Q: dealing with the dealership

A pre-purchase vehicle inspection is a good idea. That inspection, carried out by a certified Mechanic from YourMechanic, dispatched to your location, will give you very specific data regarding any current problems that the car has. These independent, third party inspections are not unusual these days and so all you need to do is arrange a convenient time for yourself and the Mechanic to meet at the dealership so that the mechanic can perform the inspection. All used cars must be road-tested. Without a road test it is impossible to discover many types of potential problems such as misalignment, brake pull, unusual noises, and so forth. So, a road test and a physical inspection of the vehicle are fairly standard requests of consumers and most dealers will be familiar with this sort of request. You have additional opportunities, too, to in evaluating particular used car models. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration maintains a database of consumer complaints, official recalls and factory service bulletins for all makes and models, by year. I encourage you to go to the NHTSA website and enter the vehicle’s year, make and model and review the existing reports which will give you an excellent idea of what has been experienced by other owners insofar as faults in the particular make, model and year you are interested in. In addition, "Consumer Reports" publishes system by system vehicle reliability data for all years, makes, and models. This data is available free in the library or on-line if you are a paid subscriber. That reliability data will give you an excellent indication of the relative likelihood that key systems on the model (and year) of interest will fail at greater, or lesser, frequency compared to those rates reported for other vehicles. Obviously, what you want to be looking for in that database is an indication that the vehicle "make and model year" is not a "lemon" insofar as reliability. If you are unable to access any of these resources, or desire data of a different type, please do not hesitate for a moment to re-contact YourMechanic and we will assist you further in your attempts to make a wise used vehicle purchase. To schedule a vehicle inspection, simply request a pre-purchase vehicle inspection.