Feddit.onlineWhat things do you look for/check when shopping for a used car?
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I’m going out with my daughter to look at a car for her. She’s an adult, she’s buying it, I’m just along mostly for moral support. Doing the dad thing. However, it’s out of my wheelhouse, and I want to make sure we don’t miss anything.
What sort of things to you look for or check when shopping for a used car?
Do you have any suggestions?
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look underneath. if the car is from an area that salts the roads, there will be a lot of rust. don’t buy it. you can’t fix rust like that. and don’t buy a hyundai.
All makes and models have their lemons. I still have a Hyundai we bought used and it’s about to turn over 300,000 miles, most of that ours. Your suggestion is interesting, it’s one of the key factors in choosing it at the time (only one previous owner and never driven in the north).
Having said that, I wouldn’t trust the newer ones. Know your makes, models, and years of production. Including why they changed things and the recalls of the generation. I considered once buying another one like mine I found with low mileage from the same year, as I think it wasn’t a fluke, it was a golden era of engines for Hyundai (2006-2011). Just never needed two at a time.
Other makes have their great years too, so learn what to look for, or heavily reach the one in the lot before you even see it. Know what was good, what wasn’t, what got recalled.
Stay away from the more modern cars. Way too many flashy things but no way to really repair or even do basic maintenance. Give me something more conventional any day and I can do something with most of it in the garage or yard.
I’ll update that person’s comment3 “don’t buy a Hyundai or Kia in a country that doesn’t mandate immobilizers if it’s among the years of Hyundai and Kia cars that are incredibly easy to steal”
Too be fair, aren’t the years that that was a thing also the ones that kept having the engine recalls? Seems like one would cancel the other out. Stealing a car… “oh, crap, this one is a POS, never mind.”
Hahaha oh you’d hope, but nope. I have a US friend whose kia, with a standard transmission, was broken into and started. They fucked the gears for a bit before realizing they had no idea how to drive standard and left it running, so he woke up to broken windows and no gas and a fucked up clutch. I’ve got another friend who has their newer, push-button Hyundai broken into. The button was very visible.
There’s nothing going through the heads of people who are breaking into these cars—they just see “KIA” or “HYUNDAI” and think “I CAN UZE USB TO TAKE CAR FOR JOY RIDE FAST EHEHEH”
The 2020-2022 generation had better engines and had less chances of dying, but unfortunately didn’t have immobilizers.
Absolutely this. Just a note: Some surface rust is fine. But if it’s rusty enough to cause holes and cracks, then it’s a problem.
Older cars will be rusty to a certain degree, so being able to distinguish between surface rust and more severe rust is useful.
Surface rust can be scraped/brushed away and treated. If it’s gotten to the point of compromisinh structural integrity, the only fix is cutting and welding in new steel, ir replacing entire parts, both of which can be very costly.