Buying a used car

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41

I wouldn’t trust the air pumps that have a pressure setting on them (ie you dial it to 36 psi, stops when that is reached), they are notoriously unreliable and can overfill tires (here in NJ, most places with air pumps are no longer free, as they once were, they charge between 50c and a buck, and they don’t have pressure settings). Your best bet is to get a good quality air tire gauge, the old pen ones if made right are great, the gauge ones work okay, but don’t buy the buck store ones, a good quality one at an auto parts store is around 5, 6 bucks. In terms of filling tires, I recommend, not the old fashioned one where you use your arms, but the one that you use your feet (usually lies on the floor and has a lever kind of thing you step on to pump it up that returns up automatically when you let it go), they are compact and a lot easier to use (or you could get a small battery powered one that uses the 12v in the car to power them).

As far as cars go, both Kia and Hyundai if you buy one that is relatively late model are good cars (I believe Kia is made by Hyundai, it is a sub brand kind), they used to be crap, but Hyundai spent a lot of time and money on improving their quality, when they realized that having cheap prices, as they once did, with bad quality wouldn’t work, plus Hyundai has moved into the more expensive markets. Word I get from my network is they are pretty reliable and a solid car.

Some of the best deals may be a late model lease when they are returned, when you buy off a lease the depreciation is out of it, so you can get some good cars plus people tend to take care of leased cars more than the ones they buy, because they get hit hard when they are returned for wear and tear. A lot of leases limit mileage to 10k per year, so you can get a car with 30k for pretty cheap, and 30k is practically new these days.

With rental cars, the conventional wisdom was you don’t want to buy them, that they were abused by people renting them and so forth. If this was 10 years ago or before, I would have told you to run the other way, because cars back then weren’t quite as reliable as today, and a lot of the late model cars coming off rental car lots were not great IME, these days as long as they were routinely maintained, it is a good option. Put it this way, back in the “old days” friends of mine who are mechanics would see the rental cars after someone bought them, and they would see things like transmissions with burned disk plates in them, driveline problems with CV joints on front wheel drive cars, leaking engine seals, you name it, they don’t see that now, in part because the cars don’t require all that much maintenance. Most rental car companies ditch their cars to upgrade to the current model year, so it is not a bad deal at all. The cars may not have the options you want, most rental cars for example don’t come with built in nav computers (so they can charge you extra to rent a garmin or whatever), and if you are looking for a zippy car you won’t find in general the more powerful engines, but if you are looking for a regular car, not bad at all.

42

Conventional wisdom says buy low miles. I’m considering the opposite. My wife drives under 3000 miles a year. Her current 2003 Passat (bought new) has only 36,000 miles, but it’s time to replace. She wants a luxury car. I’m thinking the smart play is a newish car (BMW, Audi, Benz) with high mileage. After a few years of her driving, it will have “normal” miles on it. Looking at 2013-14 with 50-60k. Even budgeting for inevitable repairs, it still seems like a good idea. Thoughts?

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Depends on what kind of miles. Low mileage can mean city miles, or long periods of not being driven, both of which are not that good for the car (and may require some maintenance to be done on a time schedule instead of a mileage schedule). High mileage can mean gentle highway miles, but it may be hard to prove that a car’s mileage is highway versus city.

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I know some people just like the feel of an European car (not sure why it is “better” because I has no experience with it.)

But does it usually cost more time (due to the availability of parts) and money to repair an European car, or is this no longer the case today?

Every car in my family is (was) low miles. The miles are mostly city miles.

As regard to buying a used car, I always feel it is mostly the luck. In the past, I heard it is better not to buy a car from a rental car company. I am not sure about this after we have had a positive experience.

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Chardo, I think that could work in your favor. Just make sure you do your research on not only makes/models but also on reliability from YEAR-TO-YEAR for each model car you are considering. Consumer Reports is a good resource, IMO. I would also make sure that the car has been well maintained, including all service records.

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@Chardo we just did what you are thinking if doing. We had a 2000 van with 123,000 miles on it, most put on it over 5 years ago. In recent years, it has been our third car, and typically got 3k to 4 k a year.

We bought a 2012 Subaru Outback…with 106,000 miles on it. We figure it’s a safe bet that most of those were highway miles…I mean really, you would have to be doing a LOT of driving locally to rack up that many miles otherwise.

We figure that with our 3k miles per year, in a few years, this will all,average out.

Because it was a high mileage vehicle, we got it for a great price.

Keeping our fingers crossed it was a good decision!

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Most of the European brands have expensive cars, so it is likely that the dealers assume that people have the money to pay higher prices for service. You probably won’t find $39.95 dealer service that covers the oil change, tire rotation, and inspections listed in the owner’s manual at the European brand dealers (or even independents specializing in those brands) like you can find at dealers for some other brands.

http://www.chevrolet.com/certified-service/offers-coupons-values.html
http://owner.ford.com/maintenance/service-event/offer-works.html

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@ucbalumnus my Volvo dealer runs specials frequently for things like pile changes, and tire rotations. I have gotten this combined service for less than $30.

The maintenance schedules services…like the 50,000 mile check up ar more than $39.99 for American cars too…even less expensive American cars.

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Dealer service is expensive no matter where you go, and for example, the 39.95 oil change can probably be had for 20 bucks at a gas station. Where cars like Volvo, Audi and BMW get you is on parts, they are very, very expensive, even if you don’t get them from a dealer, they are generally a lot more expensive then parts on a typical brand. I will add that Subaru, which is known for being reliable and such, has expensive parts.

Your strategy of buying a higher mileage car, like 50-60k, would probably work well, but if you are doing it make sure the car was regularly serviced, sometimes with cars like BMW, Mercedes and Audi, people will skimp on service because it is pretty expensive. One of the things that you may face will be replacement of the cam belt (if the engine uses one), the service interval for those is generally between 60-100k, and that can be very expensive, it is labor intensive. If it were me, I would avoid Audi, based on what I have heard about them from my network of gearheads, they sound like they aren’t necessarily the most reliable, but even with Audi I suspect that in the end, given how many miles your wife drives the car, likely the only real service will be oil changes and maybe things like changing filters and such, you may never even hit a major service point, so any car will do. Yes, it will be more expensive to fix the cars you mention, but to be honest, that difference is not as great as many will assume, even for non luxury makes if you get OEM parts they are pretty expensive (want an idea? I have a bad hood latch mechanism on my honda odyssey, a new cable and latch mechanism replacement at the dealer is like 450 bucks…and the OEM parts alone are 250, which is ridiculous).

50

The $39.95 Ford “The Works” service matches up very well to the regular services that are listed in Ford owner’s manuals. It is true that every so often you have to add something like changing the engine air filter, spark plugs, or coolant at extra cost, and that dealers will try to upsell you on services not listed in the owner’s manual (or more frequently than listed in the owner’s manual).

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@musicprnt Most of those Audi’s and BMW’s included scheduled maintenance for the first few years, often up to 50k miles, so they didn’t have to skimp on the expensive service. They also had that included maintenance done at dealers, so it’s shown on the Carfax.

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Right…my Volvo has bumbler to bumper service including all scheduled maintenance up to 60,000 miles or 6 years old. I haven’t paid a cent for car maintenance yet on that car.

I’m sure it will balance out eventually. But I had a 2000 Volvo, and the only expensive repair I ever had to do with it was the AC. Everything else was normal wear and tear,…like brakes, and tires. And the cost wasn’t any more than my neighbor’s were paying for their Fords.