When buying a second hand car, one must remember the shady Brit who is unlikely to care if the car he sells you may save your life on multiple occasions over the next few months. For the record he also doesn’t care if it’s dodgy brakes kill you on the Pamir Highway (see below).
I’d been warned about dodgy private sellers and dodgy used car dealers and even dodgier purchases, so much so that a friend had to go to court to get their money back because they were sold something un-driveable. So I didn’t really have high expectations, I also was unsure I could ever make a safe purchase. Even so, some of my shopping experiences include the following suggestions:
- If the engine makes a funny noise and the seller sprays some WD40 on it and says “that will fix it”, you should probably walk away.
- If you are crawling under a car to check for rust in anything that looks like an important joint (remember you don’t know anything about cars) and the guy offers to jack up the car and the car bends where he jacks it, you should probably walk away.
- If the car makes a funny noise when it turns and the guy says – “ah don’t worry about that, it’s just the drive shaft that needs replacing”, you should probably walk away.
- If the car has just been serviced and the radiator and radiator reservoir is empty but the car doesn’t overheat, this is not a mark of the excellent durability and the “bulletproof” nature of the car as suggested by the seller. The radiator is leaking. You should probably walk away.
Things I’ve learnt to check:
- Check the MOT history here it will tell you if it’s ever failed to be registered due to some sort of impending doom. Note: this will drastically lower the number of cars suitable and will break your spirit.
- Learn from the frequent failures on MOTs, look up what they are and how to look for it when checking your future steed before purchase. Each model tends to fail frequently on the same things.
- Do a HPI check here. Stolen cars are cool until you get all ready for the rally and it gets repossessed.
- Check the basics. Oil, coolant, general condition, milage, different coloured panels (suggests replaced). Look for leaky things, crawl under the car and look for anything that looks like it connects the wheels to the car or the car to the car – if it is motheaten with rust, said car will likely bend on jacking.
- Make sure they haven’t warmed it up before starting it. When they start it, check if it turns over easily, get them to start it and check the exhaust for purple smoke, listen for noises.
- Test drive it: Check acceleration, heavy braking, turn wheels to full lock and move to test for issues with the driveshaft, listen more for noises.
- Check out the seller, 90% chance he’s a dodgy bastard, avoid these people. Go with your gut and better judgement.
- Eventually buy a vehicle knowing you’ve likely missed it’s fatal flaw. It’s meant to be shit anyway.