What to look for when buying a used vehicle

We are looking to buy a used car for my daughter, What things do you think we should look for when checking out vehicles? I expect anything in the price range to 100k plus miles.

 

What type of vehicle are you looking at? Also what price range?

Its soon time for my daughters first car. Probably get her a subaru of some kinda. Safe, reliable, and cheap.

 

Looking at Yots, VWs or Subbies. The Subarus seem to be a bit more pricey. Hoping to be in the 6k range. But in New England we need to watch for Rust. At this point we are going to start going and looking at vehicles.

 

Yep, same rust issues down here in pa. For the 6k range, id look at Honda crv awd. I've always have good luck with used hondas.

 

VWs during the drive pay close attention to how they are shifting. VWs (Jettas and Golfs mainly) will be notorious for hard shifting. Had a Jetta and have known a few Jetta and Golf owners that had the messed up shift points and clunky shifting. Can't chime on subbies, since i was scared of the xverse engines. LOL.

 

Maintenance records, and an independent mechanic inspection. One driver non smoker doesn’t hurt!

 

Make sure it's not a Jeep product.

 

A co-worker of mine's daughter bought a used Subaru back in May. She recently had it in for service, the shop she took it to refused to put it on the lift because the corrosion underneath was so bad. They advised her it was unsafe to drive and that she should replace it immediately. The reason why it was in the shop in the first place was because the transmission was acting up. Subaru's also require timing belt changes, and have a habit of going through head gaskets. Personally, I wouldn't touch a used Subaru with a 10-ft pole.

I would shop used Volvo's any day before I looked at used Subies.. My '07 Volvo has been surprisingly trouble free, and with zero rust prevention measures on my part, it looks way nicer underneath than my 4Runner.

I also wouldn't want anything to do with a used Volkswagen. My brother has a Jetta wagon that's a few years newer with half the miles of my Volvo, and the thing is complete garbage. It's literally falling apart. He's currently car shopping, because they're expecting and his wife refuses to let the new baby ride in it, and I don't blame her.

I would say if this is a car for a kid, Toyota or Honda, that's it.

 

I will add that we bought my daughter a used 2005 Hyundai Tucson and it had been trouble free for 14 years of ownership. Maintenance got her through those years and she replaced it with a ‘21 Tucson a couple of months ago. As was said, inspection by your own personal, trusted mechanic. The shop that’s going to work on it for the next few years. I would also look at the safety ratings here https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings . It’s really a balance of many things, but safety is always going to be first for me.

 

I’d like to like this twice.

We currently have a 2011 Subaru Outback, had since new, only major operation was a clutch after my son was learning, at 80k, and now pushing 100k. My complainant would be I feel like it chews up brakes, but I believe that could have been user abuse.

I have 2 Volvo stories, my first car was a 240DL, don’t remember the year but it was handed down to me in 90/91 from my dad who bought it used. At some point late 91, early 92 it started to not work. It would spit and sputter and jerk back and forth. My uncle who owned a 4 bay garage for as long as I could remember, and a guy who owned and worked on Volvos all his life both tried to figure out what was happening. On more than one occasion it bucked and jerked as it was being driven into the garage bay, but once in their you could roast the tires, like nothing was wrong. Mystery oil did seem to help some, but in the end it seemed like the issue would go away on its own then come back once in a while. Until June of 92, day I graduated and driving down the road the rear end blew.
2nd Volvo story, a coworker just bought a used Volvo last fall, they have been driving a loaner for the last month, as they can't figure out why it keep running like shit.

 

I generally look at where it came from (I only buy southern vehicles), if it has any reported accidents (they are never fixed as good as they should be), how many owners or was it a previous rental car (rode hard and put up wet). If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is (it probably has more problems then the dealer, previous owner, and you want to deal with). I'd also push to get any and all service records as well.

 

When you live in Maine, southern vehicles are hard to come by. I am trying to stay away from cars close to Boston and other "Cities" as I would rather have rural road or highway miles. It crazy how many scams I have already seen.

 

login to toyota owners . com & create an account. You can type the vin in of any toyota & you should be able to read the maintenance reviews

 

Great thought, I had not thought of that.

 

My wife still has her 2002 Subaru WRX and it’s got about 170,000. Never did anything to it but scheduled and regular maintenance. It doesn’t look like new but it still drives as good as new. Subaru switched over to cvt transmissions and I’ve read about a lot problems with them. Not sure what year but look into that.The newer ones are supposed to be better but I just traded in my 2016 Murano because the cvt started making noise at 78,000 miles and they ain’t cheap to replace. Never again will I buy a vehicle with a cvt transmission. At $6,000 dollars you may find the crossover line where some will be cvt transmissions. A previous poster mentioned Honda and CRV or civics. Those are pretty good options as well. Nearly anything Toyota is good as but you knew that. Good luck. I dread car shopping because it involves talking to car salesman. Nearly none of them know anything about the products they sell and are usually just warm bodies to get you to the manager anyway.

 

From google
Since the 2014 model year, the conventional automatic transmissions in North American-spec Subaru vehicles have been replaced with Lineartronic CVTs (with one exception as the BRZ).

What years did Subaru have CVT transmission problems?
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SUMMARY: Subaru Corporation is offering consumers an extended warranty on the continuously variable transmission (CVT) on approximately 1.5 million vehicles after concerns were raised about transmission problems that may cause the vehicle to stall on model year 2012-2017 vehicles.

 

That was SUPER helpful. Thank you! I got all the records on both of my 4runners now. I discovered both are due for plugs and transmission fluid.

 

https://www.chris-fix.com/upload/How%20to%20Inspect%20a%20Used%20Car%20Checklist%20%20FULL.pdf

Found this list this morning, I have been thinking about making my own, so this is a good start.

 

A well cared for Camry would be a safe purchase.

 

found this today:

Car Buying Questions & Tips.pdf

and this
https://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2012/06/tips-for-buying-a-high-mileage-used-car.html