Is It A Good Deal ?

Been browsing ads on Autotrader.com or Cars.com or Automotive.com - For New Cars ? Looking through auction listings on Ebay.com? Looked locally in craigslist.org ?

Buying cars online can be easy and worry free if you know what you’re doing and know what to look out for. Whenever you’re browsing cars online and see a price that just sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Some of those cars might have salvage/rebuilt titles, some may be a scam and some may even be an advertisement just to attract you to that particular dealer.

Here are a few tips I suggest to anyone looking online for their next car:

1) Determine the make and model of the car you’ll be shopping for (Edmunds.com might help you with consumer reviews)

2) Look up estimated market value/private party value and look up trade in value at both KBB.com and Edmunds.com, under True Market Value

3) If you need your own financing I highly suggest you try getting a loan yourself from your local bank or your credit union. If you rather not deal with them I suggest trying Capital One Auto Finance

4) Try to buy any used car for as close as trade in value as possible. I’m a dealer myself and have sold many cars online for under trade in value. Sometimes I find myself paying around trade in value for cars myself and sometimes I am able to buy well under trade in value. Its hard to say if you can actually buy your next car at trade in value, because some specific car models are very hard to purchase for trade in value, yet some are very easy. If you need some help with how much you should pay for a car feel free to e-mail me at the Free Advice link above.

5) When shopping online really important to get the VIN(vehicle identification) number for the cars. Most people automatically say run a Carfax on them, but as you might have read I prefer Autocheck. If you really want to be sure, I’d say run both.

Get a FREE VIN Check from AutoCheck®.

6) For the very overly cautious folks buying a car from another state I suggest having a vehicle inspection service check the car out for you, that can range from $99-299 depending on the location and how complete of a check you want.

FREE Extended Warranty Quote - Save $1000’s on Costly Auto Repairs.

Again if you need any help or advice feel free to e-mail me at the Free Advice link at the top of the page.

Honda has just begun notifying 6 million owners of Hondas and Acuras that they might be entitled to warranty extensions and in some cases even some money. The money is generally for customers who leased cars that were hit with excessive mileage penalties. I’d highly suggest that if you were hit with an excessive mileage penalty you promptly contact Honda or Acura Customer Service and try to make a case for yourself.

Honda says its odometers were accurate to within 3.75% on the high side and 1% on the low side, within the set standard. But it says it will extend the warranty mileage 5% and will pay lease-mileage penalties due to fast odometers, at least $6 million just for overcharges on vehicles leased directly from Honda.

Vehicles covered in the deal: 2002 to 2006 Hondas and Acuras bought from April 13, 2002, to Nov. 7, 2006. Some 2007 Honda Fits also are included.

One issue not covered is this… I’d sue if the following happened to me. Say your Honda’s warranty was good until 50k miles. At 51k miles you had a major problem like a transmission going out. You ended up paying $2500 for this repair. I’d say circumstances like this should be covered. I would definitely try to recover my money from Honda/Acura now.

I’d be happy to help out anybody who may be in the situation, just contact me at the Free Advice button above.