Used Cars That Are Too Good To Be True!

I like everyone else in the world have had to buy a used car. We all want to buy our dream car at the price of what we have available for the purchase of our next car. That normally isn’t very possible. Then every now and then we see an ad in the paper for a real cheap car, just the model we are looking for! Can it really be that good of a deal?

Beware! Many times if a car is priced so low there is a reason for it. Many times that reason is because there is something wrong with the car! Most times, it has been in a serious accident and the insurance company declared it as being totaled. You don’t want to buy this car no matter how cheap it is. So how do we tell if this is a good deal or a lemon? Let’s examine further!

So, how do you tell if this car is a golden deal or a lemon? Well, the first thing that I would look at even before looking at the car is the title. If the car has been in a bad accident or if the mileage has been tampered with you can normally tell by looking at the title. If the seller won’t let you see the title, or if he can’t find it, then I would begin to become suspicious.

Another scenario is this one; they will have had a new title made for the car. Many times they say that the original title was lost and so they had to get a new one. Sometimes this may be true, but many times it is just an easy way to hide the information that was on the original title.

When I was younger and very ambitious to get a nice truck for a little amount of money I didn’t take the proper precautions and I got fooled! This particular truck supposedly had less than 100,000 miles on it. It was a good price but the truck was pretty dirty and used. I should have seen the warning signs, “dirty + used = over 100,000 miles” but I really wanted this truck and so I bought it.

I enjoyed it and it worked just fine for what I needed it to do. Two years time had passed and I was ready to sell it and get a sportier car. I listed the truck in the paper and hoped to get more then what I owed the bank. The first possible buyer really liked the truck and agreed to buy it. He took the VIN and told me he would bring a check within 2 days time. I was so excited!

Oh how quickly the story changed. Two hours later he called me back and informed me that he could no longer buy the truck. I was perplexed! He went on to tell me that he checked online and the vehicle with that VIN actually had over 100,000 miles. That’s right a mechanic registered it online when it was just about to turn 100,000 miles and now I was stuck with a car not even worth what I owed on it. The buyer was still interested to buy the truck but for half of the asking price!

What did I do? I lowered the price and told people that I wasn’t for sure about the miles. Basically “buyer be ware, and buy at your own risk”. I didn’t get nearly the money that I wanted for it and it took much longer to sell than I had wanted. Oh well, I learned a very important lesson that day, one that I will never forget!

If you are suspicious about the car that you are interested in buying check the VIN out online. It might cost you a small fee but it is well worth it. It might save you thousands of dollars in the future.

Let me leave you with this in mind, if a deal seems just to good to be true; it normally is! Unless the seller is someone you can trust and you are sure that the car is legit I would tread cautiously. Happy hunting! I hope that you find your dream car and enjoy it for many years to come.