CAR Statements (Pun intended)

Steps, Protocols and Suggestions to keep in mind while buying a car

Setting off for a long term internship (Kelley MSIS kids)? Need to get a car, not an issue! This document will serve as a guide to walk you through some of the important things to keep in mind while purchasing a car.

Step 1: Set some of the parameters which will help you narrow down the cars you want to look for:

·         Would you want to look at a new car or a second hand car?
·         Set a budget or a price range you are looking for; anything in the range of $4000 - $6000 will get you a good second hand car, but you can always go above and beyond this range!
·         Any car manufacturer or specific care model preference you might have
·         Decide upon some of the luxury parameters (if they are important to you) such as interiors, exteriors, heated seats, etc.

Step 2: Once you have a rough idea about what you are looking for based on step 1, you can go ahead hunting for the car at a variety of places such as:

·         www.cars.com
·         www.autotrader.com
·         One start classifieds: My personal favorite, because in a student town like Bloomington, you will have a whole bunch of students wanting to sell their cars because they would be graduating. There will be a peak in the postings around November – December and April – May.  You will find a wide variety of options and price ranges here.
·         Craigslist

Step 3: Once you are done researching on the cars you can have a pool of your shortlisted cars in place. Reach out to the owners and set up a time to look at the car, preferably test drive it or have some experienced person drive the car. Based on your experience with the cars, narrow your options one step further. This time around you want to be very sure about the cars you have shortlisted, so it is always a good option to ask people who have good knowledge about cars and have been driving one since sometime.

Note:  Narrowing your options at an early stage is probably not the best way to go about with it i.e. seeing one car and being hell bent on buying it and not looking at any other options.

Step 4: Once you have narrowed down your options, it’s time to take your car for a quick mechanic check to make sure everything is working well, and if it is not then what is the solution. Schedule a time with your mechanic and ask the owner or dealer of the car for permission to have it checked by the mechanic. If the owner /dealer do not agree, it is a safe assumption to make that something is not right and it’s better to take a step back from the process. You can have the car checked by a variety of places such as firestone, experttire, sears, any automobile showroom or a local mechanic. Typically a basic check would start at about 20$ and go on increasing based on the nature of the inspection.

Step 5: After the inspection, you will have a rough estimate about what kind of repairs need to be done on the car and how much would they cost. Have a look at the Kelly Blue Book (http://www.kbb.com) price of the car.  Based on this you can begin your negotiation process with the dealer/owner. Start the negotiation based on the Fair price of the car on KBB. It is pretty much two things you can do at this point. Ask the owner you will pay him/her the fair price of the car if all the repairs are taken care off by them, or you can deduct the repairing charges from the fair price and pay them that amount. After this point it is how you can take the negotiation forward. Good luck!

Step 6: So here we are, we have a few deals in our hand and we can go ahead picking one of them by good research and asking the right people for an opinion.

Good luck!

Post this, the process mainly involves making payments, buying the right insurance, registering the car, getting the license, etc. These can be handled easily, they are as manual as they can get!

If there are any questions, concerns or help required, feel free to reach out.

Cheers,

Adi