Does anyone know anything about buying a used car?

[SheilaT]

3. I have had great success buying used cars from dealers.

I am not myself willing to buy from an owner because I simply do not know enough about cars to feel comfortable doing that.

Here are some rules:

1. Already have a good idea of what you want, either by make and model (for me it's a Honda Civic) or by general type, such as a pickup truck.
2. Go online to see what's out there. www.cars.com is my favorite source. Dealers will put most of their inventory there. If you find a vehicle or two that looks likely, check out the dealer's own website.
3. Print out whatever is there on the vehicles you want to check out further.
4. I then go to Kelly Blue Book www.kbb.com and check out all the prices they give for a particular kind of car. Say you find a 2004 Honda Civic with 88,000 miles on it and you see what the dealer is asking. The KBB listing will tell you what it should go for from a dealer, from a private individual, and what that car is worth as a trade-in. I always assume that the dealer has no more than the trade-in value invested, so that's my starting point for negotiation.
5. Go to the dealer and look at the car. Ask for the CarFax report on that car. If they won't give it to you, leave and don't waste your time with that dealer again. Good dealers have a direct link to the CarFax report in the listing for the car on line.
6. Test drive however many vehicles as suits your mood.
7. Never buy a car the same day you test drive it at the dealer. If you are a woman, don't smile very much. Don't scowl, keep a neutral expression on your face. It will make them crazy. But it gives you a certain edge.
8. If you feel uncomfortable with a dealership leave. There are other dealers out there.
9. If you are buying a recent vintage used car from the dealership of that kind of car, you probably don't need to have it looked at by an independent mechanic. But if you want to anyway, let them know. If they object, find another dealer.
10. If you are buying a used car from an independent stand-alone used car lot, you absolutely must have the car looked at by an independent mechanic.
11. (And this should have gone up earlier) If a dealer or used car lot is offering cars at prices a lot less than the going prices for those kinds of cars elsewhere, there may well be something wrong with them. If you are skilled at assessing cars, then go for it. But I'm not, and I simply avoid those places.
12. If you find a dealer or car lot you consider trustworthy, give them your business. If you find one untrustworthy, don't.
13. Try very hard not to be in desperate need to buy a car right away. Sometimes that's unavoidable, as in the time my younger son totalled his car (not his fault) ten days before he needed to be back at school 500 miles away. Then, less than a week later, the same day we were going to take delivery of his replacement car, older son totalled his car (again, not my son's fault). And he had to be back at school in less than a week. Fortunately, at this point I knew the location of every second hand stick-shift car (what all of us drive) in Johnson County, Kansas, so it didn't take too long to get him in a replacement car.
14. If you live in the Kansas City area, PM me and I'll tell you all about my favorite dealers and used car lots, as well as one in particular that I no longer bother to go to, because they just somehow feel sleazy to me.
15. Although I myself don't buy from private individuals, that works for a lot of people. If you go this route, you might want to buy a membership or whatever they call it in CarFax so you can go there to help assess the cars you'll be looking at. And it is absolutely imperative that you have any private individual car assessed by a mechanic.

Have fun! I LOVE buying cars. Honda Civics and Accords are my specialty.