How to make sure that you get the best deal when you are buying a car
New and second hand car prices are at an all-time high thanks to changes in car manufacturing laws, the global Coronavirus pandemic, and shipping issues. Now is the most important time to make sure that you are getting the best deal possible when you are buying a car.
With fewer new and second hand cars on the market, you will have to be more careful about the car that you purchase and how much you pay for it. Be aware of a price that seems too good to be true. Make sure that you do your research before heading down to your local car retailer.
We have put together this guide to help you get the best car for your money and so that you can have the best car buying experience possible. By following the simple steps below, you will be able to save yourself stress and money, and help you to walk away with a new vehicle that you love.
Table of contents
There are 9 simple pieces of advice below, that will change the way that you approach buying a new car. These pieces of advice will help you whether you want to buy a new or used car.
Before you do anything else, you need to work out how much you want to spend on your car or how much you can afford to spend on it.
When you are buying a car, you can either pay upfront or you can take out financing. In the long run, it will be cheaper to buy the area with cash upfront. However, for most people, this is not an option.
Car financing is a type of loan that is designed exclusively for buying a car. You will pay the value of the car back over time with added interest. Many insurance companies will offer car financing and car dealerships will offer this too.
Do not buy a car that you cannot afford the repayments for. This can end up costing you more and will be a black mark on your credit score.
As we mentioned above, car prices are at an all-time high, but not all cars are worth what they are being marketed as. Many dealerships know that there is a shortage of cars right now and even poor-quality cars are seeing their prices hiked.
Before you start looking for a car, get a good idea of what the general type of car you are looking for should cost on average – i.e if you are looking for a people carrier, research the average price for a person’s character right now.
This knowledge will allow you to skip over cars that are obviously overpriced.
When narrowing down the type of car that you would like you should ask yourself the following questions:
Once you have an idea about the kind of car that you need in your life, you can start browsing online and narrow your choices down.
Once you have picked out the exact car you want, then it is time to start doing some more research on that car.
You should try to make sure that you can inspect your car in person. There are a lot of elements of a car that you can only examine in person.
If you are trying to avoid buying a cloned second-hand car or an overpriced car then you should spend the time and the money to make sure that everything is as it seems.
The first thing that we recommend that you do is pay for a full servicing and history check to be done on the car. This will tell you the whole history of the car (i.e. if it has been written off, how it did on its last MOT, did it have any major work done on it. The servicing will point out any flaws with how the car is built.
You will also want to check the age and the condition of the car compared to its mileage. These can be signs that the car has been clocked. If a car has been clocked, this means that the odometer (the mileage tracker) has been wound back to make it look like the car has been used less and is therefore worth more.
Doing this is illegal and is considered a type of fraud. We will be talking more about car clocking later in this article, as it is one of the difficulties of buying a second-hand car. See the final section of this article, for more information.
If you care a lot about how your car looks then you are going to want to inspect the paint job of the car that you are trying to buy.
It is also important to pay close attention to the paint job of a car because some dealers will try to cover damage to the car using a new paint job. Keep an eye out for patches of different colored paints or signs that putty or filler has been applied to the body of the car.
If you need a lot of truck space day to day, then you are going to want to check that the dealer is being honest about how much boot space the car actually has.
You can do this by bringing some bulky items with you to check out the square meterage of the boot space. Or you can bring a tape measure with you and measure the car yourself.
You should also check under the hood. Make sure that the engine hasn’t been tampered with and that the hood itself doesn’t show any signs of damage. Also, make sure that the hood is the same color as the rest of the car.
You should be very careful to buying a car that has good quality tires on it. We always try to get a change of tires included when we are negotiating prices for a second-hand car.
If you buy a car that has damaged or poor quality tires on it then you will end up having to pay a good chunk of money to replace them almost immediately. This can add to the overall cost of buying a car.
When you are buying a new car, you do not have to worry so much about the tires. You have the right to take the car back to the dealership and ask for the tires replaced if they are too low quality.
You will want to make sure that the seat belts in your car are working and meet your state’s health and safety standards. Seat belts save lives, so it is important to make sure that they work – for your sake, as well as the people who will be traveling in your car.
This should be covered by any servicing and history check that you get done on the car.
The only way to properly check the fault lights on a car is to turn the car on.
If any of the fault lights are flashing when the car is trying to be sold then you should do one of two things. You should either ask for a discount on the car because of the issues. Or you should insist that the issues should be fixed before buying the car.
You should never buy a car without checking the fault lights and without knowing the exact problems that are causing the fault lights – as sometimes these problems can cost more to fix than buying the car.
While it can be very cheap to replace a damaged or worn-out window wiper. However, you will need to make sure that the whole window wiping and washing system is working.
Having to have the whole system repaired or replaced can get very expensive, very quickly. This is especially important if you live in a dusty area or in a rainy location.
You don’t want to not be able to claim on your insurance because you didn’t make sure your windows weren’t clean enough on the day of an accident.
The lighting system of your car is another element that you need to make sure is working properly before you invest in a car.
Again, having to replace a whole system and set of wiring can be incredibly expensive, but if you just need to replace a bulb then that can be fairly low cost.
Remember that driving around with faulty headlines can get you fined and can get you in trouble with the police, as doing so is very dangerous.
This is another thing that will come up if you have the car serviced and its history checked before you buy it.
This is something that is really important to do if you are buying a second-hand car that has had a lot of work done to it.
Rusting can be a sign that something in the engine or one of the important parts of the car is leaking. This rusting might point you towards a problem that you wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.
Rusting can also be a sign that the car is older than the dealer is pretending that it is. If the car is clocked then it might have signs of rust because of how well-traveled it is.
Finally, you will want to check that all the extra and electronic elements of the car are fully functioning.
You will want to make sure that the air conditioning of the car works, as well as its internal controls and the locking mechanisms – both the windows and the doors – are working.
These are elements that are often get overlooked when people are inspecting second-hand cars. When these parts of the car don’t work it can be incredibly frustrating and as with every part of the car, they can be expensive to replace.
You should also check that the radio that is being advertised is the same radio in the car. Also that it is plugged in and that it works.
As well as inspecting your car in person, you should also make sure that you take it on a test drive before you buy it. If a buyer does not let you test drive the car then you should walk away, there is most likely something wrong with the car.
If you are buying a second-hand car then we recommend taking the current owner on the test drive so that they can share any tips and tricks about driving the car with you.
While you are test driving the car, you should make sure that you take it around both left and right hand turns. You should also try driving through all five of the gears in the car (if it is a stick-shift car) and checking that the brakes are responding well.
Driving the car will give you an idea of whether there are any problems with the engine and if any of the fault lights are lit. You can get a good idea about whether the car is the right size for you and whether you enjoy driving it.
In a later section, we will talk about the importance of negotiating car prices, especially second-hand cars. When you inspect a car, you will be arming yourself with information about the car that you can later use to try and get yourself a lower price.
When you have all the information and appropriate paperwork, you can agree on a final price.
If you are paying upfront in cash or with a bank transfer then this process will be simple.
If you are applying for finance then you may be able to do that on the day at the car dealership. Otherwise, you may have to go home and apply for financing before making your last payment.
The final step of getting a car is to get insurance and breakdown cover for the car that you have just bought.
If you have had insurance for a different car, the company you were insured with may offer you a discount when you insure your new car.
Otherwise, you may find the easiest way to insure your car at a good price is to use a price comparison website. They will run all the numbers for you and give you a concise list of all the different options available to you. Many price comparison sites will offer you a reward for buying through their site as well – which is a nice extra bonus.
In the section above, we have talked you through how to buy a card in a way that means you will walk about with a vehicle that is good quality and works well for you. In this section, we are going to teach you how to walk away with a car that works for you and is a good deal.
If you don’t know much about cars then buying a new one can be an overwhelming experience. You end up feeling like you have to become an expert in things you knew nothing about at the start of your car buying experience.
You can end up feeling like you need to be able to know what good tires look like, that you understand why one model is more expensive than another, or even what a tampered engine looks like.
The good news for those of you who don’t live and breathe cars is that there is a whole range of tools, companies, and processes out there that will help you to work out what the real value of your car is.
Remember, if you are buying a new car then you can skip over this stage.
You can start by looking up your possible new car on KBB (Kelley Blue Books). KBB is the market-leading car evaluation company – they are used by car dealerships when they are purchasing new cars and the site can be just as useful for you when you are looking for a good value vehicle.
The other evaluation technique that we recommend is paying to have the car serviced and getting hold of its historical paperwork. This is not free to do like other evaluation methods, but it really is the best way to gain an understanding of how much the car is actually worth.
During this process, you will be given the car’s personal paperwork, which will contain all the work it has previously had done, its past odometer readings, and anything else that might concern a new buyer. A mechanic will also look at the car and compare it to the paperwork – this will help you to catch cloned cars and to discover the true value of the car.
Another reason why it is important to have servicing done on a car before you buy it is that it will give you an accurate idea of the flaws the car has. And how those flaws should (in the mechanic’s opinion) affect the value of the car.
When you are planning to negotiate the price of a second-hand car, you will want to have as much information in your hands as possible. You will need to understand why these flaws should affect the price of the car and by how much.
Most car dealers will set the price of the cars slightly higher than they are worth, in the hope that the buyer won’t negotiate or that they will seem more responsible when they drop the price for the first time during the bargaining process.
Most of us aren’t used to haggling, as we very rarely have to do it in our lives, so here are some tips for haggling down the price of a used car:
Our final tip is to be prepared to walk away if the price isn’t good enough.
This will benefit you in two ways. You will either be offered a better deal by the seller because they want to keep your custom. Or you won’t buy a car at a bad price.
If you try to avoid shopping for a car when you desperately need one, you will be in a better position to stick to this rule. If you feel that you are under a time constraint to purchase a car then you are less likely to walk away with a good deal.
Before we leave you, we are going to talk you through 3 of the biggest pitfalls when it comes to buying second-hand cars. These are particularly important to be aware of with the shortage of both new and second-hand vehicles.
One of the issues with second-hand cars (particular old models with a physical odometer rather than a digital one) is that they can be clocked.
What is clocking? Clocking is the illegal activity of winding back, resetting, or fudging the numbers on an odometer to make it look like the car has been used less than it truly has. On older models, this can be done by physically winding the odometer back. Cars that have a digital odometer can be hacked and have their odometer overwritten.
Is clocking illegal? Yes, clocking is very illegal. It is a form of fraud. A car that has a lower mileage is worth more, but editing the odometer reading can make the car appear more valuable than it actually is. This means that the person trying to buy the car (i.e you) is being intentionally misled about the value of the car.
Odometer readings are often recorded whenever a car receives an MOT. This means that if you request the history of the car, you can track its official odometer readings. If the car has been clocked at any point, there will be some obvious inconsistencies that cannot be explained.
Another pitfall of trying to buy a new second-hand car is that you can come across cars that have been cloned. Car cloning isn’t as exciting or science fiction like as it sounds, in fact, it could be better described as car identification theft.
What is car cloning? Car cloning is when the identification of one car is stolen and used for another car. The second car is usually worth less than the first car, therefore the stolen identity will make it appear more valuable to any potential buyer.
One of the big dangers of car cloning is that when you request the history of the car, it will be a legitimate history that will most likely make the car look quite valuable. The identification number is normally stolen from a newer version of the same car.
How can you tell if a car has been cloned? Well, the good news is that this kind of thing is normally picked up by the mechanics who do the history collection and servicing. It will be obvious to them that the car is older than it claims to be or that it is much less valuable than history suggests it should be.
Clocking and cloning will often be used in tandem with each other.
Cut-and-shut cars are usually one car that has been put together using the damaged bodies of two other cars. The front of one car and the back of the other are often attached together to create a new car which is then sold on like it was always one car.
While at first glance, this might not seem like such a bad thing, it’s kind of a creative form of recycling. But do not be fooled, driving a cut-and-shut car is really dangerous. There is a chance that the car could fall apart at any moment.
Cut-and-shut cars are most dangerous if you are involved in an accident, as they do not have the structural integrity to keep you safe during a collision.
The good news for most of us is that cars are now made so it is hard to make a cut-and-shut vehicle out of them. So, you don’t really have to worry about them unless you are buying a second hand car that is more than 20 years old.
If you do fit into that category then you should be on the lookout for cars with odd paint jobs and lumpy carpets on the floor that is poorly joined.
Aside from buying a house, buying a car is one of the biggest purchases most of us will ever make. When you are spending that much money, you don’t want to walk away with something you don’t love or that doesn’t work for you.
In the article above, you will find a comprehensive guide to buying a car at a good price, even when car prices are at an all-time high.
The most important thing you can do is equip yourself with knowledge – know what you want, what the car is worth, and what its flaws are. This will help you to negotiate the best deal.
Here are other helpful car tips that you should read:
What Is Good Mileage For A Used Truck?
Motor Vehicle Service Notification – Is It A Scam Or Legit?
What Does a Clean Title Mean on a Car?
