Top Tips For Buying Used Car On A Budget

Now many people will tell you if you want a reliable used car, get a Civic or a Corolla. Stick around to the end though and I'm going to tell you why this 20-year-old Nissan is a better choice. Now I recently helped a friend buy a cheap used car and she only had a few thousand bucks to spend, but I found a gem. In this video I'm going to be going over all the things I look for when buying a cheap used car. Buying a used car can be intimidating and the less money you have the more likely you're going to get a lemon with a lot of problems. But if you know what you're looking for you can save a lot of money instead of having to go out and lease a car, finance a new one, and pay through the nose. One of the first things you want to consider when buying a used car is the owner and that can be done even before you go and see the car. And the main question of course is can I trust this person? Are they being honest with me? One of the signs I look for is if they're upfront about problems that the car has. Because we are talking about older used cars, most likely they're going to have some kind of problem. So when you're looking at the ad and they don't mention any of the problems or when you go and look at it and you're asking questions about problems the car may have and they're dodging your questions or being vague, it may point to that they're trying to hide something and that's a big red flag. So when I was looking at this car online I was really happy to see that in the listing the seller mentioned a couple of the problems that the car had. One of them was a check engine light and he even provided the code that the check engine light was about so that I could research it beforehand. And then when I went and met him he also brought up a couple other things right away that the car had that were flaws. And so I felt like I was going to get honest answers out of him and that he wasn't trying to hide major issues. The second thing, which involves the owner still, is that when you go and look at the car, hopefully you can see it at their house, you can get an idea of how they take care of their other stuff. So if they have other cars in their driveway or their house you can kind of get a feel for like how well they maintain things. Which is going to say a lot about how they maintain the car that you're buying. Another one of my general rules is I avoid buying cars from like a young 20 year old kid. They just haven't learned how to take care of vehicles yet, driving a bit faster more reckless, and there are exceptions to the rule. But let's be honest, I wouldn't buy a car from my 20 year old self. The other thing I'm looking for with the previous owner is the legal status of the car and how honest they're being with me about it. Is the title clean? Were there previous accidents that insurance totaled the car? So anytime they start sidestepping legal issues saying like well my friend owns it or all you got to do is register it real quick when you when you buy it. If it's not as simple as handing over a clean title, I'm out. Getting a car legal and roadworthy seems to be the most basic thing for me with a car and if you can't even do that, what else have you not done with this vehicle? So the next thing I want to talk about is this engine. Because when you're going and buying a used car, the most important thing is the engine and transmission. That's way more important than the cosmetics and how it looks. So when I go and look at a car, pop in the hood, it's the first thing I do. Now this is a 2005 Nissan Sentra with a four-cylinder engine. With a cheap used car, I want a four-cylinder. If you have a four-cylinder motor, it's gonna be way easier for you to work on it yourself. Or if you have to take it to a mechanic, much cheaper. Plus a four-cylinder is going to be easier on gas, you can be saving money that way as well. We have a great video comparing four-cylinders versus V6 V8 and you can check that in the link above. What I'm really looking for is just signs if the motor has been maintained well or not. I'm going to check the fluids, make sure that they're up to the right levels, that they're generally like not super black and dirty. I'm looking for major oil leaks, water leaks, coolant leaks, where there's been like coolant spraying around, you know, dried residue from coolant. And then I'm also looking for signs of like modifications or redneck hacks sort of stuff, like random wires that shouldn't be there, zip ties, plastic bags, I don't know, just stuff that people have taken shortcuts while maintaining their engine. He mentioned that he has recently, within the last year, put in a new battery, a new alternator, new spark plugs, a new air filter, and he's also flushed a lot of the fluids, the power steering fluid and the brake fluid. He also said that he serviced the transmission himself, so he exchanged the transmission fluid. So the owner said that he replaced the air filter on this car, which is an easy thing to check when you're looking at it. So you pop that off and check it out, and it looks pretty good. So now that I've inspected the engine visually, we're going to start it up. So I noticed it started up nice and quick, no hesitation, and I'm now listening for sounds of scraping, squealing, grinding, any irregular running of the motor. Now that the engine oil pressure and water pressure is up, I'm looking for leaks. It's running smooth, quiet, and now I'm going to take it on a test drive. Before I get rolling, when the engine is running, I always come back and check the tailpipe, make sure there's no smoke or steam coming out. And on this car, it's totally clear. This is the most important part of checking out a car, see how it actually works. Is it running smoothly? Is it hesitating? Is it making any crazy noises? The transmission as well, is it shifting gears smoothly, or is it slamming into gears, or is it slipping? Brakes, checking those out. Everything out here in the dash needs to check out. Is the check engine light on? Temperature gauge, obviously you want to drive it for a little while, but you want to make sure it's not overheating, that it's not fluctuating. It should just come up to operating temperature and stay right there. And I've got all my accessories, my electric windows, checking all those motors, my mirrors, radios, got air conditioning, heating, air conditioning is working nicely. At some point during a test drive, I always want to make sure I get up to like 60 miles an hour or whatever, like a highway speed is for you. Make sure that nothing is like starting to rumble or make noise, or that the steering wheel doesn't start shaking. And then when you're coming down from the 60 miles an hour, you want to hit the because that will bring out any brake problems like shaking steering wheel or shuddering. Another thing I like to do is to pull off onto some gravel road or some really rough pavement. A lot of your suspension problems will come and you'll be able to hear them. I hear a little bit of rattling down in the front, something I'm going to want to check. And then of course there is the cosmetics of the interior. The headliner, which you don't want to see sagging, that's something that's really hard to fix. Trim, upholstery, as a mechanic, like it's pretty hard for me to fix those things other than just replacing stuff. So it is a pretty big bonus when those things are in good shape. So as I was test driving the car, the check engine light wasn't on. But as I mentioned before, the owner had told me that the check engine light does come on occasionally. And he gave me the code, which I looked up. It's something to do with emissions and it only affects the car during the warmup cycle. And then after the car's warmed up, doesn't matter anyway. So the check engine light in a car doesn't necessarily mean it's a deal breaker. It's just really important that you scan that code and find out what it's all about. So while it's not the most important thing, you do want to come check the exterior of the car for a couple things. Now obviously you are looking for large dents or signs of major damage or accidents that you know you'd have to investigate further. Also you're looking for maybe some like sneaky paint jobs, someone trying to cover up some damage with paint that doesn't quite match the rest of the car, body panels that are from a different car, stuff that would point to damage that maybe the owner is not telling you about. Rust is also a concern, especially in places that are high humidity or where they salt the roads, because rust is really hard to control once it started. And you can see on this vehicle, there are a couple spots of rust around here, around the doors and the trunk. They're not getting under the paint super far, so I'm not as worried about it. Some of this window trim is cracking and falling apart and there's some rust on the door. Though I think I could fix this. I could probably get in there and sand this and paint it. The paint is in pretty good condition overall. I mean it's a little bit faded. It being white really helps. It hides a lot of blemishes. Obviously I'm more interested in the performance of the car, that it runs well, that it's been well maintained, but I also don't want to see things in the body that are going to create problems in the future. So a new set of tires, cheap ones, are at least like $800 for a car. And when you're talking a cheap car, that's actually a lot of extra money. So if tires are bad and need to be replaced right away, you've got to factor that into your overall price. On this car, the owner had just replaced the tires within the last year. So there's probably another 30,000 miles on these tires to go at least. So for me, that's incredibly valuable and something you always want to check on a used car. So I'm just going to take a look underneath the front of the car, looking for major leaks of any kind under the engine, as well as I'm going to take a look at any suspension elements that I can see. Maybe get a little clue to that rattling noise we heard on the test drive. So a good way to do that is just to turn the wheel all the way to one side and that'll sometimes give you a better access. All right, so here I can see tie rods, give them a little squeeze, see if they move too easy. Sway bar end link right here. Make sure that is firm. CV axle boot isn't split and leaking. It's a good sign. So I'm not seeing anything major with the suspension on this car. And yes, there's a little noise, but I could spend hundreds of dollars and hours and hours of my time replacing all the elements of the suspension to get rid of it. But on these older cars, it just comes with the territory. So as long as there's no safety issue that I can see, I'm just going to let it go. And eventually it may get worse and the problem may be more obvious and I can replace what needs to be replaced. But for now it's totally fine. So you have the bottom of the engine is right here. And on the other side, you have the bottom of the transmission. Some oil leaks are going to be totally normal for an old car. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, but I'm looking for major stuff. So where the whole engine is coated in oil and there's active dripping going on, on this car, it actually looks almost looks totally dry, which is pretty impressive. So let's get into my claim about how I think this Nissan is a better purchase than a Civic or a Corolla. And it all has to do with price. This Nissan is a 2005 with 84,000 miles on it. And we bought it here in Hawaii for $3,000. Now, if my friend wanted to get a more reliable Toyota or Honda branded car of the same year and mileage, she would be looking at $7,500 to $9,000 to get the same kind of thing. Now she only had $3,000 to spend. So if she wanted to go Toyota or Honda, in order to spend just $3,000, she would have had to get a much older car or a car with like 160,000, 70,000 miles on it, which when you get older cars with lots of miles, you're flirting with bigger and bigger car issues at that point. So my rule of thumb with a Nissan like this is that you can probably get conservatively 130,000 miles of good driving out of it, especially if it's well-maintained. Could even go more. So even if this Nissan died at 130,000 miles, she's still going to get four to five years of solid driving for 3,000 bucks. To me, that's a lot more bang for your buck than a Honda that's 30 years old or a Toyota that has 180,000 miles on it. If you want to know more about what to look for when buying a used car, we made a great video on how car sellers will try to scam you. So make sure you check that out here.