4 things you MUST check before you buy any used car! CAR WIZARD shows how not to be scammed!

So you found your dream car, at least one that you really want. Is it going to be a good buy? How do you find out? You're going to find out in this video. Let's get started. So you guys have seen this car in videos before. This is my 2006 Dodge Charger Daytona Hemi that I bought near Oklahoma City with supposedly a blown engine. And what it ended up being was just the MDS was operating like it's supposed to, but it freaked the hell out of the person who had just bought it. They thought something was wrong. Nothing's been wrong. I've been driving it all over back and forth, flawless. But you're getting ready to buy a car, especially from an individual, not so much a dealer, it's not what we're talking about today, but from an individual on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or wherever it is you're going to buy a car. What do you look for? What is the process? What are the steps? So we're going to go over that today on Davy Jones. That is the name of my car. There is a front license plate that is Blackbeard's official pirate flag. And if you see that in your rearview mirror, that means I'm about to gap you. So watch out. But this is Davy Jones. I've done lots of videos over the past three, I don't know, it's been several years you guys have been watching videos, and I appreciate it, of what cars to buy, not to buy, different brands, good brands, bad brands. But regardless of which brand, how do you know the particular car you're looking at is worth buying? Is there any issues with the car that could really complicate things or burn up your wallet? So without further ado, we're going to start with the first section. There's going to be four sections. Before you leave and set up a time to go look at the car, ask the seller, does it have a clear title? Are there any issues with the paperwork side of looking at a car? Because most people think to go look at a car, they're just thinking of looking under the hood. There is so much more. Trust me, guys, I've had a few friends I've gone to look at cars with, they had no idea what it took to buy a car or to do it right. So it's easy to say, car wizard, everybody knows how to buy a car, this is a bogus video. No, they don't. A lot of people don't know how to buy a car and they get scammed. So that's why this video is here. So you've set up a time to go look at the car. The seller has said, yes, the title is clear, which half the time is a lie. But you won't really know the details to that question about the title until you actually arrive. So when you arrive to look at the car, do not open the hood. Do not sit inside. You can take a quick glance around, but the first order of business is let me see the title. I want to look at it myself before we do anything. There's been many times that me and Mrs. Wizard have gone to look at a car and the dude's name is John Jones, but the title says Susan Myers. You're like, whose car, what's going on here? They could be curb stoning, doing illegal activities. They could have stolen the car. You don't really understand what's going on. And it really, you don't want to find out later after you bought it, that it was stolen or something really bad. Make sure the person you're talking to is the person on the title or legally allowed to sign for the title. And that brings to mind another thing. If you look at the title, there are really two huge things you need to look for. Does it say there's a lien on the title? Does it say Bank of America, blah, blah, blah, still has a lien on it? That means that you can't legally now own this car until you pay off Bank of America. And if this is an $8,000 or $10,000 car and they owe $14,000 on it, that's not going to work. That's not going to fly. And trust me, they won't tell you this stuff. The second thing you really need to look at the title is if you're talking to John Jones, but the title says the estate of Susan Myers or whoever, is this person you're talking to legal to even sell this car? Who is the person that is the power of attorney for the estate of this person that died? And I'll add a third thing in there. Make sure it does not say junk or salvage or non-highway or off-highway only. Because there could be something in the works, something happened to the car. It's not supposed to be on the road anymore. And you may buy the car and find out you can't even legally register it for the rest of this car's life. Or if you can, it's going to be a major disaster. So the title is really, really important. Like I said, don't do anything here until you take care of the title. So make sure to pay attention to the title issues, because that alone can completely ruin your experience with your car. My saying, Mrs. Wizard knows my saying, no title, no deal. Hey bro, I'll send you the title in six weeks. No, they won't. Don't fall for that. So now you've gotten past the title part, all the paperwork, the legal mumbo-jumbo. Now we can start looking at the car. And before we open the hood or sit inside, we will do a visual inspection of the outside of the car. Right now, you can see the front. Pretend this is a picture on the marketplace and you see the front. Wow, that's a clean-looking Charger. There's not many of those left on the road anymore. But what about back there? Let's go check back there. She has a really nice rear-end, doesn't she, Mrs. Wizard? What? You're looking at another of my rear-ends, Wizard? Well, a car, not a person. So this one looks nice. But I have gone to look at cars before, that now you walk around to the other side of the car that's not in the picture online, and you see that paint colors are not matching. It's been repainted. And then the question is, what happened? And they say, I bought it that way. So look for cracks. Look for scratches. Look for, obviously, it's been damaged. Look for rust. Look for hail dents. There can be a lot of things on a car that you really can't see in a picture. There's one right here. Let me show it to you guys. So when I got this car, it was very badly damaged here. This was hanging down a little ways, and this was caved in pretty bad. I've got it close. It's good enough. I got it for three grand. It's got 251, almost 252,000 miles on it. I'm not going to spend seven grand to get this fixed. So I'm looking at this car. This doesn't look like very much, but there's a story here. It was originally worse than this. It's been hidden. It's been kind of doctored up, I guess you could say, to look not so bad. But as I'm walking around a car and I see this, I say, tell me about this. And if they don't give me detailed answers and they just shrug it off, I won't buy the car. I'm going to keep coming back to that. I'm going to say, bro, you need to tell me about this. What happened here? They'll finally, oh, well, I backed into something. It crushed the inner structure, and we got a different bumper, and it's decent. It'll be all right. No, it may not be all right. There may be something seriously wrong underneath of there. So make sure to check out for those things. So after you've checked the car over for dents, scratches, dings, and things of that nature, and you're happy with the paint and everything looks good, now we can open the hood. There we have a 5.7 Hemi. You might be looking at a four-cylinder or a diesel or who knows what you'll be looking at. There are a lot of things that can check. You can go into really high detail as a mechanic and start really diving in. But a lot of people don't have... They have skills. They're a doctor. They're a lawyer. They're a nurse or whatever it is that they do. They're not a mechanic. So really, we need to focus here on the basics. Is there oil in the engine? Is the antifreeze full? Does the serpentine belt look like it's all frayed and damaged? Is there anything crashed or broken in here? Is there missing pieces? That's about really all you're going to look for underneath the hood as far as a visual inspection. You see this big piece here, a big old cover? Take it off. And if the seller says, What are you doing? I don't want that off. Say that I'm not buying your car. Because I am going to look underneath this cover. I have pulled up covers before and there's a giant rat's nest. And then I see chewed up wires and things where a mouse has been living. They love to live under these shields. So just like MacGyver always has the right tool for the job, duct tape, bubble gum, whatever it is he uses to make things work. The two things you need under this hood is a mirror. Mine's cracked, but I'm just showing you that you need a mirror. And a little flashlight. You guys know I love my pin light. I chew on it. And yes, it has tape on it. I don't chew on the metal. But you can use your flashlight and really get a better look of everything. Is there any leaks? Is there fluids? You don't have to be a mechanic and understand what's going on. Just answer the question, Are there fluids laying out in the open? Green fluids or oil or anything? Kind of look around. Could be fuel from the fuel rail here or the injectors. Could be gas spraying. Also, you can smell if the engine's been ran recently. You can smell for antifreeze. You can smell for fuel, oil. If there's any strange smells, where is it coming from? Look at the serpentine belt here. This one's in good shape. It's fairly new. But if it's all cut up and you see white cord sticking out or even pieces of it missing, that means probably the car has not been maintained very well. You can use a mirror to look under things, just like we're going to look under the thermostat housing and see that it's dry. You can use this mirror to look under all kinds of things. You can look underneath the intake. Look back in there. Is there any rat's nest? Is there any fluid? The next thing is to pull dipsticks. Obviously, if the engine's been running, you don't want to open this reservoir for the coolant. It could spray you in the face. Be very careful. If the engine's cold, it should be to the cold line, just like this shows minimum maximum. Mine's kind of in the middle here. Perfectly safe range. It needs to be in here. If it's empty, then the question is why? Where did the coolant go? Is there a leak? A blown head gasket? You need to kind of answer that question, but that's how you check the antifreeze. We're not so much concerned with the concentration. Is it the correct level of antifreeze in there for certain temperatures or whatever? It's just the answer to the question, is it full of antifreeze or is it empty? If it's cold, you can take the cap off and look inside. It should be clean. It shouldn't be gunk and grease and nasty smelling foul stuff in there. It should just be green antifreeze, blue, pink, whatever antifreeze color it is, and it should be clean. The next thing is to pull the oil dipstick and then wipe it all over your shirt. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that. But there's a range here. It says add and safe. You want it to be in the safe range. Maybe it's a tiny bit low. That's okay. But if you pull the dipstick and the oil is all the way down here at the tip and there's nothing up here, that means it hasn't had an oil change in a long time or it's burning oil. Something's wrong there. So make sure to check the engine oil. Also, the oil is plain jet black like these coils here. That means this also hasn't had an oil change in a long time. Okay, wizard. A lot of newer cars don't have dipsticks. Now what do you do? There is correct. Some cars you'll have to research based on the car that you're looking at. It's through the infotainment system. You can check like on a BMW. You check the oil level through there. You'll have to figure that out on your own. But if it's an older vehicle, it'll probably have a dipstick. But if you see on the transmission here on this car, it's Mercedes-based, a nag transmission. There's no dipstick. We have one in the shop that's made for these, but you won't have that when you go to look at this car. So that you'll just basically have to either buy one on Amazon or just take it that hopefully it's full. Also check the power steering fluid. A lot of newer cars today have... This one's at the full mark. A lot of cars today have electric power steering and there will be no power steering reservoir. And also check on the windshield to look for service stickers. Make sure that's been serviced correctly. When's the next service? If you're looking at like today, it's August of 2022. And you look at the service sticker and it says the next one is due September of 2020. That means it's been a long time since they've done anything with services on this car. So definitely look at that. Then the last thing while you're under the hood is to check the radiator, condenser, everything up here to make sure there's nothing pouring out. Antifreeze or Freon oil, compressor oil, I should say. Anything like that. Make sure it's not been crushed or damaged in an accident. And then they put a new bumper on and try to hide it. Make sure everything's nice and clean in there. Finally, the fun time. We're done visually inspecting under the hood. And again, it doesn't have to be complicated. We're not going to take stuff apart and get into basically being a mechanic. We're just giving a basic check over to make sure all the fluids are good. Nothing visually looks out of place. That's pretty much it. Now we're going to leave the hood open. We're going to start the engine and listen for any noise. We're going to audibly check the engine now. And also for any smells. And also the last thing you're going to check is when we first start it, kind of peek your head out and look at the exhaust pipes or at least in that direction to see if a big cloud of white smoke comes out or blue smoke. You really shouldn't see any smoke. So you'll be checking for smoke. And we're going to also be listening for any knocking or ticking or weird noises under the hood or rattling. It should just sound pretty quiet with a normal engine sound. No smoke out of the tailpipes. And what you're hearing here is a normal sounding engine. There's a little bit of noise, obviously, from the engine running. But there shouldn't be going knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, or tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Or maybe a belt noise like... It shouldn't be making strange, loud, obnoxious noises. It should be calm and seem to be at rest, just sitting there idling. And there's one last thing. I'll hop into the driver's seat that you need to do. No, you don't actually have to do that. I just wanted to do it because I love the sound of these Hemis. You can if you want to. Just see if it smokes or something. But yeah, I just did that just for fun. So we're done under the hood. It sounds good. The fluids are full. They look good. Also, one last thing to check. I forgot. Brake fluid. Make sure it's full. If it looks black like engine oil, that means it hasn't been serviced in a long time. But just at least make sure it's full. That's the big thing. Does it have fluid in it? Your washer fluid? That's not necessary. It may be something you have to fix down the road, but it's not going to break down or cause a safety concern. Okay, so we're done under the hood. Now we're going to talk about things we're going to look at on the interior. So we're into number three, which is the interior. Number two was the engine bay fluids and make sure it at least runs and everything. The next thing is borrow from a friend or go to your friendly parts store and get a little code reader. They're $40, $50 now for a cheap one. And it's something you can keep for the future for your other cars. Even though you seem like it's just using it for this once for this car, you can use it if you buy this car or for your other cars, if you have other cars. But you want to plug it in, turn on the key. Don't start the engine. Just turn on the key and go through whatever process that your code reader has to read the codes and see are there any errors, oxygen sensor or charging system codes or cam position sensor code. You just never know. It could be a slew of a lot of things. This one is the launch creator CRP123. It's actually on my Amazon affiliates link in the description below. This is the one we use for quick checks. We don't need to get out the big unit. This one is just real quick and zip it and see what kind of codes there are. But there can be codes called pending. The check engine light is not on. It's possible that the seller cleared the codes and hoping you'll buy it before the light comes back on again. But you can hook up this scanner and it'll say pending crank sensor code or cam sensor code or something. Whatever could be wrong. If it says pending, then you can probably start asking questions. So what's going on with this pending code? Did you clear this before I got here? Or, you know, and just kind of talk about it with them. One thing to keep in mind before you sit down are the seats all cracked up and torn up? Mine are. I got it that way. I have a guy that can fix them when he gets time. Maybe you have a guy or girl or whoever that can fix them as well. But definitely that could be something with the bargaining price. Say, hey, man, the seats are all ripped up. I'm going to have to get that fixed. That could cost you some money. But before you drive anywhere, you're not driving anywhere yet. You're just going to sit down, start the engine, and you're going to do some checks on the interior. So for the sake of filming, we're not going to start it. So it's not so loud. It overpowers the voice here. But you're going to start the engine and then you're going to start checking things. Do all the power windows work? Check each and every window. Do your power mirrors work? These are things, guys, that can get skipped over because you've fallen in love with the car and you just want to go drive it. And then you can buy the car and find out, oh, my God, half these things weren't working. I didn't even check it. So make sure you check everything. Be patient. Check the power seats. Check the sunroof. If it has one, does it operate? And if you get ready to push the button and the seller says, ho, ho, ho, don't do that. That's one way that you can find out if there's something's wrong with the sunroof is just by motioning your finger in that direction towards the button. If the seller doesn't care and you open it and it works fine, then it's probably working fine. But if he stops you and says, don't do that, it's broken. Now you know it's broken. Turn on the radio. Make sure all the speakers sound good. Check the CD player, satellite, whatever systems that it has. Make sure it all works. Make sure all your gauges are working. Tachometer, temperature, fuel gauge. Next thing is to check the AC. Turn on full blast cold. Make sure it's blowing cold. Then go to full hot. Make sure it's blowing hot heat with the engine warmed up. And then make sure to check all your modes, the defroster, the vent, and all that stuff. So make sure all that stuff works. Also your heated seats. This thing has seated seats. Make sure they work as well. All the options that should be in here, make sure they work. The next half of part three is to actually go road test it. And the things you're going to be checking, like I said, it's not complicated. Does it accelerate smoothly? Does it shift smoothly? Listen to it shifting. Or if it's a clutch, make sure everything's smooth there with a manual transmission. While you're cruising along, make sure to let go of the steering wheel just for a few seconds, not for a long time. Make sure it tracks straight. It doesn't pull to the right or left. Make sure the steering wheel doesn't have any shimmies in it. Make sure you don't have to hold it this direction to keep the vehicle straight. It needs to be straight on. Lightly hit the brakes. Don't hit them hard. Just lightly hit the brakes and keep holding it there and see if you can feel pulsations like this. That means your rotors are warped. It's going to need a brake service. It can also shimmy the steering wheel a little bit. Next thing is get it up on the highway. Make sure there's no vibrations, 60 or 70 mile an hour, shaking the whole car because the tires or wheels are out of balance and whatnot. One thing to definitely check that gets skipped over so much is does the cruise control work? For me, I almost won't buy a car if the cruise doesn't work because on modern cars, it could be the throttle body. It could be something very, very expensive. That's why it's not working. So if it drives straight, drives smooth, quiet, brakes smooth, the cruise works, we noticed all the things in the interior working, then your test drive and everything is pretty good to go. So you just got back from your road test. Before we move into section four, take a quick look underneath the car with the engine off. Is there any puddles? Is there anything dripping out other than the condensation, which is normal from the air conditioner? There should be nothing else underneath the car. So make sure that's good as well. You can also use a mirror that I just used and the flashlight and you can kind of look under the transmission. You can look at underneath the engine, different places to see if there's fluid about to drip. So now we're past the road test. Everything looks good. It drives good. You're really happy with the car so far. We're going to move into section four, which is finalizing the purchase. One thing that you should have done already, if you haven't already, is before you even showed up, use NADA or Kelley Blue Book or something along those lines to check the values of the car and compare it with what the seller wants for the car. Also, with some of the things you may have found wrong, you can probably come off the price. But before you hand over any cash or check or however you're buying the car, you need to answer a couple final questions. Is it stolen? Is there accident history? What exactly has this car been through in its life? All of that information is off of the VIN number. And I highly recommend a service or an app that can help you find this information before you finalize the purchase. And that is VINwiki. You guys know I'm friends with Ed Bolian, the owner of VINwiki. This is not a paid advertisement. This is me recommending a service that really works. I know it works. I've seen it. I've used it. It is the real deal. In the description below will be a link to the VINwiki website and there are various options there. You can choose to download the app and then get set up and start using it. You'll type in the VIN number and you'll start getting that information that's really going to save some money or possibly kill the deal. You may look up and find out it's been in three accidents or it was stolen in Montana or that information is crucial in today's automotive buying society, I guess you could say. If all those things check out, now you can start falling in love with the car. You can work a deal with the seller. You know now that the seller has a clear good title or you wouldn't have gone this far. Then you can hand over the cash, do the deal and drive home. Now you can enjoy the car. It's yours now. We've all heard the horror stories of people getting scammed or lied to or the titles gone. We don't want that to happen to you guys. I hope this video can help you at least get a basis of what it's going to take to buy a car, the steps. There's a process. If you follow this video all along, you very likely will end up with a good car if you follow the procedure and make sure everything checks out. Even a car that I've recommended not to buy on my do not buy list, it still could be a good car if that's the car you specifically want. Just make sure to follow these procedures here that we've listed. If you're curious what kind of tools we use in the shop or some of the tools I just used, check my Amazon affiliates link in the description below. We get a small cut and we really appreciate it. And make sure to hit the subscribe button because there's so many more cool videos to come. Thanks for watching.