Saturday, December 6, 2014

I Got a Car! ...And Then Another.

Hello my lovelies!
 Today I'm going to be talking about my experience buying not one, but two cars! Let's get started!

Buying a car

 So, a while back I was able to build up enough saving to buy a car outright. I HIGHLY recommend doing this, especially if you're buying your first car. As nice as it is to have a shiny, new car, you never know what's going to happen and it's better to have payed it off from the getgo rather than getting a loan and being in debt for years to come. One of the disadvantages of buying an older, used car is you never know what sort of problems the car might have. That is why I strongly encourage getting a Carfax report and a good mechanic!

Carfax
 Most of the time you have to pay in order to get a Carfax report, but it is well worth it. I would recommend only buying the carfax report after you get serious about buying a car. This can be after an initial lookover or before going to see the car the first time, depending on how much time you have. I got the Carfax before going to look at my cars the first time due to time constraints. Why is a Carfax report so urgent, you may ask. Let me tell you about one time some friends were looking at a car and really wanted to buy it, but were unsure whether it was a good idea or not. After getting the Carfax report, my friends were able to figure out between the report itself and the water damage on the interior that the car had been through huricane Katrina and ended up near us. This brings me to my next point:

Have a Good Mechanic
 Unfortunately, good mechanics are hard to find. I might as well be telling you to go find a unicorn. However, they can be found (the mechanics that is ;) )! Look for a mechanic who will look over a car thouroughly for you and make sure there aren't any problems or anything that could cause a serious problem for you in the near future. There's different levels of good mechanics though. There's the type who will look over the car for you and tell you everything looks good, then there's the type who tell you you need some coolant and offer to change out your spack plugs and check on your breaks for you when all you did was show your car to them. If you couldn't tell, I was lucky enough to run into the second type! Check into places like AutoZone and Firestone to have your car checked after you buy it too!

Kelly Blue Books
 Before settling on a car, be sure to check it's listed price against Kelly Blue Books. All you need to do is select the make and model, select the options the car has (eg: sunroof, tape player, leather interior), and note what sort of overall condition the car appears to be in. Kelly Blue Books will give you a price range for the car you're looking at so you can compare it to what the seller is asking. If the price is way higher, you may want to check with the seller to see why. If they've done a custom paint job and changed the original 4-cylinder engine out for a 6-cylinder, that would explain. However, the reverse is true. If you see a snazzy looking car with custom paint job and a bunch of extras listed for way less than the KBB value, there's probably something horribly wron with it. One car I looked at was an ordinary looking sedan that was priced much lower than what KBB valued a similar car in good condition to be worth. I looked into it a little more and found out that the car had some serious engine troubles.

So you may be wondering, "Didn't she say she bought TWO cars?" That is quite true. I however only own one car right now as the second car was bought to replace the first one that was totaled in an accident. I was able to get the majority of what I'd payed for the car back as I wasn't at fault and between that and my remaining savings I was able to buy a new car and still have plenty of savings left over to do a little maintainance on it with the help of my mechanic friend. My current car is working great and I always know where to turn if it needs any maintainance!

I'm on Twitter! @animlolicouture
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