Used Cars

The Pros and Cons of Buying a Used Car

When you're ready to trade up, is it best to look for new or used cars? That's a major consideration for a lot of potential car buyers. There are advantages to both and taking some time to study the situation is a good idea. This will be a discussion of used cars, or the seemingly more politically correct, pre-owned vehicle.

Obvious things to watch for are mileage, condition, year, and whether or not it carries some type of warranty. Once those things check out, then the big mystery of fair pricing comes into play. There are a few guidelines such as the Kelly Blue Book and the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). Both have websites and offer hard copies of their pricing information that are helpful resources in determining what to pay. It sill can feel like you're rolling the dice when you are trying to find the best in a group of used cars.

In recent years extremely popular entrants into the used cars field is something called Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) vehicles. These autos have gone through a grueling process of inspection inside and out, as well as under the hood. They usually have lower than average mileage for the year, no visible dents, service records, and are in overall excellent condition. They also come with warranties that vary in length. Higher end cars generally have longer warranties than less expensive models. These warranties may be guaranteed by the factory or the dealership. Although they obviously are of high quality, there is never a guarantee with any auto that something won't go wrong.

There are some excellent resources for buying cars, thanks mainly to the Internet. You can glean information from other sources, but it's quite nice to sit in front of your computer screen and comparison car shop. At some sites such as http://www.nadaguides.com/ you can learn the history of specific car. All you have to do is enter the vehicle identification number (VIN) that is stamped in several places on every car manufactured. Just send the number to NADA or other similar companies and you will learn if the car has ever been involved in an accident, had the speedometer rolled back, if proper maintenance was applied, and how many owners it's had. You will get all this and more information for a low fee.

Perhaps you've always wanted a luxury model car and haven't been able to afford it. You've seen used ones but didn't know anything about why the car was for sale. Now you can check and may end up fulfilling your dream after all. Of course you'll need to remember that service and repairs will cost more on the higher-end autos.

So after all is said and done searching for a good car that belonged to other people isn't necessarily all fun, but some of the newer tools take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation.