Attention, car buyers!
TGriffith of Car Gurus has come to your assistance again with more information to make you better prepared to step onto the dealership lot.
Last week, the Car Gurus blog published Confessions of a Loose-lipped Used Car Salesman. I like the title, but I hope they didn’t beat the confession out of the guy with some kind of third degree. (Unless he’s also the guy who sold me my old Toyota: him, you could torture all you want.)
Read the article and you’ll hear frankly honest information from Larry (not his real name?), a used car salesman who admittedly cares more about commissions than cars.
His insights will make you better informed when it comes time to buy your next car. And, as someone once said, knowing is half the battle.
— Wes Williams
The Car Gurus blog continues to be a gold mine of car buying information.
On October 21, J Goods gave us Used Car Market Hotter Than Ever, which warns that buying new may make a better deal than buying a used car. With increased demand for certified pre-owned vehicles, their re-sale prices are up. The article is full of useful links, if you want to dig more deeply into this subject.
5 days later, Car Gurus dealt with other side of used car sales with How to Sell Your Car in Three Easy Steps. T Griffith gives advice on getting the best price for your used car by making your car look its best and advertising it in the right places. After all, the earlier article says that used car prices are up in general: there’s no reason you shouldn’t profit from the market.
He’s also asking for people to add their own stories of selling a car. If you’ve got an interesting story to tell – and can help someone else learn from your experiences – visit the Car Gurus and share your story.
More good car buying advice from T Griffith at Car Gurus blog. This time he discusses finding a good buy on a used car that comes with a transferable warranty.
In the present economy, buying a used car in good condition can be a much better long-term value than a new vehicle, and there are certainly a large number of pre-owned vehicles available.
And any used car becomes a better deal when it comes with an extended warranty and service contract than can be transferred to the new owner. This article will help you to find such a deal.
More car buying advice from The Car Gurus Blog.
T Griffith gave us Are Salvaged Cars Worth Considering?, discussing the various to be made for and against buying a car salvaged after some serious damage as your next used car. (Here’s a preview: a lot depends on what kind of damage we’re talking about here.)
In Buying Used: Let Someone Else Take the Depreciation Hit, J Goods points you to information from Consumer Reports about which used cars make the best deals when you take depreciation as a major factor.
The College Driver, which calls itself “an automotive resource site that provides news, reviews, and advice to college students from a college students perspective,” has offered up some good advice to prospective car buyers.
Their article 5 Used Car Shopping Tips for College Students by Corey Mack delivers just what the title promises: tips to help college students find and negotiate for a used car while avoiding the common pitfalls. It’s a good a starting point for buying a used car without coming to regret it.
Just a couple of days later, The College Driver continued the good advice with Zeid Nasser‘s Tips for First Time College Car Buyers. Though a bit more superficial and shorter on hard advice than the first article, it does serve to point out to first time car buyers some to the things that they may not have considered before making a purchase.
(Nasser’s article refers to gasoline as “petrol,” too, but considering that it’s sponsored by Teletextcars.co.uk, I guess that’s understandable.)
J Goods at the Car Gurus Blog continues his series of articles offering insight and advice for car buyers.
This time he discussed the realities of buying a certified pre-owned vehicle: “Like everything else in buying a used car, CPOs are problematic—valuable for some, too expensive for others, and a big unknown for still others.”
Check it out if you’re considering a certified pre-owned vehicle for your next car. When you sit down with a car salesman, the more you know, the better.
Anybody considering buying a new car? The Auto Insurance.com has an interesting chart that points out the obvious and perhaps not-so-obvious costs of some of the 2010 new cars.
It also compares the cost of the car new with its projected re-sale value in five years, but don’t look at that part: it’ll break your heart.
Over at Car Talk.com, Jim Motavalli is waxing nostalgic about the dream cars that got away, the ones he had a shot at getting but for some reason didn’t, from the flashy sports cars to the classiest of classics.
And the Car Talk guys are inviting people to tell their own stories.
Check out the conversation and add your story about your missed opportunity.
For a lot of people, buying a used car makes more sense than buying a new one right now.
And Car Gurus has continued its series of articles on buying a car with How to Buy a Used Sports Car — and Avoid Pain of Purchase. Writer J Goods gives more of his excellent advice on various aspects of used car purchase, from pre-inspection to signing on the dotted line. Check it out.
Other articles for car buyers:
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The good people at Car Gurus (as opposed to the good gurus at Car People) have more good advice about those thinking of buying a used car.
In “How to Expose Hidden Problems in Used Cars,” the knowledgeable T Griffith tells us what to look for — and listen for and feel for and smell for — in a used car before handing over the money.
With the economy hitting so many people so hard, there are lots of good pre-owned vehicles offered up for sale so getting a good car at a good price is possible.
But there are also a lot of desperate people trying to push what Griffith calls “driveway-bound sheet metal” to make a quick buck. “Let the buyer beware” is more true than ever nowadays, and this article will help you do that.
Just last week, we posted Dealing with the Dealership, spotlighting two articles by J Goods at CarGurus.com about how best to deal with salespeople when negotiating your next auto purchase.
Well, that same day, The National Motorist Association posted another article along the same lines. Their columnist Eric Peters gives some excellent advice in his article “Should You Trade In Your Car Or Sell It Yourself?”
Whether to trade the old car in or sell it privately is a decision that many of us face at some point. Peters does a great job of breaking these two options down to their basics and pointing out the common pitfalls in both of them, so that you’re better prepared to avoid falling into them.
Peters even gives specific information on finding a fair price for your car and a step-by-step guide to selling your car yourself so the whole process can go more smoothly.
J Goods at CarGurus.com has given us more useful advice on dealing with car salesmen in today’s article Dealing with Car Dealers: Pros, Cons, Tips, Tactics. This time he’s giving us tips on how we can make the trade-in and purchase process work for us: trading in or selling privately, checking out factory rebates and incentive programs, etc.
This is a nice follow-up to his article from a week ago, Car Dealerships: The Inside Story, when he told us about the process from the salesman’s point of view. Actually, the author summed the article up pretty well himself: “learn how and why dealers operate as they do before you can negotiate a successful transaction.”
If you’re in the market to buy a car anytime soon — and now would seem a great time to do it, if you’ve got the money — check these articles out.
