Learn how to buy a car!

How to Buy A Second Hand Vehicle from Private Seller or Dealership

https://youtu.be/2V57Cl9QHTk

Closed Caption

Introduction

Hi there smart drivers.

Rick with Smart Drive Test talking to you today about how to buy a used vehicle.

And when you think of going out and buying a vehicle is this what you think of: [BUYING A CAR :: TRANSFORMERS]

"Son, I'm a lot of things. A liar's not one em'.Especially not in front of my Mammy."

Yes! Getting swindled at the sleazy car dealership.

Well today we're going to talk to you about some tips and techniques about getting the best car for your money.

Stick around, we'll be right back with that information.

[INTRO & UPBEAT MUSIC]

Hi there smart drivers.

Welcome back.

Rick with Smart Drive Test talking to you today about buying a used vehicle - a second hand vehicle and how to get the best value for your money.

And getting the car that you want.

Not settling for some car that you think is a good deal.

So we're going to give you some tips and techniques about how to do that and the first thing that I want to say about buying a used vehicle or any vehicle: know that the price is always negotiable.

Like a House, All Prices for Vehicles Are NEGOTIABLE

It's not the sticker price that's on the windshield.

Do not just pay that.

Actually barter and negotiate for a better price.

So that's we're going to talk about.

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Now as I said, all prices are negotiable for cars.

And you can negotiate.

And yes some of you are thinking, why don't I buy a new vehicle.

I know exactly what my car payment is going to be every month.

I'm going to get a bumper -o-bumper warranty that's going to be five years.

And yes that is an option for some of you if you can afford to purchase a new vehicle, however.

You Will Get A LOT More Vehicle For Less Money When Buying Second Hand

But I'm going to say to you that you're going to get a lot more vehicle for less money if you're willing to buy a vehicle that's a couple of years old; maybe even four years old.

Because oftentimes when you buy a second-hand vehicle or a used vehicle, it's got good tires on it.

It's got - some times it'll come with a set of winter tires or it'll come with a Thule (roof rack and cargo box) or other accessories for the vehicle.

New Tires for a Brand New Vehicle...after One Year

If you buy a brand new vehicle, one of the most prominent things that you're going to pay money for off the hop is, you're going to buy new tires twenty or thirty thousand kilometres, fifteen or twenty thousand miles down the road because the tires that they put on these new vehicles only last a short amount of time, and you're going to have to put new tires.

So you're going have to make an investment of about a thousand dollars on a brand new car within a year of owning that vehicle, which is very frustrating for a lot of people.

So if you buy a vehicle that's a couple-of-years old, four-years-old, you might even get some warranty left over on the vehicle.

As well, you're going to spend probably half of what you would for a new car.

So think about that in terms of purchasing a second-hand vehicle.

You're going to get a lot more vehicle for a lot less money.

First Vehicle I Ever Owned Was a Beater

Now the first time I bought a vehicle, a long time ago, a couple of decades ago, it was a 1971 half-ton GMC, with three-in-the-tree (column shift) manual transmission, and an inline-six motor under the hood.

It had a top speed of 85 miles an hour, about 145 kilometers an hour.

And it was what we call in this day and age, a beater.

And for some of you who are young you just got your license this is unfortunately what you're going to be looking for.

You're going to be looking for a beater that's going to be a few hundred dollars.

And you know, try and get the best vehicle that you can.

There are still beaters out there, and you still can buy vehicles for less than a thousand dollars.

But it's not going to last you more than a couple of years.

And it's not going to be very much fun to drive.

So know that in terms of your first vehicle.

And my second vehicle wasn't much better than that: it was a 1975 Honda Civic as you can see here in the image.

And it had a four-speed manual transmission in it and it only lasted about a year before the timing belt went in it.

And I sold it to a wrecker for $50, which was kind of frustrating because I put a new windshield in it and the windshield was $50, and they only gave me $50 for the whole car when I got them to pull it off the side of the road.

So these are some of the experiences you're going to have when you're buying a car.

Now if you have help from your parents or family or friends, that's going to be a lot easier for you.

Do Your Research

Now the first thing you need to figure out is how much money do I have.

Okay how much money do I have? What kind of a car can I afford? So you're going to need to do a little bit of research and go on the internet and figure out what cars are available for the price range in which you're in.

If you're in the less than a thousand dollars, it's going to be probably a twenty-year-old vehicle.

And try and find something that's going to be reliable.

And the internet will give you that information.

Research Online

If you just type in the vehicle that you're looking for.

The place to get started is either eBay or the Auto Trader here in North America.

Those are going to be your two places to get started in terms of finding out what vehicles are available, how much these are worth.

As well, you can do some research on the internet and find out the reliability of the cars.

People will give you reports of whether the car is reliable, it lasts a long time, certain things go wrong after a while and those types of things.

So Carfax, Blue Book value, and Auto Trader, and eBay, Craigslist and local classifieds.

Those are the places that you're going to need to go to start doing your research on your vehicle to figure out what kind of vehicle you can get and how much money you're going to spend on that vehicle.

So for some of you, buying a vehicle is not going to be your first vehicle.

You're going to have to buy a replacement vehicle.

Replacement Vehicle

And some years ago, I had a friend of mine who crashed her vehicle and the insurance company wrote it off.

So we had to find her a new vehicle.

And interestingly enough, we had lent her our second vehicle to drive around so that she had some transportation.

And she came back some time later--and she wasn't very good at buying vehicles and those types of things--and she said she'd found a vehicle.

So we went down to look at it.

It was at the Honda dealership there in Kelowna, BC, Canada.

And it was a Toyota Corolla.

Friends don't let friends drive beige-on-beige vehicles.

It was beige-on-beige.

It had a beige interior and beige outside [LAUGHING].

How to Buy a Used Car From a Dealer

And in my mind, they were asking way too much for it.

I think they wanted thirteen thousand five hundred dollars for it, and I thought it was only worth about nine thousand dollars.

First of all, I knew that this was not the car that she wanted.

She was embarrassed that she got into a crash, she was embarrassed that she was driving our vehicle, and wanted to give it back to us as soon as possible.

So I said to her, I said listen this is not the vehicle you want.

We're going to offer them a low price.

And so when you go into a dealership, what they do is you go in with the salesperson into his or her office.

You make an offer.

And then they get up and they go and talk to the manager.

And they come back to say yes or no.

And so this all went down, the salesperson is behind the desk and we said $9,000.

The salesperson said, I'll have to go and talk to my manager.

So he left the room, and I said to my wife and my second mom who was buying the car.

And I said to her, he's not going to take it, so we're just going to leave.

So he came back.

And of course he didn't take the deal.

And we just left.

And I just said okay fine.

Finding the Vehicle That You Want.

Don't Settle

So I asked her after: what kind of car do you want? She said, well I want a blue car.

That was it! She just wanted a blue car.

So I looked around on the internet for a reliable car and I found a Honda Civic that wasn't too far away.

It was in her price range, and it was blue and it was an automatic transmission.

It was a good car.

So I went down and it was at the dealership in Penticton, BC, Canada.

I drove down there and had a look at it.

I went through the whole vehicle, did a pre-trip inspection.

What to Look For When Buying A Used Car

And this is one of the other things you want to do, is do a pre-trip inspection on the vehicle.

And I'll put a card up in the corner here for you on the pre-trip inspection and how to do that and make sure that everything's working, and make sure it's been detailed properly.

What had happened with the Honda Civic, the blue Honda Civic that I had found, was that it had been owned by a single mom.

She had a couple of kids, and when they detailed the car at the dealership they hadn't cleaned in behind the rear seats.

So I was able to negotiate with the dealership for a couple hundred dollars off the price because it hadn't been detailed.

How to Buy a Car From a Dealer

Now a couple other points about going to dealerships.

Know that there's going to be additional costs in addition to the vehicle's price itself.

They're going to charge you for processing paperwork and those types of things.

And in my experience, that's about five hundred dollars at dealerships.

So there are all kind of bonus things that dealerships charge for.

And you know, I try not to adhere to conspiracy, but it tends to be a bit of conspiracy that they have all these administrative costs.

So know that those can be negotiated in terms of the price that you're going to pay for the vehicle.

At dealerships, you're going to deal with sales people, you're going to deal with managers, you're going to deal with finance departments, and those types of things.

Car Buying Tips to Get the Best Deal from a Dealer

And one other point - some years ago I had a friend of mine--a really close family friend.

His wife had passed away, and as part of her passing away, there was insurance money that came.

And she was going to donate a portion of this money to the summer camp that her kids went to.

So he had asked the summer camp what they needed.

And they needed a truck.

So he called me.

I was in Kelowna at the time.

And he was looking at a truck there.

And he asked me to go down and test drive the vehicle.

And I went down and test drove it.

And it was an old Chevy with a flat deck on it.

And I said, no this really isn't what they need.

So I started looking around Kelowna for vehicles.

And I found these pickup trucks that were just straight cab pickup trucks, which is something that's really difficult to find.

Today most of them are going to be crew cabs and there going to have another set of doors and seats behind the driver's seat.

And it was spring and in the picture it was wintertime.

So I called and I said, do you still have these vehicles.

Well it turned out that they were Ford trucks at the Chrysler dealership.

And what had happened was that somehow the Chrysler dealership was responsible for leasing to Telus, which is one of the big phone companies here in Canada.

And they said, yeah we still have a bunch of them.

So I went down and looked at them.

And the salesperson was really good.

He went out and he picked the best one out for me.

Domestic vs. Import Dealerships

And you know, up until this juncture I hadn't dealt a whole lot with domestic vehicles--you know Dodge, Ford and Chevrolet--General Motors rather.

I'd been dealing mostly with imports - Honda and Toyota.

And I went in, we took the truck for a drive.

We decided that yes, we're going to buy it.

And we started negotiating the price.

And I sort of went $5,000 below price.

They were asking twenty thousand.

I said fifteen thousand.

And they were like yeah.

They didn't even balk at the price.

And when that happens, and you're negotiating prices, you're thinking:

"oh I should have started at ten thousand instead of five thousand lower."

So know that in terms of negotiation.

And of course, there was the paperwork fee and those types of things.

And they agreed, and by the time we got done, I think it was about fourteen thousand, five hundred, everything in for the vehicle.

And it was a fairly decent vehicle that we got for the summer camp.

It was a leased vehicle and it was fairly good.

So make sure that you do a pre-trip inspection, you take the vehicle for a drive,and drive it fairly aggressively if you buy it from a dealership and those types of things.

And as well, when you do buy it from a dealership, know that once you pay the price, it's very difficult to get anything else out of them once you have finalized and actually paid them the money.

Buying the "Famous Buggy."

Now the final story that I'll tell you is the buggy (1998 Honda CRV).

I bought the buggy about four years ago.

And I bought it privately.

And the person that I purchased it from - the seller that I purchased it from wanted $4,500 originally.

And it wasn't worth $4,500.

I had done my research on the internet.

I'd driven the vehicle before because I had another Honda CRV of a similar vintage previously.

And I felt he wanted too much money.

So I only wanted to pay him about $3,500, but he had a set of winter tires and what not with it.

And I took it for a drive.

It was a good vehicle.

It has been good vehicle for the last four years.

It's got three hundred and twenty five thousand kilometers - two hundred thousand miles on it now.

So it's been a good vehicle.

But unfortunately, what had happened was that he had smoked in it.

And it still smelled of smoke, even though he had tried to detail it.

How to Get Smoke Smell Out of Car

And you can get smoke smell out of cars if sellers have smoked in the car.

Use a lot of vinegar and get one of those aerosol bombs from your local auto parts shop and let one of those off in there.

And put dryer sheets under the seats and leave in the vehicle permanently.

And that'll get rid of the smoke smell for you.

So you need to do a bit of work.

So if somebody smoked in the vehicle, you can get a really good price on the vehicle because they're going to have a hard time selling it.

As well, my vehicle is a manual transmission for those of you who have watched other videos.

It was a really good negotiating point (smoking).

And after talking to him for a while and just saying to him, no I don't want to pay this much for it.

And we went over and looked at the winter tires, and those types of things.

And I said listen, I'm going to have to put new tires on it because the tires--the all-season tires on it--weren't very good.

So finally in the end after negotiating, after bartering and telling him that I was only going to pay thirty five hundred dollars.

And I paid him $3,500 cash.

He accepted thirty five hundred dollars cash because that's what I had in my pocket at the time.

And that's what I was willing to pay for the vehicle.

How to Buy A Second Hand Vehicle From a Dealer :: Life Hack

So last point on terms of cash.

If you're going to a private seller, cash is going to work for you and it's going to give you some leverage in terms of getting a better price on the vehicle.

If you go to a dealership, cash is not going to work for you.

Don't let on to the dealership that you're going to pay cash for the vehicle.

Let on that you're going to take financing, because dealerships get a kickback, they make money from the financing.

So know that.

So don't let on that you're going to pay cash for it.

Let on that you're going to finance the vehicle if you go to a dealership.

And also, dealerships are going to have warranties and those types of things that you could also consider in terms of purchasing a vehicle.

So those are a few ideas and tips and techniques that you can use in terms of purchasing a vehicle.

What kind of vehicle do you want?

Don't Settle?

Do your research, figure out what kind of vehicle you want.

If you want a blue car, then buy a blue car, if you want an orange car, buy an orange car.

Because there are tons and tons of vehicles on the market, And if you do a little bit of work you're going to be able to get the vehicle that you want.

And know this is going to be your second largest purchase next to buying a house.

So spend a bit of time and get the vehicle that you want.

And know that you're going to get more vehicle for probably half the cost of what you would pay for a new one.

So in this day-and-age, considering a second-hand vehicle is really an option that you can consider in terms of getting a vehicle that you really want and want to drive every day.

And you know, spend a considerable amount of time in.

Question for my smart drivers:

Do you have any tips or techniques for new drivers--smart drivers--who are looking to purchase a vehicle and get the best value for their money.

Leave a comment down in the comment section there.

All of that helps us out.

I'm Rick with Smart Drive Test.

Thanks very much for watching.

Good luck on your road test.

And remember, pick the best answer not necessarily the right answer.

Have a great day.

Bye now.