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When I bought my first used car, I didn’t know anything. I had a few hundred dollars, and I thought getting a car was so cool. I was pretty naive back then, and I assumed that if something went wrong I would be able to fix it on my own. Although I was good with tools and with figuring out how things worked, I had no experience with cars. I had a few friends who were tinkerers, but that was about it. I certainly had never heard of a car buyers guide, and so I was completely uneducated about used car sales. The guy completely skinned me!

Of course, a month later things started going wrong and the Voyager needed work. A good car buyers guide would have told me repairs are difficult on the vehicle, and so are expensive as well. Given the age of the Voyager, I also would have learned it was probably losing engine compression and having transmission issues as well. Even simple tasks like changing the starter is hard due to the fact that the engine block has to be removed in order to swap the parts out. Huge expense for a maintenance item!

Needless to say, since then I have become quite a fan of car buyers guides. I have not made another purchase, whether of a used car or a new one, without consulting a car buyers guide first. I haven’t stopped at that either. I have a friend who is an auto dealer. He lives across the country or else I would buy cars from him, but I can still get car buying tips from him. He tells me about what models to invest in and which ones not to.

Even if the car seems to be in good shape, if it is from a model that is viewed as unreliable, you probably shouldn’t purchase it. A car buyers guide might hint at which models are awful, but a good mechanic will spell it out for you. Even more important, they will make you look more knowledgeable when you are going to used car sales. If you go in knowing what you want and what you don’t, you are less likely to be taken advantage of.