Used Cars

[purgatori84.livejournal.com]

Does anyone have any recommendations for buying used cars in the area, aside from Craigslist or cars.com? Or warnings of places to avoid?

Comments

[ocschwar.livejournal.com]

If you're not from here, you need a reminder to look in the undercarriage of any car you might buy. This is salty road country.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

You may get a better car by going to a luxury-make car dealership and looking at their trade-ins. I got my last car that way -- low mileage, serviced by the dealership, never had a minute's trouble with it.

[teko.livejournal.com]

Avoid John's Auto Sales on Somerville Ave. Extremely sketchy and really poor quality merchandise. I nearly bought a car there once, but it failed inspection, so I took it back & got a refund. My salesman was wearing a track suit and gold chains, and when I got the refund, he said, "Ok, let me get The Weasel," and their accountant came out with my check. Seriously.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I'd guess that the used cars from a real dealership are somewhat safer than from a standalone used car dealer. The Better Business Bureau's ratings are online. Avoid Wilmington Ford -- they've been featured in the Globe for larcenous treatment of customers.

[totient]

I bought a used car from a perfectly lovely dealership (Honda Village in Newton) and still felt like I'd spent $1000 more to get an experience that was not really better than I've had on Craigslist. At least with a CL car the owner will not have steam cleaned the engine compartment, so you (or your mechanic) will be able to tell by looking whether it has a leaky head gasket instead of having to pull the spark plugs to diagnose.

[sd210.livejournal.com]

When you buy a used car from a licensed dealer in MA, you get a limited warranty under the MA lemon law statute. Last time I looked at it, the warranty was 90 days or 3750 miles (which ever comes first) for used cars that have 40,000 miles or less on them at the time of purchase. For cars with between 40,000 miles to 80,000 miles, it is 60 days or 2500 miles, which ever comes first. Cars with 80,000 plus miles get a 30 day or 1250 mile warranty (again, which ever expires first). This is in addition to any manufacturer's warranty that may still be in effect at the time you purchase the vehicle. Lemon law doesn't mean "if it sucks you get your money back," but rather the it means that the dealer has to be given a certain number of opportunities to fix the defect. Under the lemon law, the dealer has to repair any defect that impairs the safety or use (cosmetic stuff is not covered). The dealer is only allowed to charge the customer up to $100 to fix it, even if it costs a lot more to fix the vehicle. If the dealer cannot fix it within a certain amount of attempts, and if other conditions are met, you can get your money back.

Because of this, most respectable dealers in MA make sure they have thoroughly inspected and repaired any used car that they have on their lot for sale. It is not in their best interest to sell crappy used cars because the last thing you want is a vehicle coming back for repairs that you cannot bill to the customer. Also, the crappy car will take up technician time and space in the service center that could be used for paying customers. (So, the crappy cars that they get on trade ins usually go to auction). This lemon law warranty applies to both "brand name" car dealerships (Ford, Honda, etc.) as well as used car dealerships that only sell used cars (Joe's Auto Sales). It does not apply to non-dealers selling their car (regular folk on the internet just selling a used car). But, regular folks are required to disclose any known defects when selling a used car.

So, while you will probably pay more for a used car when you buy it from a dealer, you are also getting this warranty. As for recommended dealers, not sure what brand you are looking for, but I like the folks at Mirak in Arlington. If you are looking for a luxury brand used car, I like the Autobahn USA out in Westborough (not local, I know, but they are an excellent used car store for high end brands). Sorry for the used car diatribe, but I figured knowledge is power when buying a car, etc.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for an internet-based way of perusing used cars in the area, you can check out http://www.cargurus.com/ (which is a local business to boot, based out of Cambridge I think).

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Honestly we found Craigslist not worth the time -- the signal-to-noise ratio was poor and the cars we did end up looking at didn't thrive under inspection. (We ended up buying a used car from a rental agency so that we could just *get a car*, with high confidence the inspection would turn out well, instead of having to faff about with eighty million listings to find the one that wasn't sketchy.)

[flamingjuly.livejournal.com]

I know it's a bit out of the city, but never never NEVER go to Paul Clark Volkswagen. They sold me a car with disconnected airbag sensors (that could go off at any time) among other issues and lied about the car being certified. When I asked them to take it back, they lawyered up and claimed I had disconnected everything under the hood of the car myself.

Boston Volkswagen, on the other hand, is pretty awesome. The mechanics there were the ones who re-inspected my car when I suspected something was wrong (after only having the car for 2 weeks) and wouldn't release it back to me because it was too dangerous to be on the road. They felt awful about what had happened, so they didn't charge me to get it checked out when I had Paul Clark send it back to them to make sure everything was okay. My car has been working great ever since and I recently went through my tune up and inspection with no problems!

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

There wasn't a warning light about the airbags?