Most people don’t really have a clue about what to look for when buying a second hand car and I am one of “most people”. You can read the buying advice given on Parkers, Autotrader or any other website but there is always going to be some thing you forget to check. I cannot give any advice on picking a reliable car at a reasonable price that you cannot already find on the internet.
So, why am I writing this? Well, for many people buying a car comes down to style, features and colour. When you are buying from new, this is easy. All the cars are neatly laid out in a brochure telling you exactly what you can get and most dealerships have a range for you to look at. How do you get the same when you are buying second hand? You go to a car supermarket. I visited a supermarket in London and found 30 cars of the make and model I was looking for. I was able to check all the different available permutations of interiors, exterior colours, air conditioning or climate control, radio or CD multi-changer and decide what I liked the best. Buying from the supermarket was not for me. I was told I could not take the car for a test drive until I had effectively agreed to buy it by paying the initial deposit. That just seems like madness.
Armed with this knowledge I went back to trawling the used car sites on the internet knowing exactly what I wanted. As it turned out the supermarket cars had done more miles and were more expensive than the one I eventually bought. To top it all the private garage gave a good customer service and were happy to test drive the car over speed bumps and up steep hills.
Tags: Cars