Buying a used car? Follow these guidelines.

Used cars sales and purchase is a very big market in India and a big segment prefers to buy used cars. For a seller, reason can be switching to new model, switching to other variant or non compatibility of the vehicle whereas a buyer buys a used car for budget limitations or for using it for a short span. Through this article I would like to share some tips for the buyer while going to buy a used car.

Shortlist the brands and models – Before taking a decision to buy a car, shortlist some vehicle companies and it’s models. Set you budget and look for the models within your budget limit. Select the variant e.g. petrol or diesel, sedan or SUV or boot model according to your requirement and sources. Selection of inappropriate model would create problems later. Apart from car’s price, set fuel budget as well, so go for a model after reviewing it’s running cost and maintenance cost.

Know and verify the seller’s reason of selling – Most of the sellers sell an old vehicle to switch to new model or category of vehicle but sometimes some sellers also sell the vehicle to get rid from it due to any technical fault in it. Some people cleverly sell a technically faulty or accidentally damaged vehicle.

Check car history – Very important aspect before making decision. Check age of the car, distance travelled, previous owners and original papers of the car. Average distance covered by a car is 12000 KM/Year for petrol and 15000 KM/Year for diesel vehicle. If the vehicle is exceeding very much in kilometers then more maintenance would be added in it’s future maintenance. Prefer not to but such vehicle unless it is available at a throwing price. Know about previous owner/s of the vehicle as it would conclude the conditions in which vehicle had been driven.

Evaluate the car condition – It’s very important to check external as well as internal condition the car to know it’s future performance. As mentioned above, a seller can trickily try to sell a technically faulty or accidentally damaged vehicle.
Have an exterior check of the vehicle condition which includes scratches, dents, suspension, tyre’s condition, rusting, chassis stability, match the engine and chassis number with the number mentioned on vehicle registration certificate. Closely inspect all door, windows and functionality of all electronic functions like power windows, wipers, power steering, indicators, lights stereo etc.

After exterior inspection inspect some interior parts of the vehicle, check the performance and appearance of the engine. Verify the all engine parts to be original and factory fitted. If repaired by existing user, verify the reason and time of the repair. Check clutch, air filters, brakes, plugs, wiring circuit, radiator, fan, battery, excel of the vehicle. Check for any leakage in fuel pipe, radiator pipes, clutch fluid pipe.

Test drive the vehicle – Drive the vehicle to check it’s smoothness, acceleration, fuel efficiency, ignition system. Pay attention to synchronization of engine, clutch, transmission of gears, brakes. Take some sharp curves to check it’s excel and steering performance. Check any unusual sound of vibration in engine panel.

Negotiating with the price – Now, after doing above checks of the vehicle let us finalize the deal by setting the final price to freeze the deal. See the current market price of the vehicle and the price of the vehicle when it was bought. Generally vehicle’s price is determined by make year and model of the vehicle, e.g., when a new model of any vehicle is launched, the resale value of the vehicle drops. Resale value also gets dropped for any discontinued model and market rumours or reviews about any vehicle or it’s manufacturer. Sometimes very old and discontinued vehicle is well maintained by it’s user, so there is no harm of paying the demanded price. Generally existing user sells a vehicle for switching to new model, going abroad or vehicle’s less usage, hence sometimes user wants to sell it at the earliest. In such cases good negotiation can be done with price but here I would like to say that, never miss to buy a vehicle in good conditions just for negotiation failing.

I hope by following above steps, your process of vehicle selection would become easy and you would enjoy driving a good vehicle for a long period.