Rick's Free Auto Repair Advice

How to buy a used car Part I — Find a Vehicle That’s Reliable

How to Find A Reliable Used Car — How to Buy a Used Car Part I

Here’s the truth about buying a used car; some brands are just plain horrible. If you don’t do your research, you could get stuck with a Nissan that has a problem-prone continuously variable transmission (CVT). Or you could wind up with a Ford equipped with the PowerShift transmission that fails early and often, even after a rebuild. Or you could wind up with a Kia or Hyundai with an engine that self-destructs. So your first step when buying a used car or truck is doing the research.

Buying a Reliable Used Car Tip #1 Avoid European cars

European cars like Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and VW are classy, comfortable, and fun to drive. They’re expensive to buy new, but they’re quite affordable once they’ve racked up some miles. But there’s a reason they drop in value so much; they’re unreliable once they rack up over 100K miles.

Used European Cars are unreliable and very expensive to repair

• They break often and they’re incredibly expensive to repair and maintain.
• They’re also more expensive to insure.
• Parts are harder to find and they’re much more expensive than parts for more common cars. We used the Repair Index at rockauto.com to compare the parts cost of a very common 2000 Ford Taurus to several popular 2000 European cars to see exactly how much more you would pay.

Audi parts cost 1.94 times more than the parts for a Ford Taurus

audi repair costs, audi parts cost

2000 Audi A6 parts costs compared to 2000 Ford Taurus from Rockauto.com Repair Index

BMW parts cost 1.67 times more than the parts for a Ford Taurus

BMW repair costs, BMW parts cost

2000 BMW 528i parts costs compared to 2000 Ford Taurus from Rockauto.com Repair Index

Mercedes parts cost 2.02 times more than the parts for a Ford Taurus

mercedes repair cost, mercedes parts cost

2000 Mercedes E430i parts costs compared to 2000 Ford Taurus
from Rockauto.com Repair Index

Volkswagen Passat parts cost 1.8 times more than the parts for a Ford Taurus

Passat repair costs, passat parts cost

2000 Volkswagen Passat parts costs compared to 2000 Ford Taurus
from Rockauto.com Repair Index

Volvo parts cost 1.86 times more than the parts for a Ford Taurus

Volvo repair cost, volvo parts cost

2000 Volvo S70 parts costs compared to 2000 Ford Taurus
from Rockauto.com Repair Index

In addition to the higher parts cost, European cars require special tools that many repair shops don’t own. So you’ll have to take it to the dealer for repairs and those dealers charge a higher hourly labor rate than most independent repair shops. The Lift doesn’t own factory scan tools for European cars, so we don’t fix them.

I’m not saying European cars are bad cars, only that they’re far more costly to insure, maintain, and repair. If you’re on a limited budget, avoid European cars.

Buying a Used Car Tip #2 Avoid unreliable cars

Certain years, makes, and models are known for engine, transmission, and electrical problems.

Consumer Reports Magazine, Edmunds.com, and carcomplaints.com provide detailed reliability information and actual owner feedback on most vehicles. So it pays to check out the reliability ratings of cars you’re interested in before you kick the tires. You can access past issues of Consumer Reports for free at any public library.

How to find and avoid the clunkers

As mentioned earlier, some cars are just plain trouble. The Ford Focus with the PowerShift transmission is one example. Those transmissions have a defective design that causes the transmission to fail every 30,000 miles. The same condition applies to many Nissan CVT transmissions. Many Hyundai vehicles were made with engines that fail before they reach 100K miles. If you buy one of those vehicles, you’ll be faced with an agonizing decision of whether to dump more money into repairs than the vehicle is worth.

That’s why it pays to check out the reliability of a vehicle before you start shopping.

Here are three sites that compile brand and model reliability statistics.

CarComplaints
RepairPal
DashBoardLights

Tip #3 Avoid luxury cars

In addition to higher parts costs, luxury cars, by their very nature, are packed with complicated electronic systems like automatic climate control, load-leveling air suspensions, memory seats and mirrors, backup cameras, entertainment and navigation systems, and alarm systems. Those systems make driving more fun. But when they break they’re incredibly expensive to repair, even for simple things like battery replacement.

Some luxury used car buyers fool themselves into thinking they’ll just stop using a feature if it breaks. But that’s not how these systems work. If the computerized climate control system fails, for example, it won’t default to a manual backup. You just won’t have heat until you replace the entire HVAC control panel. If the memory seat controller module fails, the seat may move all the way to the back and stop. You won’t be able to move it forward until you replace the computer module.

Many luxury cars include an air ride suspension. The shocks and struts in those vehicles wear out. Ordinary struts cost around $150, but air shocks cost almost $1,000 each. When the shock fails, an air line breaks, or the air compressor quits, the body will bottom out, making it impossible to drive the car. Then you’ll have to pay several thousand dollars just to get the car back into drivable condition.

Tip #4 Think twice about buying a car with all-wheel drive (AWD) or four-wheel drive (4WD)

Everyone in Snow Country thinks they need a car with AWD or 4WD. But AWD and 4WD cars are not only more expensive to buy, but they get worse gas mileage and cost more to maintain and repair. Sure, they provide better grip when accelerating in snow than 2WD cars. But AWD and 4WD don’t help at all during stopping and cornering, and those driving maneuvers are just as critical on snow and ice.

More importantly, AWD and some 4WD mechanisms are very sensitive to tire tread depth. The diameter of all four tires must be within 1/8 inch. of each other or you can damage the AWD or 4WD system. That means you must strictly observe the tire rotation schedules in the owner’s manual. And, if you damage a tire beyond repair, you may have to replace all four tires as a matched set. Some specialty tire stores in the Twin Cities area can “shave” the tread on a new tire so it matches the diameter of your old tires, but that’ll cause a delay and cost more.

Instead of spending more on a vehicle with AWD or 4WD, consider buying a 2WD car and spending the difference on a set of winter tires. Independent test show that winter tires accelerate 33% faster on snow and 44% faster on ice than all-season tires. In stopping tests, winter tires stopped 30-ft. shorter on snow and 18-ft. shorter on ice than all-season tires. And winter tires also outperform all season tires on AWD and 4WD cars in turns.

How to buy a used car Part II
How to get the best price on a used car

 

© 2015, Rick Muscoplat

 

 

Posted on by Rick Muscoplat



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