DT Special Feature: How to Buy a Used Car

We at the Daily Turismo would like to introduce a few feature articles that may be of interest to our readers, starting with this article on How to Buy a Used Car.  Buying a used car is not a simple process like reading the reviews in Primedia owned print magazines regarding your next new car and making a decision based on the results of comparisons that are in turn based on advertising dollars….  Buying a used car is a much more complex process that involves searching websites, dodging scammers on the web, liars on the phone and cannibals in person.  But we’ve broken the basic requirement in 6 steps as follows:

Step 1:  Research: Know why you want what you want.

This feature will focus on your pre-search research that everyone should do – including understanding what options, availability, and specs are for you car – we will point you to the best websites and best people to call (yes – there are people who will pickup the phone and explain to you why you shouldn’t buy a particular SAAB…or any SAAB for that matter…)

Step 2: The Hunt: Searching for your next ride.

We give you some tips on finding a good example of the car you are searching for…obviously you can wait for it to appear on the Daily Turismo – but you have tons of other options to finding that AMC based BatMobile you’ve always wanted. 

Step 3:  First Contact:  How to screen potential cars via web/phone/email

Now that you’ve found 50 versions of the car you are looking for you need to narrow them down to a few that you want to contact, test drive etc – we give the tips on how to weed out the junk and how to approach a seller.  We also give you to ability to understand what kind of seller you are dealing with and how likely they are to tell the truth.

Step 4:  Test Drive:  How to inspect a car in person (or by remote PPI) and how not to be taken for a ride on the first date.

We give you the goods on what to do when you take a look at the car you are buying — including key items you always want to check and a detailed checklist of other things you need to look at.

Step 5:  The Art of War: How to negotiate and get what you want without getting eaten.

Okay – you found the car you want and now you want to buy it – we give you some advice on buying a car via the old fashioned face-to-face method or via the newfangled ‘the ebay’ internet based auction house and how to avoid getting hosed.   Mostly we try to give you hints on how to avoid lunatics who have posted craiglist ads to lure you into their trailer parks so that they can kill, gut, cook and eat you….

Step 6:  Homestretch:  First things to do with a new car and how to avoid common pitfalls.

Now that you’ve bought that 1973 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham edition you’ve always wanted we give you some tips on how to get proper insurance for a unique classic and how to quickly find the relevant information about preventive maintenance and other things you want to do with your new ride.

DT will create a detailed article for each one of those steps in the next few weeks and publish each one as they are finished – and we invite commenters to add helpful information in the comments.  If the comments are helpful or hilarious we will add them to the general text of the article.  This article will be a permalink on the main page menu bar for future reference.

So many Volkswagens to chose from…

If you have an idea for a DT Special Feature and you’d like to contribute: please email us here:  mail@dailyturismo.com