How to properly evaluate a used car – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

The pros and cons of buying a used car, how to simplify the selection and evaluation of a car – in the material “Kommersant”.

Buying a used car is one of the most popular ways to purchase a vehicle. The secondary car market in Russia is developed and offers buyers much more affordable options than official dealers. Used cars have become even more relevant after a sharp price increase since February 2022.

Pros and cons of buying a used car

pros

• Lower price compared to buying a car from authorized dealers. Leaving the salon, the car loses 10% of its value, and buying a car aged 2-3 years, you can count on a reduction of up to 20% of the original price.
• No need to install additional equipment. Most likely, an alarm, a radio tape recorder, and if you’re lucky, the previous owner of the car already bought the tires and you will get all this along with the purchase.
• The ability to immediately use the transport “at full capacity.” It is recommended to drive the first 2-3 thousand km on a new car in a “sparing mode”, without overloading the engine and other parts of the car. Used cars do not have this disadvantage.
• Opportunity to bargain with the seller. If you have no chance at an authorized dealer to reduce the cost of a car, then owners of used vehicles often set the price taking into account future bargaining. If during the inspection you notice minor damage or lack of equipment, this will be an occasion to bargain and reduce the cost.
• Opportunity to purchase a higher class car for the same price.

Minuses

• Fraudsters and unscrupulous sellers. Some used car dealers prefer to hide the history of accidents and damages, as well as twist the mileage to make it appear to the buyer that the vehicle has been used much less. This threatens with serious malfunctions, which you will be forced to correct at your own expense.
• No warranty. By the time of purchase, the warranty from the dealer, most likely, has ceased to be valid, and therefore, in the event of an accident or a malfunction, you will have to repair the car at your own expense or rely on insurance payments.
• The technical condition of the car. Like it or not, a used car has already been used by another person and will not fall into your hands perfect. Chips, scratches, cracks, stains in the cabin will almost certainly be in the car.
• legal problems. Used cars and their owners must be carefully checked to avoid legal problems if the seller is wanted or used as collateral in the bank.

How to buy a used car

Unfortunately, buying a used vehicle is a lottery, even the most experienced auto expert cannot 100% guarantee that no hidden defect will be found in a few months without a complete analysis of the car. Nevertheless, it is possible to avoid most of the problems with the selection of a used car.

one. Selecting a car model. The most important criteria here are the cost of the car, its operation (gasoline prices, fuel consumption, the price of repairs, parts, prices for technical inspections, etc.), as well as the demand for this car on the market, because in a few years you will already be his sell. Get serious about planning your budget so that after the purchase you don’t realize that you can’t afford the car.

2. Selecting an offer from a seller. The average service life of a vehicle, after which the owners sell it, is 2–3 years in Moscow and 5–6 years in other cities of Russia (we are talking about the most popular car models, not highly specialized ones). With careful operation without serious accidents and high (more than 50 thousand km per year) mileage, the car will not have time to wear out, and there will be no high costs for technical support and future repairs. To search for options, you can use popular Internet sites such as Auto.ru, Avito, Car.ru, Drom.ru, etc., or use the services of an authorized dealer selling used cars. In this case, there will be much less risks, because dealers value their reputation, but the price will also be higher.

3. Legal check of the car. After choosing the model of interest and selecting the main options, you need to check the car by the VIN code (indicated in the vehicle registration certificate or on the vehicle itself) on the traffic police website in order to find out about all registered accidents in which the transport was involved and on the website of the Federal Notary Chamber, to find out if the car is used as collateral in the bank. If you buy a mortgaged car, the bank will be able to withdraw it from you in case of non-payment of debts by the previous owner. You can also use the website of the bailiffs to find out about the initiation of cases against the previous owners of vehicles.

four. Checking the technical condition of the car. The most difficult thing is to determine the health of the vehicle. There is only one universal solution here – to agree with the seller on checking the car in a service to determine faults. Such a check costs money, but it will allow you to avoid most of the problems associated with the action of fraudsters, twisting the car’s mileage, masking electronic errors and defects in the body and mechanisms. Before you go to the service, you can determine some of the malfunctions yourself if the seller did not do it himself at your request. First of all, it is necessary to inspect the body, whether there are cracks, scratches or chips, places where putty or paint is visible. Start the car, carefully listen to the engine, if there are any extraneous sounds, tapping. Be sure to pay attention to the condition of the tires, the degree of wear. It is also worth checking the VIN codes, the location of which needs to be clarified for a specific car model and compare them with the number on the vehicle registration certificate.

5. Bargain. Both parties are interested in the deal, and therefore it will be useful to try to reduce the initial cost of the car. Use as arguments external and internal defects that will have to be repaired in the future or the absence of any parts. Chances are you’ll be able to save some money.

6. Registration of documents. Before concluding a contract for the sale of a car, it is worth checking the owner and the car again on the traffic police websites or using the special CheckPerson service, which will show information about debts, wanted and a person’s passport. After completing the contract, which must contain valid passport details parties, amount, vehicle characteristics, vehicle registration data and vehicle passport. After the conclusion of the contract, you have ten days to register the car with the traffic police.

How to make choosing a car easier

If all of the above seems too complicated or you are afraid to make a mistake and get a car with critical malfunctions, use the services autopick services. They professionally search for ads, contact the seller and check the car using special equipment. Moreover, conscientious pickers give a guarantee for their services. If the car is still with malfunctions, they will pick up a new one for you or return the money.

The search for an auto-selection service must also be taken responsibly. The average cost of selecting a car for personal requests is about 30–40 thousand rubles.

Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Behind the wheel”:

There are two aspects to this topic. The first is the market. Always, and especially now, there is some turbulence in sales, and it is obvious, for example, that in March-April, 90% of sellers overestimated prices relative to a reasonably understandable level. This is understandable, because the prices of slightly used cars under the age of three and even five years are rigidly tied to the prices of new cars. And when the prices for new ones went up sharply from the ceiling, the prices for the “secondary” also pulled up to them. In the summer there was a rollback, it became clear that people are not ready to buy either new or, especially, used cars at such prices.

The second aspect is that mileage is twisted by 70% of vehicles on the secondary market, which is also related to the price. You can twist the price, or you can twist the mileage. This is partly due to the popularity of Japanese cars, which are bought directly there at the auction. In Japan, they are severely punished for assessing the general condition of a car and twisting the mileage, and the buyer is confident in the quality of the goods. We do not have such strictness. There is another story, and I just saw this, when for any ad on sales sites, the first 8-9 out of 10 calls are to resellers. This is especially true for problem cars after an accident or with other shortcomings. I won’t say that they are all crooks, but their task is to make money on the difference in the prices of the seller and the buyer. An honest reseller is not so bad, it is a broker who earns on the price difference. A swindler who sells cars with false documents or welded broken cars is bad. There are still cases of selling several cars for one document. Unfortunately, we are still far from Japan, we need to endlessly check both the technical and legal history.

In the case of choosing a car, especially if it is the first one, there are two options. If you have money and confidence in driving, of course, you need to buy a new one. It is better to be young, beautiful and rich, but also healthy!! But this is not always the case. If a person cannot throw money, and after all, any purchase and sale of a new car, this is then a sale, this is also a loss, fuss, nerves. There is no brilliant advice, but if a person is not confident in himself as a driver and does not have much money, it is worth buying a common reliable used car that is easy to fix, easy to sell.

Exotics are not needed, but a reliable little troublesome Korean, French or German with low mileage, the most popular engine, gearbox, even without a lot of electronics. This is enough for the first year or two, and then a person will gain experience and be able to understand what kind of car he needs next: it is small, or you need more cross-country ability, lower fuel consumption, and so on.

Ilya Akimov; group “Direct speech”