I am trying to help my daughtere buy a cheap car. One that runs and will not leave her stranded waiting for tows.
When I look at ads on line for cars below the limit of $2000 that we have set, quite a few cars are available for sale with the clause of ‘as is’. Initially I did not understand what this ‘as is’ meant and so when I called one of the vendors, I was told that ‘as is’ implies that the seller will not get the car safety certified or emission tested.
Now both these things are mandatory where I live. So my daughter cannot get a plate unless she provides the two certifications.
How does this then work? Suppose I buy the car ‘as is’ and then take it for the two tests, and it fails. I will have to shell out the cost for the necessary repairs and I have no idea how much that could be.
There must be people who buy such cars, but is it not a big enough risk to insist that the seller provide the two certifications?
And while I am here, I might as well ask your opinion on what I should look for in the under $2000 cars to avoid getting a total lemon.
The standard advice for anyone buying a used car, especially from a private individual, is to have a mechanic check it out before you purchase it. There could be all sorts of problems that the previous owner isn’t telling you about (and maybe don’t know of themselves).
“As is” means no promises about anything. If you buy it and it breaks down the next week you are SOL. With some of these high mile cars there is no way the seller can possibly know everything that might go wrong. You roll the dice. Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose.
If the car was in perfect condition it wouldn’t be selling for $2000. You just have to hope that most of the problems are more cosmetic in nature(dents/paint ships, paneling rust), or only affect things you don’t readily need(passenger side window refuses to roll down).
Buying cheap cars is, as others said, a gamble.
Definitely take it to a mechanic before you buy. If they won’t let you take it to a mechanic, you don’t want it.
A good thing to look for is proof of oil changes/maintenance. Lots of people start slacking on them with older cars. Pitch black oil on the dipstick is generally not a good thing. If you find one with receipts for all the oil changes every 3000 miles, odds are that engine is still in excellent shape.
As Is usually means not only does the seller suspect or know something will go wrong soon, he is also not going to give you any hints as to what that might be. Taking a car to a mechanic may also be costly, if you have to do this 3-4 times or more before you find a cheap car that is acceptable. My trucks blue book is well below $2000 but it is in perfect condition and has never failed an inspection, I would never sell it for as little as $2000. I don’t know anyone that has kept receipts of oil changes, but the 3000 mile change is probably unnecessary, my owners manual calls for one every 7500 miles.
“As is” to me means there is no guarantee on the car at all, which is pretty standard on used cars from private sellers. Basically once you pay them and get the title, you’re on your own. But if the seller hasn’t bothered to get the car inspected I’d be wary, maybe he hasn’t gotten the inspections because he knows it will fail. You could be looking at hundreds or thousands of dollars to get it to pass. If he wants to assure buyers the car is halfway decent it will have current inspections.
Here in the southeast US, I’d say any car that runs will fetch $1000, but it will be old and/or rough shape. $2000 isn’t going to be much better. If you want a fairly reliable car I think you’re going to need to spend at least $5000 or so, unless you can find an exceptional deal. Look for Honda or Toyota.
Buying a used car without an independent mechanical inspection is very foolish. No one is going to warranty that an older car absolutely will pass inspection. Really, how can they know unless they are a mechanic themselves? At the most they know it passed its last inspection.
You’re not going to get much for $2,000. To find something usable in that price range, you’re going to kiss a lot of frogs. I don’t anyone’s word for anything. If I like it, my mechanic inspects it before I buy. If they won’t let me take it for inspection, I walk away.
Even if the ad doesn’t state it, buying a car from a private seller pretty much means you are buying a car “as-is”, right? The phrase as-is just takes the place of the legal mumbo jumbo “no warranty given or implied” that I always put into a bill of sale when I sell a car.
Doesn’t mean the car won’t pass inspection, it just means the seller isn’t going to do it, and the sale doesn’t have passing an inspection as a condition of the sale.
Speaking from personal experience, it is very likely any car you buy for $2000, even if it passes all inspections, is going to require well over $1000 worth of work to be even semi-reliable. I can tell you the full story, if you care.
As mentioned above, the minimum for a reliable car is in the $5000 to $6000 range.
As others have mentioned, there’s not necessarily anything sinister about it. It’s fairly standard and just means the seller doesn’t want to guarantee that there’s nothing wrong with the car—probably because they don’t want the nightmare of trying to determine whether anything that does go wrong is due to a pre-existing condition or to prove that it isn’t something the seller should have known about.
Yeah, although the OP did leave open the possibility that inspections aren’t required where the seller lives (only where wisernow lives).
But if the inspections aren’t up to date, I’d wonder why. It may just be that the car hasn’t been driven in a while, and the owner didn’t want to put any money into a car that he wasn’t going to drive (and wasn’t sure he could sell)—but a car that hasn’t been driven in a while is not a good bet for reliable transportation.
Sometimes this can happen when driving responsibly and you are faced with a sudden emergency. The above scenario happened to a certain fence-post impressionist: Notime Touluse."
OP: Used car buying is totally a gamble. Sometimes a seller is unloading a problem car, sometimes they’re just selling a car rather than take a beating on the trade-in when they were upgrading. If the seller isn’t willing to do the required tests, perhaps you can convince him to deduct their cost from the selling price.
I’ve sold three cars (all for less than $2000) in the last three years. No government inspection (other than a quick VIN check) is required where I live, and there is no way I would have guaranteed the vehicles to pass some inspection in another jurisdiction that I am unfamiliar with. I was completely honest with what I knew that was wrong with the vehicles, but I sold them ‘as-is’ because:
[ol]
[li]I can’t afford to offer any warranty on a $2000 car. Any repairs could cost a significant portion of the car’s value. Now if you want to pay me $2000 and buy a warranty for another $2000, that’s your business (but there’s a reason those warranties cost that much).[/li][li]I had my vehicles looked at by a mechanic, but that was to help me know the condition of the car and get maximum value from the car… So I’ve already tried to do the honest thing and factor the condition of the vehicle into the asking price, but I can’t predict with certainty that nothing is going to break on the car.[/li][li]No buyer is going to place a lot of trust in the mechanic’s inspection that I payed for, so they’re still going to have a look at it on their own.[/li][/ol]
Like others have said, have a mechanic look at the cars before you buy them if you’re worried about it, but once when you buy the car, you buy all the problems along with it.
You can always ask, but I doubt anyone is going to take you up on it. If you have concerns about a particular vehicle you’re more likely to be able to negotiate the price down than have them make any guarantees. I am guessing when you’re done with the $2000 car and you sell it for $800 that you’re not going to offer any guarantees on it.
