of the question, we’ve looked at several used cars. These are just some of the things we’ve encounter while looking for used vehicles.