Used Cars Articles

It seems like an easy task in this world of Google and Bing. Get online, find a used car finder, search engine, or online car buying tool and just hit search. Yet many people who jump online find themselves quickly overwhelmed in their online car search. So many sellers, so many auto makes and models, and so many variables. Which ones matter? Lets look at how to buy a car cheap and save yourself a lot of time and headache.

First figure out your minimum requirements in a vehicle. Do you need to find the best family car for a family of five? Sports coupes are likely not in your future. Do you have a job that requires you to have a pickup truck? A family sedan won't be much help to you in such a case. Many used car finder search engines allow you to set a vehicle type to search through. So people who know they are shopping for just a minivan, truck, or family car can all quickly narrow down their choices.

Second, set a budget. Many used car search tools like Smartcarfinder.com have ways for you to narrow down your list of results by setting a maximum or minimum budget amount. By deciding about how much you plan on spending on a car, you can skip past all those more expensive distractions and spend more time finding the cheapest car that meets your needs.

Third, figure out how you intend to pay for that budget. It's great if you can pay totally out of pocket, but many will need to find financing on their car and not everyone great credit. If you have poor credit or no credit you may need to give some thought to how your going to get financing. Fortunately many sites like Smartcarfinder offer financing on cheap cars through our network of dealerships that finance people with many types of credit.

Fourth, be willing to do some of the work that make a used car search engine really move around and work for you. Check different cities near you, try widening your search results if you don't like the options you have or narrowing them to find that cheap car that fits you. Search engines can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you but don't forget that to really use a search engine effectively, you have to really give it an honest search! Dropping in your zip and throwing your hands up in the air when you couldn't find a 2008 Toyota Prius under 40,000 miles for less then you wanted. Check other areas near you or widen the search radius. Try changing your search perimeters.

Lastly, if you think you found a car you might have your heart set on, get a Carfax or another form of vehicle history report. Just because you spent less then you intended doesn't mean you ended up buying a cheap car. There are a lot of ways to avoid buying a lemon these days, and while getting the car looked at by someone who knows cars such as a licensed mechanic, but getting a vehicle report can save you a ton of time and travel and is super easy to do online.