advice about used cars

[Reifenfüller45945]

Hello folks, hope you are doing well.

I'm a car driver for a long time, but I had actually only one car in my life (and to be honest far not even good =). Originally I'm not from Germany and auto market significantly differs from I'm used to. So now I'm trying to find some nice used car for me and my family but have a lot of doubts about what to buy.

The only things I really know are yearly mileage (around 10 tkm, mostly weekend trips or holidays), price is around 10-13 thousands, it should be big enough to handle family with kid(s) and for most it should have as less problems (with service, repair etc.) as possible.

So if someone can give me an advice in would be very nice!

thanks in advance

[notting]

You forgot a probably quite important piece of information: What country? Or at least Germany or not? (I don't have much clue about that topic outside Germany lookout for the sentences with "German(y)" in my posting ;-) - but here are also many users especially e.g. from Austria and Switzerland)

At first: Is there car-sharing available in your region? Would that be a solution for you? Just to compare the costs with an own car.

I think with your yearly milage you shouldn't buy a Diesel because I assume that you'll drive very often only a few kilometers. Then the particulate filter usually won't get hot enough -> blocked afters some short distances -> expensive repair.

I think for Germany that's also too few milage for a Diesel concerning costs although Diesel fuel is quite cheap here in relation to gas.

If you really want to buy a used car, you should have somebody you trust who e.g. repairs cars quite often (shouldn't be a person from the company where you want to buy ;-)).

If you don't have that, I'd only buy a used car with a guaranty with the name of the manufacturer in it. Careful, the garages themselfes also offer used cars without such guaranty!

I mean like https://www.renault.de/.../7-sterne-programm.html

(BTW: In general, guaranties can be very different, you have to read them very carefully. In Germany, if you don't buy from a private person with _written_ "no warranty" in the contract, you have at least 12 months warranty (a "guaranty" definied by EU law which is in some cases better than guaranties, but after 6 month it's quite hard to have advantages from that).

With your budget, maybe a (nearly) new car is possible (assuming you have still enough money for the other costs, you'll have to calculate).

But at first for the other costs:

- Fuel: https://www.spritmonitor.de/ The fuel consumption of course depends extremely on the driver :-)

- Maintenance: E.g. Renault writes the maintenance/oil change intervals into the pricelists (years or km, whatever comes first, but sometimes the Oil Control System tells you earlier to go to the garage!) -> http://werkstatt.autoscout24.de/ or https://www.dat.de/.../reparaturkosten-kalkulieren.html#/

There's usually a small and a big one (in Germany often called A-Wartung (or A-Inspektion -> A maintenance) or B-Wartung/B-Inspektion (B maintenance) -> play with the age of the cars on that websites...

Maybe the engine has a Zahnriemen (timing belt)? For Renault that's typically 5-6 years/120-160Mm (whatever comes first!) - and quite expensive (500-1200EUR depending on engine).

Tires, brakes, new battery every 5-7 years, windscreen wipers (I'm using Bosch Aerotwin from Amazon, are very good and cost roughly the half of the "offical" Valeo ones you get from Renault, can be easily replaced if you don't have 2 left hands ;-))

Taxes, technical checks by law (e.g. "Hauptuntersuchung" (incl. "Abgasuntersuchung") in Germany (really new car (not e.g. used als rented car before e.g. by the dealer) after 3 years, otherwise every 2 year, 100+/-10EUR each currently) or "controle technique" in France), which level of insurance, ...

And you'll need a place to park it near to your home -> Costs? + Sometimes carparks don't have wide parking lots and on the streets a shorter car can have some advantages :-)

To the car itself: Many cars have 3 seats behind the driver, but only 2 with ISOFIX (I'm thinking of seats for little children, bigger are usually less a problem because they often don't need ISOFIX just a simple allowed(!) seat to sit higher).

Tageszulassung (don't know an English term): Many contract dealers offer that. It means that they buy a car, register it a the local authorities (=guaranty time starts running!) and may sell it with much discount (discount from manufacturer). So you usually don't have much choices and less guaranty (but full warranty - which can be unuseful after 6 months...). But they'll be usually in much better/better known condition than used cars even with official check by the manufacturer.

"Neuwagenvermittler": They'll find a contract garage of that manufacturer in Germany for you with much discount because you can't ask their employees many questions before buying the car which costs money. You should do that only if you absolute know what you exactly want.

EU-Reimport: In some EU countries cars are cheaper than in Germany. That's a little bit complicated. Got a link to the ADAC for you if you're interessted.

-> In the offical pricelists, you can usually look a few kEUR about your limit because of the things I said above. But you would have to find such an offer before you can buy it ;-)

Brands that may be interessted as (nearly) new car for you with your budget:

- Renault (my personal favorite, got good experiences also with my Renault garage here)

- Dacia (the "cheap" brand of Renault but no discount, so your quite quickly at the prices of the resp. Renault model incl. discount if you don't want a naked car where e.g. even the radio is very often an option).

- Skoda (quite popular in Germany because is the "cheap" brand of VW)

- Opel

- Maybe Peugeot/Citroen

- Maybe Fiat

Maybe it's a good idea to buy a car where the next contract garage is not too far away from you.

Now go out on the Internet and/or some dealers and look a the cars they have and then come back with some more detailed ideas what you want :-)

Smaller car but longer (e.g. Clio Grandtour) or a van (e.g. Scenic) or or or...

Sadly EVs are still quite expensive and have probably a very short range (when thinking of your budget) and you'll need a charger...

notting

PS: If you can at least read German: http://www.motor-talk.de/forum/allgemeine-kaufberatung-b816.html

[notting]

I think I forgot the Asian brands. Nissan is one company together with Renault. They say Toyota is also very good. Hyundai/Kia is quite cheap, but I got bad experiences. Maybe Seat (also VW brand) is also interesting for you.

notting

[Reifenfüller45945]

Notting, thanks a lot for great explanations!

I'll definitely follow your advices )

I live very close to Munich, so yes, it is Germany.

You've touched very nice topic about particle filter in diesel engines, thanks a lot, I didn't know that. But as far as I can see the biggest part of used cars on market are diesel. Regarding my style of exploitation: it is about 2000-3000 km/year on weekends only for shopping, and you are right, pretty short distances. And rest 7000 are planned for trips around Europe. So yearly money profit of diesel car is around 150 (considering fuel price, consumption and taxes). Particle filter itself costs 400-500, plus work I assume around 100. So, even if it is replaced every 4 years it is parity in money between Benzin and Diesel. So, is it really the reason to cut a bigger part of used cars market? Will the filter be really spoiled each 4 years after 40000 km?

I'm not really going to convince myself that diesel is better. My main concern really is reliability and predictability: be sure that next two thousands km journey will be without bad surprises and I will visit car service only in predefined time. To save some money is always nice, but extra 200-300 yearly for fuel (benzin case) or car repair (diesel case) is not really a big problem )

[notting]

Zitat:

@okjeee schrieb am 19. Februar 2017 um 22:04:32 Uhr:

Notting, thanks a lot for great explanations!

I'll definitely follow your advices )

I live very close to Munich, so yes, it is Germany.

You've touched very nice topic about particle filter in diesel engines, thanks a lot, I didn't know that. But as far as I can see the biggest part of used cars on market are diesel. Regarding my style of exploitation: it is about 2000-3000 km/year on weekends only for shopping, and you are right, pretty short distances. And rest 7000 are planned for trips around Europe. So yearly money profit of diesel car is around 150 (considering fuel price, consumption and taxes). Particle filter itself costs 400-500, plus work I assume around 100. So, even if it is replaced every 4 years it is parity in money between Benzin and Diesel. So, is it really the reason to cut a bigger part of used cars market? Will the filter be really spoiled each 4 years after 40000 km?

Did you also calculate with the price differences concerning insurance and maintenance?

If you longer trips aren't concentrated like at 1-2 monats of the year, I hope that won't become a problem, but something else could become a problem, see below.

Zitat:

I'm not really going to convince myself that diesel is better. My main concern really is reliability and predictability: be sure that next two thousands km journey will be without bad surprises and I will visit car service only in predefined time. To save some money is always nice, but extra 200-300 yearly for fuel (benzin case) or car repair (diesel case) is not really a big problem )

There're many used Diesel cars because that are typical leasing cars used by companies that get like every 1-3 years a brand new car.

But don't forget, that there discussions about:

- disallowing driving with a Diesel with less than Euro6 in "Umweltzonen" -> https://www.umwelt-plakette.de/

- thoughts in a similar direction concerning gas engines exhausting particles (=filter etc. for down-sizing engines). You can find the partical numbers at http://www.kba.de/.../SV2.html?nn=669132 ("Verzeichnisse der Schadstoff-Typprüfwerte" for "Klasse M1:

(Pkw, Wohnmobile)" also with explanations in English at the beginning; the interesting column is "Partikel" - careful: There're like all car types in Germany in that list so also very old ones - and each engine (also revisions of that engine!) has it's own number -> you should have HSN/TSN from the papers. If you enter the HSN/TSN from that list into http://www.autoampel.de/ that site will show you the ages when that car was build. My parents have a Captur I TCe 90 (=gas) -> in that list that engine is listed with and without particle, only via HSN/TSN you'll get the correct answer).

notting

[Reifenfüller45945]

Finally I've explored market for a while.

I think you are totally right about the fuel: currently benzin for me is the best option.

Looking into market there are in general 3 types of cars suitable:

1. Ford c-max / focus

2. Opel astra / meriva

3. VW Golf / Golf Plus

Of course there are others, but only 1-2 car available, but for mentioned above there are several options available.

In fords I like that engine cubic is 1.6, while for opels and WVs there are 1.4 mostly (I don't know why but for me very small engines are seems less reliable).

I've driven focus and golf, but never opel (only as a passenger). Interior of golf is the best of those 3, especially chairs, but in lots of reliability tests of recent years astra wins golf, so it is confusing.

The next step I think should be a test-drive of each car ) Try to start in next Saturday.

[PS-Schnecke46796]

Zitat:

@okjeee schrieb am 28. Februar 2017 um 15:25:32 Uhr:

Finally I've explored market for a while.

I think you are totally right about the fuel: currently benzin for me is the best option.

Looking into market there are in general 3 types of cars suitable:

1. Ford c-max / focus

2. Opel astra / meriva

3. VW Golf / Golf Plus

Of course there are others, but only 1-2 car available, but for mentioned above there are several options available.

In fords I like that engine cubic is 1.6, while for opels and WVs there are 1.4 mostly (I don't know why but for me very small engines are seems less reliable).

I've driven focus and golf, but never opel (only as a passenger). Interior of golf is the best of those 3, especially chairs, but in lots of reliability tests of recent years astra wins golf, so it is confusing.

The next step I think should be a test-drive of each car ) Try to start in next Saturday.

So what did you choose then?