Tips for choosing a used car from an ad

Competently compose your search request. In order not to waste time and effort, you should decide as precisely as possible what you actually need to buy and how much money you have to buy.

There is no need to be dispersed by the set of suggested cars for sale near me. If you need a sedan, you should choose only a sedan. If you need a manual gearbox, in search conditions put “only manual transmission”. Ideally, of course, by the time of making a request you should clearly know what brand and model is offered for purchase. Keep in mind that even the most “wonderful” used car will require some expenses after purchase.

Any way you slice it, and in the first month you have to splurge at least on every trifle like new wipers, dusters, bushings, nuts, new tires, polishing, dry cleaning, and probably on something more serious. Therefore it is better to set aside 10-15 % of planned sum for purchase of automobile and not to spend every last penny. Just in case, which, as practice shows, happens with used cars regularly.

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Reject the cheapest and the most expensive variants

The cost of the car is the most abstract value in the announcement, because one always wants to buy cheaper, and to sell for more. The price list in most cases does not reflect the real value of the car, but the seller’s desire. That is why it is better to determine the average price of the offered variants and to look for the advertisements, which range differs from it within 20 per cent. It’s easy to do on the website findacar.today. Too cheap offers for a car with the same characteristics are very suspicious. And expensive in most cases demonstrate unreasonable demands.

Match the year to the mileage

Vehicle mileage is another very “slippery” parameter that is hard to navigate. In general, almost everyone who is related to selling or buying a car, from “private dealers” to official dealers, is “twisting” the speedometer.

And still it is possible to make some conclusions before you go to look at the car. First of all, it is worth remembering that the mileage depends directly on the size of the city in which the car was driven. Thus, in St. Petersburg and Moscow with their avenues, “ring” and trips to the country house 100-200 km away from the city the average mileage can vary from 20,000 to 40,000 km a year, and even more.

So if the car, for example, is five years old, the mileage is probably already over a hundred thousand. Accordingly, having seen an advertisement of a car of 2008-2009 production year with mileage of 35,000 – 40,000 km, you should ponder over the authenticity of the data.

Analyze the popularity category of the car

Exceptions, of course, are always and everywhere. Therefore, in addition to kilometers, you should also pay attention to a particular make and model, as well as its popularity among this or that group of drivers.

In particular, cars popular with the beautiful half of humanity can indeed have very low mileage. But “ladies'” cars can have another misfortune, namely a lot of minor body damage. Even brand new cars can be battered, scratched, scratched on all sides and, as a consequence, repainted several times.

Look closely at the photos

A person chooses first of all with his/her eyes, that is why almost two thirds of information about the car can be received from the offered photos. You should be extremely attentive to their presence, and most importantly, be able to see what you need in them.

Ads without photos can be sorted at once. It is not worth wasting your time even calling for an abstract car: what kind of a seller is this who has not bothered to present his own car? For the same reason we advise to trash the ads with blurry and muddy photos and photos taken at night, as well as with images, where the car is represented only in parts.
Photographs must be provided in sufficient quantity and quality to show pockets of rust, body damage, gap sizes, paintwork, and even auto body repair.

For example, if the color shade of a door (a hood, a fender, a bumper) sharply differs from the basic color of the car, it means this element was repainted. And if so, it means this element was restored after the accident.

Taking pictures of a car interior, you can determine how attentively and carefully the owner was treating the car, and also the signs of his/her participation in an accident. For example, if the padding on the steering wheel hub (under which the airbag is located) sparkles new or differs in color from the steering wheel rim, most likely the airbag has already been replaced for an understandable reason.

A factor such as the time of year also plays a role. It’s extremely suspicious if a July ad has “winter” photos. Either there’s something wrong with the car since it hasn’t been sold yet, or something could have happened to it within six months.