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Step 7.2 Questions to ask when buying a used car

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These are some of the questions to ask before buying a used car. Some of these questions are taken out of our questionnaire we mentioned in Step 1.

1. What is your monthly budget for a car?

If the monthly budget is low, consider a cheap used car below $10,000. If budget is not the concern and you are willing to pay anything to get the car you want, you may reconsider buying a new one rather than used.

2. How many miles you will drive it in a year?

A used car could not perform better than a new one if you are going to put a lot of mileage on it. If you are putting more than 30,000 miles a month, used car may not be practical.

3. Are you familiar with car maintenance?

If you are not, you could probably end up spending more money to maintain it.

Besides questions to for you, these are the questions you should ask the sellers or dealers when buying a used car.

1. How many miles are on the odometer?

This question should be asked through phone before you meet up with the seller and view the car. You will get a straight-forward answer and determine the market value based on the mileage. You can save the time to view the car if the mileage is too high. 

2. How many people own this car before?

The best used car is always single owner. Lesser is better. Compare with the vehicle history report on your hand and see if the seller is telling the truth.

3. Why you sell it off?

There are many people restore wrecked car and resell them of as hobby to make some profit. Some smart sellers will find thousands of good reasons to cover the true but the explanations from seller could help you judge the car accordingly. This is what you may hear:

“My wife doesn’t like this car.”
“I bought this for my son but he entered colleague and I no longer need it.”
“I bought a new car.”
“My company had just given me a car.”

4. Is the car involved in any accidents before?
Honest seller will tell you this. Dishonest seller will never tell you this but the information can be found in vehicle history report or through inspection.

5. What is not so good about the car?
No used car is perfect. This question is to test if the seller is honest. At least you may expect to hear something like

“The spare parts are expensive.”
“Fuel consumption is high.”
or
“Everything in this car works perfect!”
“I am satisfied with this car.”

6. What is the fuel consumption?
The number from the seller is based on what he experienced. It could be different with what you get from car review websites.

7. When was the last time you service the car?
If the previous owner maintained the car well, there must be a stack of receipts or service record.

8. Can I test drive it on speedway?

In step 7.1 Inspect a used car before buying it, we mentioned that many bad symptoms will revealed when a car reaches 60 mph. Request to test drive the car on speedway or expressway. You could never, ever buy a used car without test drive it. It is odd if a seller do not allow a genuine buyer to test drive.

9. Is there anything not working?

Air-conditioning, stereo, windscreen heater, signals, power windows or anything could not be working after a few years. No one understands the car more than the drivers.

10. What is the best price?

This is the last and also the key question to get the best deal. Get the best price from the seller and negotiate from there. There should be room in between the best price from seller and the actual best selling price. A penny saved is a penny earned.

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