I'm looking around for a <7 y/o Japanese SUV, but I'm finding it takes forever to come up with a good short list, and then even longer to go around town to test drive these cars.
I then get pushy sales people at dealerships and barely maintained private cars which has kinda put me off the whole experience.
Anyone else have the same experience or am I doing it wrong?
Last car I bought, I'd known what I wanted for a while, it came up on carsales, I called the lady and told her I'd take it for $x and pick it up Saturday, she agreed. I gave her money, she gave me the car. Ezpz
Yeah, I suppose if you know exactly what you're looking for and patient enough, then it makes sense to go grab it once it pops up
yeah, I suppose if you know exactly what you're looking for
pointless shopping for something you dont know what your looking for isnt it?
Not really, I was looking for a bargain, no idea what car. Took 3 weeks, found one, paid 6 for an $8.5k car
Very happy, lasted for 6 years. Sold for 500. Other than services, no repair costs.
Obviously the first thing to do is find out either which car you want, or at least really narrow it down.
Eg, how many people often in the car? Do you tow? Do you need AWD? Petrol or diesel? Do you often carry stuff?
Also, before you even go see a car, do a ppsr check to make sure it isn't encumbered, written off or stolen. Has saved me quite a few trips.
or am I doing it wrong?
I had a search for a car take 2 days once. Most other experiences have been between a few hours to a day.
Good to know someone else's experience, thanks for sharing
Yeah you gotta know what you're doing, it takes a lot of experience how to deal with private sellers who think their car is worth a million dollars….
Takes Ages
With anything you want to research well and not an impulse buy. Can get into analysis paralysis if you aren’t clear on your tipping point.
I think that might be it, perhaps my search is too broad that it's taking a long time to actually compile a reasonable short list. @brendanm above made a good point that if you know exactly what you want, then it makes it easy. If not then it could take you forever…
Nothing worse when trying to sell a car and you get a tyre kicker that doesn't know what they want TBH…
Yep, kinda wastes everyone's time. Although my search is fairly broad, I definitely know that I don't want the car that sounds like the engine has been beaten, or the one which someone put in an electronic mod them self.
But sometimes sellers just don't say those in the descriptions, so I ended up with an hour return trip to be disappointed again.
Yes so many times, "mint condition" then you get there and there's dents and no log book and not even vacuumed…. Seriously if you're selling a car take some pride in it…
Most know a segment, price range, year range, kms they'd like to stay within, and transmission selection when going on the hunt.
Yours is fairly simple. Search carsales advanced search for:
State - yours
Body type - SUV
Year range: 2014 onwards
Then narrow down to budget, transmission, odometer maximum, drive-train, and go from there to see what crops up. From there you can rule out the shit ones (Captiva etc), and look at decent ones.
Cheers for the advice! Yep I have been playing around with the filters to drill down a bit, and at the same time not closing off other potentials.
I guess the problem I also have is that once I do find a decent one, I end up driving out to the person's place only to find that the owner wired in their own security system and lets just say the handy work was pretty amateur. I don't want problems down the line with electrics I know nothing about, so I thanked them for showing me and left, didn't want to waste anyone's time any more…
If you don't know what you want, pick either a RAV4 or Prado that suits your use case/size/engine and find the best cleanest one for your budget. It's really that simple.
Yeah you can spend plenty of time just browsing car sales to look at the information and see good photos of each car inside and out to help narrow down your search without needing to actually go walk around car yards in the heat, some online adverts even have video plus YouTube will have online reviews on any car you look at, but yes you really need to figure out and narrow down your search criteria
Also to the potential sellers please when you post any advert on gumtree or Facebook please write more than one sentence, include multiple photos inside and out and a detailed history including any issues with the paint work or any needed mechanical work! I'm sick of seeing adverts with one basic photo and one line with no information, photos taken in the dark or just blatant lies… I was looking for a car recently and 3 cars I looked at the owners said a few scratches but then I get there and there's dents all over the car, faded paint, one had a bumper hanging off…. It's just wasting both of our times not being truthful or putting up decent photographs so we know what we're looking at before we travel for hours to view the car… We're not all ignorant…
100% agree. I keep running into this issue too. Because on paper it looks fine, but then I drive 45 minutes to see the car and basically just do a u-turn and go right back home.
You know I was thinking about this. What if there was a way to get a clickable 360 degree view of a car online. That would make it a lot easier to see if there are any scratches or dents which can't be captured from a mobile phone camera. But then I suppose some of these people are relying on the hard sell once people do turn up…
Oh I did that the other day drove to the house didn't even get out my car, the car I was looking at was that disgusting!!
a detailed history including any issues with the paint work or any needed mechanical work!
Why would I want to further reduce the price and give you even more power in negotiating the price (even further down)? Not selling a car right now, but just wondering.
Of course, I am not an a**hole and not gonna claim my car is in immaculate perfect condition but I am not telling you that the clutch is feeling a bit loose and that I haven't replaced the brake discs for years - it is your job to find that out - buyer beware! You want warranty, you go to a dealership!
Just recently bought a car. Research well online & decide what you want. Thats it…one test drive & i bought it. Of course the clock is ticking once you find one you like thanks to covid
Thanks for the good tip about carchase, I'll look into it!
It’s not that hard to get a gauge on price that you need to automate it. Check Carsales, gumtree search for what you want look at a few listings for detail. You can get a fair idea in 10min. I often do so when someone posts ‘what is this car worth?’ Or ‘did I pay too much?’
@CrystalBaller: Mentioning the same site across multiple posts, barely participating elsewhere on the site.
Yup, so believable
Always haggle 😜
It does take a long time, it’s a pretty big investment.
Gotta narrows it down to one or two specific models before you test drive. I tend to use a car yard for that initial test drive then wait to find the right car privately.
Better if it takes a long time to get a good one. Best value I have seen is at dealer only auction. Graysonline, Manheim or Ex Govt could be an option too.
I ended up buying new because cars don't depreciate quickly enough in this country.. If it has done 30,000 kms then it's worth no more than 1/4 of the original price IMHO. Especially if I'm going out of my way to buy off you, you'd better appreciate it and by that I mean "knock a few more grand off the damn price."
Also because of the problems you are discovering now. My approach until I gave up trying to buy used was to test drive a bunch at the used car dealer then look for what I want on Carsales (don't bother with FB, Gumtree - too many horror stories).
But the best option by far is to just buy new. Hasn't always been the case, and second hand will be better value again in the future I'm sure. But say you were looking at the Mazda CX5. You can get a 2015 top of the line model with 35,000kms, OR you can get a brand new entry model where there is no screwing around, no risk.
Not many people can afford a new car…….
You are out of touch and unrealistic with half of what you said. Don't need to explain why lol.
OP don't take advice from this person.
Maybe where you come from car depreciate much quicker due to salting the roads and rust problems. Over here cars don’t rust much and will last up to 200,000km and more easily if maintained. There is a reason the average age of vehicles in this country is around 13 years.
You can get a 2015 top of the line model with 35,000kms, OR you can get a brand new entry model where there is no screwing around, no risk.
There is very little risk with a car wth 35k km on it. Some of us would rather buy a model with extra features (leather seats are easier to clean) also knowing that the major whack of depreciation has already been taken.
Photos, presentation, suburb and even the sellers name tells everything.
You can quickly assess by these 4 things.
For Melb, if I see a person named xxx in Toorak with cleanly presented photos, I know what I could expect.
If I see a person named xxx in Broadmeadows with photos taken at what looks like a KFC carpark, I would be mentally prepared for a sub-par condition car.
Stereotyping isn't always accurate but it's a good indicator whether you want to commit to wasting your time or not.
Oh yes the suburb definitely sets the tone
Yeah I hadn't thought of that before. Doing some profiling based on the suburb makes sense, actually come to think of it majority of the terrible cars I've seen come from places I wouldn't want to live, so that's a pretty good indicator.
Whatever you do. Please get a $2 PPSR check before inspecting the car.
Also, this is not necessarily true but if try and search in rich areas. Cars are often maintained well in these areas. This is my from my own personal experience.
Will do! Thanks for the tip
Filter down your list a bit more before you venture across town. Get the service history and photos of commonly worn areas first and decide whether to go visit that particular car. Also ask more questions on the phone that you would ask in person. Tell the seller to send you photos of all scratches. I purchased a car last year and I found one in very good condition with low km’s on my 2nd inspection. It shouldn’t be that hard. Also your desired price might be bellow the market value for what you are trying to buy (model, km’s, condition). If so then you need to reconsider one of those parameters. I work out what brand / model / engine / trim I want before going to inspect too many cars. Other suggestions by other posters makes sense. If I look at a car with non original parts or other modifications then I’m just not interested
However I’m not sure about avoiding to search in a low income area. I currently live in a traditionally working class area but I drive a luxury car. Nearly everyone in my neighbourhood owns their home as a couple whereas I purchased my home as a single person. My car is hand cleaned inside and out every week or two. It is also serviced above logbook standards. If I were selling then excluding my car because of my post code would probably be a bad idea.
Thanks for the advice, and your personal perspective! It's good to know.
Never had that problem. Usually price haggling takes longer than finding the car lol
Cheers, good to hear from someone else's experience
You are looking in the wrong places…. download the APPs Carsales, and Greysonline, for starters.
Simply type in your desire and watch the vehicles magically pop up on your screen… from there you can chose to inspect, buy etc.
for private vehicles, just ask if it has a full service history before going