Resourceful-Mom

Get help with your car buying decision

Within the last 6 months or so, not far from where I live, I passed a house with a car for sale in the yard.  It was a Honda Accord and from what I could tell, it appeared to be in very good condition. Along with the phone number, the For Sale sign included specific instructions not to knock on the homeowners door concerning the car.  Odd, right?

Well, I called the number and asked about the car.  The car owner explained that he’d gotten the car for his daughter; however, she  recently went away to college.  He went on to explain that he’d been driving the car recently so he could attest to the fact that it was a good car, he was only getting rid of it because he didn’t need 2 cars. After asking him a few more questions, I thanked him for his time and ended the call.

I don’t remember there being any particular reason for my not pursuing the purchase of the car yet I have noticed, since that time, that there is a different vehicle for sale in that yard every week or so.

Was it a dependable car or was he clueless as he purchased it from an auction?  If it did come from an auction, did he do any research to find out how safe it was before he purchased it? Or, was he only concerned with making back the money that he put into repairing the car?  More importantly, would he share the background history of these cars to potential buyers? I’ll never know.

I doubt this is an isolated incident and my issue isn’t with people that sell cars on busy streets.  I think Marketing 101 is take your product where the people are, right?  There’d be little success, I’d suspect, with attempting to sell cars in a culdesac.

Remember the term “Buyer Beware”?  Well, that still holds true and even more so when looking at purchasing a car.  I am very concerned that people that don’t travel these main roads very often are purchasing very used and, in some cases, unsafe cars to transport their loved ones from point A to point B.

There are men and women savvy enough to determine how much damage a car has sustained based on paint and seams.  I, not being blessed with those abilities, have to rely on an AutoCheck® Vehicle History Reports from Experían Automotive to get information. But what about natural disasters that don’t have anything to do with paint and seams?  Well, I have ordered enough vehicle history report to know that car salesmen, whether on a lot or in a yard, do not always fully disclose these particulars either.

As one of my resources when looking for a new or used car, I sign up for unlimited reports as I want not only the basic information but I want detailed information. If you are buying from someone you know and trust, a FREE VIN Check from AutoCheck® might suffice. Otherwise, I would purchase the unlimited report option over the single report option as the first 2-3 cars you check won’t be fit for purchase and you’ll have to continue in your car search.  I still have someone look over the car’s mechanics before finalizing my decision but, for me, knowing the history offers additional peace of mind.