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Used Car Buying Check List

We've always bought gently used pre-owned cars (from individual owners, not dealers). One book we read calculated that over a lifetime the difference between buying new cars (with financing) and paying cash for gently used cars can save you over $128,000. We don't know about saving that much money, but we do know that we've never had a car payment, never paid a penny in interest on car loans and always found great deals on used cars.

We've found Samarins.com to be very helpful and informative web site. Vladimir Samarin has a degree as electrical engineer and he's also an ASE Master Technician. Since the mid 1980's he has worked on his own cars and those belonging to others. He has rebuilt and modified engines and transmissions, repaired accidental damages and written automobile-related articles. He doesn't sell anything on this site, just provides tons of useful information.

He has:

The most helpful area for us has been his section on How to Check Out a Used Car — it's complete with photos and he even provides a printable check list.

Give this web site a try and go into your next used car search fully armed with great information.

A couple other great sites we've used to search out great used car deals are:

The cool thing about these sites is that you can search by zip code or distance from your home. We found our last vehicle by using Cars.com and searching for vehicles that were less than 300 miles from home. We wound up in Palm Springs, CA buying a full sized Ford van for $8000 — it only had 20,000 miles on it. It was owned by a small hotel that had used it to transport guests from the airport to the hotel.

We also like these two sites to help us determine the value of the car we are buying (or selling)

Remember to be patient when looking for a great used car deal. Eventually you'll find someone who is desperate to get rid of the exact car you want . . . for a great price.

Comments

Buy best Japanese used cars

Submitted by kellywilson on Sun, 10/02/2011 - 23:57.

Buy best Japanese used cars and Japanese used vehicles at SBT Japan. WE are biggest used cars exporter and dealer.