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How to check a used car

Generally about checking a car

You can find extensive checking schemes reccomanded for people buyng a used car. However these are so extensive that you generally do not manage to carry through all the checking points in a reasonable time. Here are some advices about checking a car before buying that are practically possible to carry through.

A used car is nearly never perfect. There are allways some issues that reduce the comfort of driving the car, the aestetic value of the car or the scurity. Often there is also issues that necessitate a repair before you can use the car.

This is all right, as long the prize you pay for the car plus necessary repairs and improvements do not cost too much in money or time spent on doing it.

When looking over and testing the car, have a notebook to note down anything you find, or even better, have a person with you that can note down anything, for example during test drive.

When assessing a car that you concider to buy, you should proceed according to these general principles:

- You must look at very part of the car, interior and exterior.

- You must check every part and fuction of the car.

- You must get as much of the history of the car as possible, including owners, accidents, repairs, fines  and dept issues clinging to the car.

- You must write down any issue you find.

Look it all over

Here are some points to check in the beginning, before you even drive the car for a test.

- Go around the car and look over every point. Are there any broken glasses, broken mirrors, bumps, rust or damage painting?

- Look especially well at the channels on the sides. Is there any rust, or even holes from rust?

- Try to open and close all doors. Try the locks in every door.

- Look at the wheels and the wheel suspensions.

- Look under the car. Look especially for rust, brokenparts or unsymmetrical pats.

- Look into the luggage room. Look under carpets and covers. Do you see any cracks? Do you see any rust? Cracks in the luggage room can indicate that the car has been subjected to an injury.

- Look into the motor room. Does everything seems solid and in place? Is anything rusted? Are there signs of oil leakage? Is it very dirty, and what kind of dirt is present? Some dirt is normal, but extreme and unusual dirt should give you something to think about.  Do you see any cracks. Cracks in the motor romm can indicate that the car has been subjected to an injury.

- Look at everything in the cabin. Look under the carpets. Sit down in all seats. Try all regulatory posibilities of the seats.

- Try all elecric windows, electric mirrors and other comodities that are electrically operated.

- Try out all lights, including the signal lights.  If all of them do not work, set in a new bulb, to see if this is the only problem.

- Try the sirene.

- Try the suspension by bouncing each of the corner of the car. They should bounce only one or two times in every corner, and without any cracking noise.

- Look to see if the car has spare wheels, standard tools for repair and wheel shift and winter wheels present.

Starting the motor and testing

After having seen the car all over, it is time for starting the motor.The motor should ideally  be started when it is cold. A motor started easily when it is warm, does not necessarily start easily when cold.

- Start the motor. Does the motor start easily or not. Listen for sound of uneven motor work, sounds of vibrations or sounds of friction. Do you feel any vibrations outside the normal?

- When starting the motor, kick the brake pedal. It should easily go down and kick in the brakes when the motor is started. If not the brake servo can be broken.

- Look at the dashboard panel. Does all indicators work. Does any indicator signal any problem?

- Try the stearing by turning the stearing wheels. How much do you have to rotate it before the wheels turn? It should not be more than around 2 cm.

- Try the window washers and the window wipers, and any light wiper and washers.

- Kick in the cloutch, and try all the gears.

- Try out the cabin heater or air conditioning.

Test drive

Then there is the time for a test drive. When you test drive the car, you should try out the following.

- Set the car in motion. Does the gas and the cloutch work smoothly? Does the car get smoothly into motion?

- Increase the speed and gear up to second gear if the car is manually geared. If it has authomatic gearshift, just speed up until the second gear sets in. Is there any problems to go up one gear?  If the car has an authomatic gearbox, does the second gear kick in when expected?

- Try the breaks from a low speed. Is there any problems with the brake?

-  Try a wider range of speed, and the rest of the gears.  If the car has an authomatic gearbox, does the other gears kick in when expected? Does the motor feel quick, or is it lazy?

- Listen to the car mechanics. Is there any rattling, singling or whining sounds from anywhere? Be especially aware of singling sounds from the gearbox or unexpected motor sounds.

- Do you feel any smell of gasoline, diesel, oil or any burnt smell during drive?

-  Does the car go in a stabel straight line or does it wiggle? Does the car go in a straight direction or does it pull to one side? Is it easy to stear it both to right and left? Ist the stearing accurate?

- Try the breaks from a higher speed.

- Look at the figures for motor temperature. Is it in the normal range?

- Finish by testing the reverce by backing into the parking place.

- When finished the test drive, look into the motor room. Do you see any oil leaks, or water leaks, or is there any unexpected high temperature? Is there any smell of burnt oil or burnt rubber or the like? Is there any smwll of gasoline or diesel?

Check the papers and car history

Then, before buying the car, check all the papers.

- Look at the service book. Has the car had all its services?

- Look at all repair bills. All of these should ideally follow the car.

- Look at the mileage indicator to see how long the car has been driven.

- Take out a history report of tha car from authorities, insurance companies or other instances offering such history reports. An example of such a reports is a Carfax report that can be taken out online.

- In some countries dept issues or fines that a owner has generated follows the car to the new owner. Such issues are especially important to check out.

- Somtimes cars are stolen and sold to new owners. Leagues steeling cars are very professional and can even make the car registered with new registration number by the authorities. You can however often ensure yourself by noting the chassis number printed on a metallic plate in the motor room and inquire by authoritie or insurance companies on that number. 

- Ask the seller about history issues, for example accidents the car has gone through. If you have found some signs indicating some issue, ask directly about them. Many seller will be honest and tell any truth. In other cases you can guess from the way that the seller answars if he is lying or not.

Deciding and eventually buying

At the end, you must decide several things based on the findings.

- Is this really the car type you need? If not, decline the offer, even though everything looks fine.

If you have decided that this is the car type for you, then think further:

- Is the car in such a techical condition that it is possible to bring it to the standard you want? If not, decline the offer.

- Then think about how much time and effort the repair of the car will cost you. Even though you let a workshop repair the car, you must spend time by bringing the car to and from the workshop, by explaining what to repair, by waiting, by checking after repair, and so on.

- What do you think the repair of the car will cost?

- Now you can decide if the car is worh buying after all if you pay the right prize.

- If it is worth buying, what is the right prize? Is the prize tag within the right range?

Allways discuss the prize with the seller, based on your findings, even though the prize seems fine.

Then at last, after all checking, and all thinking, and discussing the prize, you can decide to buy or not.

Some more points you should assess when checking the car

-How is the wearing of the interior fabric, pedal surfaces and handle surfaces compared to the milage you can read from the speedomter.  If the surfaces look more worn than they normally should be according to the indicated driving length, the speedometer my be fraudulent, and the car may have gone much longer that indicated.

- Do the seats, the pedals, the doors or the suspension appear slack or flaccid, even though they are not loose, defect or in direct need for repair? That could indicate a longer driving length than indicated by the speedometer or that the car has been driven very hard.

-How is the wearage of the tires compared to the driving length indicated by the seedometer. Does the tires look more worn than they normally should be. Or - does a car with an indicated milage not very long have totally new tires without any wearing? These fining could also indicate some milage fraudulence.

-Does some mechanical components seem to be totally new in a car where these components should not be worn out yet? Do you find areas having received new paint in a fairly new car? This may indicate that the car has ben subjected to some injury that the seller tries to hide.

-Has the car had many owners in a short time? This may indiate som inherent mechanical failure that is difficult to correct so that the owners get rid of the car after a short time.

-Is there a lot of dirt in hidden areas, even though the car is generally clean? Also this can indicate a longer driving length than indicated by the speedometer, that the car has been driven hard or in tough areas.