What to Look for When Buying a Used Car – How to Snag a Great Deal!

My dad was a delivery driver. He made sure my sister and I knew what to look for when buying a used car and how to snag a great deal!

I should say right up front, despite my sister and I being able to talk non-stop for 27 minutes about all of this, (I know because we timed ourselves on an eight-hour car drive), I am not an expert. Please always make your own final judgment on whatever it is you decide to do. And really, that is just good all-around life advice. 😊

What I can say is with this base of guidance I have had the desired outcomes in buying used vehicles. Except for the last vehicle, which is the most expensive vehicle I have yet to own, Chris and I have always looked over our own cars.

That includes buying vehicles in New Zealand and Australia!

I wish I had pictures on hand of those times, but I don’t have them with me. But just for fun:

* you can see our ’89 Mitsubishi Van we lived in here. My gosh I loved that van!

*  this post shows the stunning Kepler track in New Zealand and the last photo is a picture of our Subaru.

* This really old post you can see a picture of our beloved Saturn station wagon – oh those were good cars!

* One of our more popular posts, here we kept track of all our expenses for a two-month USA road trip – and you can see our Hyundai Sonata in there.

* This post shows life on the road in Death Valley – so many beautiful places to see when road tripping

First tip:

Don’t wear your favorite clothes while car shopping. You will need to lay down on the ground!

Here is a complete guide of things of What to Look for When Buying a Used Car and How to Snag a Great Deal!

Do your own basic checks:

• Many times the car being sold is already inspected or will be inspected as part of the sale. Doesn’t matter. Do your own “inspection!” 
• Buckle/unbuckle every seat belt – then YOU can feel if anything seems sticky, about to break, or if things are squeaky clean and functioning as they should.
• Check all the blinkers, lights pay attention to those easy to not notice lights, like a break light in the middle of the rear window.
• Do a basic overview of the car and make sure it’s worth your time moving on.

Check Oil & cap:

Remove & look for any dirt around the rim/edge. Everything – the dip stick and all around the oil cap should be clean. If the dip stick is dirty, that is a very bad sign. If someone did not keep up on their oil, the maintenance is likely horrible on that car. I have walked away from cars before just because there was dirt all over the oil cap.

Lay down on the ground:

Can’t believe how few people do this! Even for the uneducated eye, you can still detect a lot of warning signs or history of the car. Lay on the ground on EVERY side, front and back of the car!

• Is there any obvious areas where metal has been patched together? Follow all the lines, etc.
• Is the underside very scratched, damaged? Or does it look pretty clean?
• Is anything dangling down or tied up with a coat hanger or pieces of metal?
• How rusty does it look? In many states, rust is a huge concern.
• Look closely all around each wheel area. You can at least look for signs of rust or anything that does not seem normal around each wheel.
• Pay close attention to the muffler – (if it’s cool) just give a tiny push with your finger to make sure it’s not loose.
• Look at the tow hooks on the front and back of the car – how rusty are they?
• If the car has been undercoated, it’s harder to look for rust. The concern is someone might have undercoated a bunch of rust – but look at everything you can to make an assessment.

Easy to forget to check items:

• Turn on all inside dome lights.
• Lock/unlock ALL doors – both manually & with key fob if there is one.
• Windshield wiper fluid!!! (Remember if you buy a car and you live in a cold climate and can’t be sure if you have no-freeze wiper fluid, wiper fluid is cheap! Run the old stuff all out and make sure you put in the appropriate temp. wiper fluid for your area!)
• Honk horn.
• Move all the seats – do they go fwd, backward, or fold down how you want and expect them to.
• Make sure glove box opens/closes and is there a manual in there? How clean do things look?
• Does the cigarette lighter work? (Even if you don’t smoke, you want to make sure everything is in working order. You are looking for any signs of concern or poor care of the car.)
• As you are opening all the doors, look at the areas where the door latches. Is it rusty? Look/feel the underside of doors – any rust? Is there any signs of dents?
• Look at the roof of car!!! I always have to stand on the edge of an open door. Are there any scratches? Any areas that might rust? Dents?
• Keep walking around the car from all angles and in every direction. Look for any signs, the tiniest little indicator of dents. (Think of shopping carts running into the side of a door. But any little dent that has compromised the paint will likely lead to quicker rust in the damaged area.)
• Open gas cap. Make sure screws on/off easily and it’s not filthy.
• Do all the tires have the cap on them?
• Look under the floor mats – how clean is it? This might seem really picky or unnecessary, BUT, it is a very small and minor detail. It tells how clean and attention to detail the people or the person selling the car is.

Time to Test Drive!

If you don’t know the area, google it ahead of time. Wherever you are buying it from will also probably have a recommendation of a good test drive option.

You want:

• To get up to speeds of at least 55mph or higher.
• A decently sized hill.
• A big parking area you can do some maneuvers in.
• Regular driving.

To-Do While Test Driving:

• Turn on AC full blast.
• Turn on Heat full blast.
• Turn on defrost full blast. (Make sure all these work well!)
• Turn on all wipers, all speeds & check windshield fluid works.
• Turn on radio. (DO NOT keep radio on! You want to be able to hear and listen for any sounds the vehicle is making or not making. This is just to ensure it works.)

Driving Checks:

• Is the vehicle shifting smoothly? ANY signs of poor shifting?
• Any wobbly-ness? If it is safe to do so, while driving on a straight section of road, take your hands off the wheel and make sure the car generally keeps going straight forward. If it immediately starts veering off the right or left, then you know maybe the alignment is off.
• Make sure the cruise control works.

In SAFE AREA:

• Drive fast and then hit the brakes hard. (I try not to overdo this, but you want to make sure the brakes are solid!)
• At some point where you can do this, you want to do a quick acceleration. Getting on a highway or going from 0 mph to 55 mph will suffice. You want to listen for smooth transitions between gears.

In a BIG PARKING LOT:

• Drive around in really tight circles and/or do some figure eights. You want to CRANK the wheel all the way in both directions.
  • Do you hear any weird noises?
  • Is the car not turning well?
  • Do this FWD and BACKWARD
  • We have walked away from a car because only when we drove in tight circles did it make weird noises. That car moved down the list and we purchased a different vehicle.
• If you have another person with you, this could be a good time to have them get out and observe the car for any dents as the sun hits it in different angles.

Find a BIG HILL & SAFELY:

• Drive up and stop in the middle. Then move forward.
• Drive up a portion of the hill backward. This is another great test for the transmision.
• Stop on the hill, put car in neutral, and set the emergency break. Any signs of trouble with that?

After Test Drive:

• Have another look over the car. How does the car smell?
• Open the hood again and look for any leaks or warning signs?
• Get back on the ground and look under the car, especially the engine part and look for any leaks or potential issues you did not see the first time.

(Once you have finished the test drive, bring it back and if you can, park on an area of pavement that is clean and dry. Then you can see if anything is dripping/leaking from the car.)

Homework:

• Write down the VIN number! Super important! Call the seller if you forget this info. Then you can go home, take that VIN number and put it into a free service like kbb.com and see if there are any recalls on the vehicle.
• Not all recalls are super terrible, and you can make your own assessment. Depending on the outcome, this could be a bartering strategy too.
• If you haven’t already, read all the reviews you can. Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, and if you are a subscriber, Consumer Reports are good for that research.
• I try to remain objective about reviews. I try to grasp if an issue seems like the majority of owners of that vehicle type had that problem or if it seemed like a smaller percent.
  • Example – Nissan typically makes great cars. Many people in our families have had excellent outcomes with their Nissans. We were seriously considering the Nissan Rouge. Our research showed that a high percentage of people with that car had transmission problems. We were quite bummed by this because we really like the car and those styles were about $2K less than a Honda or Toyota.
  • We called around to three different mechanics we use and asked them what they thought about Nissan Rouges and how often they saw that model in the shop. All three places said, oh geez, the Rouge we see a lot. IF you were one of the unlucky ones to have the transmission go, at the time of writing it was ~$4K to fix that. We decided it was better value to pay the $2K more for a Honda or Toyota with the belief that would be getting a more reputable car and we took Rouge off our list.
  • That is just an example of what to look for when buying a used car. It wasn’t until we did a bunch of research that is appeared the Rouge specifically were prone to a higher chance of transmission failure, while most other Nissan’s upheld their reputation.
• Get insurance quotes! Another reason you need the VIN number. Different makes, years and models of cars can have quite different rates. For the cars in our top list of considerations, I got insurance quotes for the 4-5 cars we were considering.
• Research part costs!
  • In the event you need to get parts – is your potential vehicle easy or hard to get parts for?
  • We were looking at a Mitsubishi and both the insurance and cost of parts were more than the Hondas or Toyotas we were looking at. We also learned that any Mitsubishi parts for I believe 2014 and below, those parts are manufactured abroad and imported. Newer Mitsubishi it may be possible to get manufactured parts here. Even the car we were looking at, it had been waiting on a part for over two weeks. All these factors made the Mitsubishi go farther and farther down our list.
• Research your tires! Make sure you write down what size tires any potential vehicle has. Generally, R16, R17 are “normal” size tires for many cars. But if you are looking at a car with those tiny, fancy rims – that is going to be dollar-dollars!
  • Also if you are considering larger size vehicles, just get an idea of what your tires will cost you. The whole point of all this is so you can get a total idea of the cost of each car so you are not shocked when the time comes to replace/swap out tires.

Time Investment:

Yes, doing all these steps will take time. Depending on how much small talk happens, this usually takes a minimum of 40 minutes to do all this.

That is a lot of time!

Then there is the research and calling for insurance.

And then,

I do the whole car check all over again either the next day or within a few days if I am serious about that car.

But. It’s a big investment.

I try to narrow down top options based on price, miles, year, and desirability of the vehicle. Then you are chasing the top 5-ish cars that really interest you.

Many times a car looks great on paper and then I get there and it’s crap.

Rule of Thumb:

Sleep on it.

I have never once bought a car the same day, on the spot. A vehicle is a huge investment. If you are reading this in the year 2022 supply shortage has made car buying crazy, still, sleep on the decision and re-do the entire vehicle check.

Your eyes inevitably will see something fresh the next day.

Why Doing All these Steps Matter

I know people who have gone to buy a car and never even opened the hood.

Their reasoning and excuses: I have no idea about cars. I am not a mechanic. What I am going to be able to see?

You don’t need to be a mechanic to open the hood and see if something is duct-taped together underneath. (That happened to us.)

Even if you don’t feel confident in your knowledge of cars, you don’t have to broadcast that to whoever is trying to sell you the car.

Open the friggen hood!!!

For all they know you are a car genius.

Regardless of anything, open the hood and look under there and at the very least check the oil.

Getting The Shiny New-Used Car!

Now you have been through the long slog of car shopping and have made your selection. Yeah you!

Every state has its different car buying laws, so I’m not going to get into all those specifics.

But I will say this.

Be Aware of DOC fees!!!

Doc (document) fees were something I encountered for the first time this past year. We went into an office to make an offer on the car. As we were discussing, the guy wrote down all the fees, like taxes, and such. I looked at a line with $250 written down and inquired what that was for.

“Oh that’s the doc fee,” he said.

“The DOC fee? What’s that?” I replied.

Pretty much that was the moment I knew this deal was not going to happen. The price came down much less than I thought and now there was an additional $250 in the amount.

So no matter what, ask for a detailed breakdown of the final cost of the vehicle.   

Dealers will try and brush this into the cost and somewhat intensely tell you they are taking care of everything for you to be able to drive away from the lot. Yeah, they may be doing that, for a fee of $200-450!!!

Pay attention to the details. If you are serious on the car, ask for the final price including taxes and any fees. This also gives you an idea of how upfront the person is with you.

Helpful Tips on Where to Find Best Deals on Cars

Generally, we have found the best deals at small, registered dealers.

Those big shiny lots – more money.

Private sellers – ugg – often a lot of extra coordinating work.

On both craigslist.com and facebook marketplace you can filter the search to look for DEALER ONLY listings.

That is how we found our last two cars.

How to Barter and How Much to Barter

Oh don’t most of us despise this part?

There will certainly be regional differences and current states of the market dictating how much wiggle room there may be in the sticker price.

At the time of writing, the years 2021 & 2022 supply and demand made much less wiggle room for those buying vehicles.

We bought ours in 2020 and we thought we might be able to get $1K-500 off the sticker price.

We found out otherwise.

My biggest tip is: just start the bartering process!

Most of us don’t necessarily love that part. It’s a bit of muscle memory to get those skills activated again. So if you are interested in a car, get to a point of asking for the final price, let them know it’s a top car in your consideration. You don’t have to barter at that point. This was when and how we found out about DOC fees. If you are seriously considering the car, see if they would be willing to do a price $500 off the price. (Or whatever amount makes sense.)

Expect them to counter up $250. See how close this gets you to the price you are willing to pay. 

WARNING DO NOT Over DO THIS JUST BECAUSE

Don’t be a jerk!

We did this on vehicle we did really like and we’re seriously considering. Don’t lead someone on, trying to barter hard if you have no intention of actually getting that car. 

Always treat someone the way you want to be treated.

Engage in this, but don’t barter hard, string someone along if you are not actually seriously considering buying that car.

If price bartering seems to be getting you nowhere, try service bartering.

Do they offer:

• free oil change your first year
• upgrade tires
• maybe they will agree to rotate your tires no charge when the seasons change the first year
• see if there is some service they can offer to entice you and have that be the car you buy

When we got down to the end of our buying selection we had three possible vehicles.

We gave the other two dealers courtesy calls to thank them for their time and let them know we moved forward with another vehicle.

Yes, they were car salesman trying to sell us their vehicle, but we also found decently nice people who then started looking for vehicles that might interest us.

Everyone wants a win-win in these situations.

Conclusion

Buying a vehicle is a big investment of both time and money. All the above processes are the steps we have followed whenever we have needed to get another vehicle.

Most people I talk to, ourselves included, don’t find this to be particularly fun. I hope this post helps with knowing what to look for when buying a used car and how to snag a great deal.

Best wishes on your vehicle buying journey!

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Some Favorite Car Must Haves & Emergency Essentials:

Invertor – use this for keeping phone charged on long drives, charging out lap top on roadtrips. Very handy.

Jump Pack – Chris parent’s got us one of these for a present. When you need it – this little box can do so much! Jump your car, also acts as a battery pack, emergency flash light. Excellent, small useful item to get for yourself or give as a gift.

Portable air compressor – my sister gave us this as a gift. At firt I thought we would never use it. It was so useful! We realized our one tire was prone to getting a little low – which could have affected our gas milage and alinment. Another excellent item to have for yourself or give as a gift. 

Emergency Blanket – I just always have two or three of these and some water proof matches.

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Anything I missed? What other tips do you use when buying vehicles?