Car Buying Help First Time Buyer

[Anonymous]

I've never bought a car before.  I'm interested in used cars with only one previous owner as I'm looking.  Maybe three to four years max on how old it is.

My question was, is it usually best to buy a used car from a regular dealer like one who also sells brand new cars as opposed to a random only used car dealer?  They just look a little more legit.  I guess I'm just trying not to buy a lemon.  lol

I don't have any family to bring with me for advice so I wanted to ask on here.

thanks

[Anonymous]

If you are looking for a late model used Toyota, it would be best to look at a Toyota dealer.  They would be more interested in keeping a good one to sell.  They might have one that was sold new there and traded back in on another new one.  Some people trade often, or return leases after 24 months, etc.

A used Toyota that is sold at another dealer, say a Ford dealer, is just another piece of inventory to sell for profit.

I used Toyota as an example only, no endorsement.

A lot of people like buying what is called a CPO car.  That would be a Certified Pre Owned car.  That would be a car from the same dealer (Toyota from a Toyota dealer, etc) that would be inspected and under warranty from the original factory.  Those cars have to be under a certain mileage, no wrecks no damage, one owner, and then under warranty for a specified number of years and mileage.   That does add to the price of a car but certainly gives the buyer more confidence in the purchase.  I would expect a CPO warranty to add at least 1500 to 2k to a car.  The different warranty programs have different features, but some would add an additional 4 years and up to 100k miles to the original factory warranty.  So a car that was sold new in 2013 with 45k miles now would be under warranty for an additional 4 years and up to 145k miles.

I would suggest that you look at websites from the manufacturers and look under CPO used cars and read the terms.  Many of them allow you to search the inventory and it might be possible to find a CPO car in a nearby city and purchase it from your local dealer, not sure though.   

Just suggestions, hope that helps

 ETA: Just noticed you are new here - Welcome to the myFico forums!

[Anonymous]

Welcome, my first tip is to join a credit union and get preapproved for a loan.  This helps simplify the purchase greatly, gives you the option to buy from anyone, private party or dealer.  Cars these days are really tremendously reliable compared to just a 15 or so years ago.  I buy used cars most of the time and I focus closely on condition versus miles or year.  I have seen two year old cars with 25,000 mile on them that are in rougher shape than cars twice as old with three times the miles. My point is you can tell a great deal about how a car has been cared for by condition.  Used car values can be researched on Edumunds.com and KBB.com both provide a pretty good sense of what is the proper market value.  Buying from a private party can be a good way to go, you can meet the owner, examine their maint. records and save some money versus the dealership. Some folks are big proponents of buying extended warranties and will tell stories of the time the warranty saved their pal a fortune but we all know that most folks will never or barely use a warranty so you have to determine for yourself what your risk tolerance is.  Rather than spending 2k on a warranty I keep a few bucks in savings and have a credit card should I have a repair and that has worked fine for me.  With modern cars these days they are pretty darn solid for the first 100k mile or more, heck I have 200k on my BMW and it is still going strong and it is an 06.   Certified pre owned can be a good way to go because they come with some piece of mind and if you have the scores you can qualify for special finance rates often.  Remember that dealers have all kinds of tricks to add extras in the finance office so be willing to say no unless you want to add 2k to the price of the car (average that they make in that office per car), they also mark up the APR to get a kickback from the finance company so that is why you want a prequalifed loan from a credit union in hand, if they can beat it great but if not you have piece of mind that your not getting ripped off on financing.  DCU is a popular credit union here for car loans.