Used car buying tips for finding a quality used car in Portland

Dealers often buy their inventory from auction. Those vehicles typically comes from either other dealership trade-ins or wholesalers (often smaller dealers that scan craigslist looking for deals). Most reputable dealers will buy cleaner inventory at auction that may come from financial institutes or may be lease returns, rental/fleet vehicles that are guaranteed by the auction. Guaranteed units, meaning the dealer then has 7 days to inspect the vehicle and find something majorly wrong in which the auction will either take it back or fix it. Despite what a dealer might tell you, all of those used vehicles on their lot didn’t come from trade-in. Reputable dealers are easily found using the power of your friends/family and the internet. Before dealing with any dealer check out their reviews online:

• Yelp – Be sure to check out the “Not recommended/filtered reviews” as well. Watch out for dealers who have 1 star reviews followed by 5 star reviews
• Google “Company name + reviews”
• Yahoo
• BBB – We have mixed feelings about the better business bureau and would suggest sticking to “real people reviews” rather than a company in the business to solicit business participation in their “accreditation”
• And finally simply typing in their business name in Google combined with the word “reviews” “PDXinspections reviews”

You’ll quickly find out what dealers care about customer service and sell quality vehicles (they go hand in hand) and which care only about the bottom line and have no conscience. You need to beware of the many dealers posting their own amazing reviews online; there are several on SE 82nd avenue doing this. When looking through their reviews you’ll notice are all equally mixed 5 star/1 star reviews as they attempt to move the real reviews down the list or off the page. Sure, people will always more apt to criticize vs. praise but you can still get a good idea who’s good and who’s bad based on their reviews. Avoid budget auto-rows like 82nd avenue as they are often a sea of poorer quality vehicles. If you hire us to inspect a vehicle at one of theses poorer dealers with bad reviews, we’ll attempt to talk you out of it. We’ve been to most of these dealers in the past and we regularly turn down multiple inspections each week based on those who don’t read through our site or know about some of the things we see there. We don’t want to waste your inspection money on the wrong vehicle, even more so we don’t enjoy inspecting poorer quality vehicles. Remember, if you’re buying a $3000 vehicle, the dealer paid much less than this and has to turn a profit to stay in business. If you find a real registered owner/private party who has the same vehicle your money will go farther without the hassle and you’ll likely get some maintenance history as well. This is the true secret to buying a long-lasting reliable vehicle.

Most of these tips below are going to really apply to private party sellers as you may quickly find it can be difficult to find a real registered owner selling their own personal vehicle. You’ll quickly realize how many car flippers/unlicensed dealers (curbers) there are out there and they are often selling some of the worst vehicles you’ll come across. These sellers can be selling some of the worse cars you will find especially when we’re talking salvage vehicles so be sure you really understand who it is you’re buying the car from. Generally speaking you will likely get more vehicle for the money buying from a private party vs buying from a dealer who is in the business of turning a profit on their sales. More under #6 below)

Using “quotes” Google the “phone number”, the “ad title”, and the VIN (if you don’t have it, ask for it as it comes in handy). You’d be amazed what you can find. If you “Googled” all three and came up with nothing you’re probably good to go.

VIN Decoder by Decode This!

Use Kelly Blue Book to check the value of the vehicle to get an estimate on what it’s worth. Knowing this information prior to your calling will help you get an idea how negotiable the seller is. You’ll probably notice many vehicles such as popular “in demand” Honda’s and Toyota’s or older lower mileage vehicles don’t typically follow KBB’s values, so be sure to figure out what the true market value is before getting frustrated by everyone asking too much for their vehicles. Again KBB values are pointless if none of the vehicles online are listed anywhere close to those values. Our advice is to put craigslist to work for you by changing the way you look and compare vehicles. Search by title only and be specific like this:

• Leave the search bar blank
• Search by year (plus one and negative one) if you’re trying to price 2006’s enter 2005 to 2007 for example (assuming its the same generation)
• Enter the Make and Model ie. Honda Civic
• Check the title status box and click clean only – You can’t compare clean title vehicles to salvage title vehicles!
• Click “Search”
• Sort by price low to high by clicking the  $$$ (Small to big blue link)
• Look at the average pricing and look at the lower priced vehicles, check them out and find roughly where the clean title vehicles start and then go back and adjust the minimum and maximum values to exclude the salvage vehicles and those that are clearly overpriced or out of your budget. Finally hit search again.
• Now re-search, adjusting the year up and down and see what others are listed for.

Otherwise someone else would have already purchased it. Know the market and value (Tip #3 – KBB Value). If the price is very reasonable for the car compared to the rest. Four questions that should come to mind:

• SCAM. If there are no plates on the car or if the plates are blanked out, there are no phone numbers and the car doesn’t look like it was photographed in your climate (i.e. Palm trees in the background located in Portland Oregon) Move on, it’s 100% a scam.
• Clean title? Probably not… If the seller doesn’t specifically use “Clean Title” in the description it most likely isn’t. Don’t you think the seller ran a blue book value on the car prior to listing it? Why would they be asking $1000’s less? Be very cautious of stories. If you’re referring to a later model vehicle it’s NEVER just a minor accident which results in a reconstructed or salvage title.
• Overall condition? Private party and most independent dealers don’t typically sell their vehicles in tiptop shape with important safety items like good tires, brakes or even simple things such as fresh oil. Most don’t even check the oil. Tires and brakes alone could easily cost $700 – $1000 on most vehicles.
• What’s the story behind the vehicle? Smoking vehicle (burn holes, smoke odors), flood, previous accidents, paintwork, major mechanical issue, internally failing head gasket or worse?

Before you call, look at the license plates in the pictures, if you don’t see any and/or see a temporary tag in the back window it is very likely that person is not the registered owner of the vehicle. This is very common with the unlicensed rebuilders selling salvaged title vehicles. Anyone buying vehicles with the intent to resell without a dealers license is known as a “Curber”. Another possibility would be someone who is reselling a vehicle they just purchased, maybe there’s something wrong with it? Be ready for a story when calling on these vehicles (selling for: Insert family member here____).

Just because the vehicle is listed for sale by owner doesn’t mean the registered owner is actually selling the vehicle. 75% chance it isn’t the owner selling the vehicle rather a “Curber” or often called Curbstoning. Some people flip cars here in there but more so, a “Curber” is someone other than a registered owner or licensed dealer selling the car. This is illegal and those who get caught face fines from the DMV from $2500-$5000 per vehicle. These are often some of the worst cars we see. Please don’t support Curbers. Why you be concerned.

• For starters, they’re not a dealer there is absolutely no accountability if/when you have issues registering your new vehicle.
• They usually don’t know anything about the vehicle they are selling and they probably don’t care. Depending on how many vehicles they sell this way these may be the most impersonal people you will deal with. They will likely tell you what you want to hear or hopefully if they are honest they will let you know when they don’t know about the history or be straight up with you and tell you they purchased it with the intent to resale. It’s usually all about money with these sellers and most have no conscience. There are plenty who buy cheap junk and resell quickly/cheaply. Ask yourself this: If the vehicle caught your attention at their asking price, why were they able to buy it so much cheaper to turn for a profit?
• Be wary of any stories – I’m selling it for my (Insert family member here), moving, bills, bigger car, etc… Does the car have plates or a temporary tag in the pictures? REAL REGISTERED/TITLED OWNERS will have license plates on the cars.
• Most importantly they are already lying to you claiming to be the owner… What else are they hiding? Where did the get the car from and why was it sold? Maintenance or service history?

Kerry Tomlinson of KATU Problem Solvers here in Portland does a great job of reporting these stories
1st story involves a guy selling an odometer rollback truck as a “Curber” http://www.katu.com/home/video/108354209.html
2nd story involving the same seller now a licensed dealer, not following the DMV rules that govern all dealers and still using the trickery you’ll read below. http://www.katu.com/home/video/117463379.html

So how do you catch curbers? Again back to step one, use Google and search Craigslist for the phone number. If you see multiple vehicles for the same phone number of a seller who is claiming to be an owner? Guess what….You’ve found a Curber. We can guarantee this is the case for 1 or more vehicles you’ve already been looking at, yes it’s that common! Another dead give away is when they attempt to fool you by listing their phone number in a photo rather than the ad text (so Craigslist and search engines can’t index it) or using different formats with spaces such as 5 0 3 – 7 8 9 – 0 1 6 8; replacing the zeros with O’s; spelling out numbers (5O3)-7 eight 9 O16eight, or a combo of all the above. If someone goes through the hassles of doing this they are 99.7% positive not the registered owner of the vehicle…

Still not sure if they are a licensed dealer or a Curber? If you’re buying a car from Oregon, check out Oregon Dealer Business Registry – http://dmv.odot.state.or.us/cf/dlrsliclkup

(Enter the phone number in this format XXX-XXX-XXXX) If they don’t show up in that search and they are selling multiple vehicles they are breaking the law and are selling vehicles illegally.
*OREGON LAW STATES: Only persons or organizations currently licensed as vehicle dealers in Oregon may buy, sell, or otherwise act as a vehicle dealer in Oregon. By law, a dealer must announce they are a dealer in EVERY AD: Required to give their business name, dealer number, address and phone number.

Carfax and AutoCheck – In our opinion there is more marketing and hype behind these reports than what they are worth. Carfax does a great job marketing their product and 90% of consumers know what a Carfax is. What you don’t know is that they are really geared towards the dealers as dealers have to spend big bucks every month to become one of those “Reputable Carfax Dealers” you see mentioned on TV ads. Dealers will sometimes actually buy vehicles on clean Carfax reports alone, often knowing the vehicle has been in an accident, as they realize 95% of potential buyers will ask for one and as long as the Carfax doesn’t show an accident the vehicle will likely sell. 95% of consumers don’t know or don’t think to have the car inspected by a reputable unbiased third-party. These reports should be used as additional buying tools only. Don’t make the mistake of trusting everything you read on these reports. In our professional opinion they are only “somewhat” effective in tracking vehicle mileage and the number of owners which again is worthless information if the vehicle wasn’t properly maintained. Truth is, nothing beats having a professional check over your potential purchase before making an offer on a vehicle for sale as these reports will not tell you the mechanical condition of the vehicle. Theses reports do a bad enough job keeping track of accidents in the first place and will never be able to tell you the severity, quality of repair, or if existing damage still exists.

If these reports are important to you, we suggest you run both (PDXinspections includes at least one history report with every inspection). The information will often vary between the two and in our experience AutoCheck is the winner when it comes to speed of reporting information. They also collect auction data almost instantly, something Carfax will not do as it would devalue their reports when it came to the dealers. If a vehicle runs through auction and is announced as a frame damaged vehicle it will show up on an AutoCheck report the same day, however it will never show up on a Carfax. We see this almost every day. Carfax can often lag years behind for some vehicles. 80% of the vehicles we inspect have one or more repainted panels yet nothing shows on either of the reports. Here is an example of an inspection on a BMW M3 we did.
You can visit the Free Carfax Airbag Deployment Report to access the free Carfax air bag advisor tool – again it likely it won’t show anything but it’s free so you might as well try (update: we wouldn’t put much faith in this tool as we’ve seen Carfax’s show airbag deployments yet show nothing on the free tool). Carfax also offers a Free Carfax Flood Check Report.
6a) NICB free VIN check – https://www.nicb.org/theft_and_fraud_awareness/vincheck this isn’t as detailed as the above reports but the important info comes from the same sources. It should tell you whether its a clean title and/or stolen.

We would stay away from these vehicles, based on our past experiences inspecting them we’re not fans of them. Every so often we inspect one that was properly repaired and it’s difficult to spot the previous damage. Ideally this is how you’d want to find them but these situations are rare. Don’t get caught up in the price. Unless this is a vehicle you will drive into the ground, when you go to sell it you will take the hit on the other side as well. These aren’t the easiest vehicles to sell and skeptical of a buyer you are now, the future buyer will be as well. We would almost always recommend a higher mileage, properly maintained vehicle over a salvaged title vehicle. The people selling these vehicles will always tell you it was a minor accident, etc… In most cases an insurance company pays off an accident vehicle (salvage vehicle) when the damage approaches 80% of the vehicles market value. Here’s one we personally inspected being advertised as only a 25K mile, no accident (theft recovery) car being sold by a Curber – YOU MUST READ THIS STORY
Most banks will not finance these vehicles and some insurance companies will not insure them so we suggest you do your research prior to scheduling an inspection.

Spelling and punctuation errors can tell you a lot about the seller. Some people can’t spell and have poor punctuation skills and that’s fine, we’re only human and we make errors all the time. Our thoughts are that it reflects poorly on the seller if the entire ad is riddled with errors and they can’t take the time to write a proper ad or run a simple spell check. We see this very often in the ads of the curbers as previously explained. Have you ever heard the expression, “You only get one chance to make a first impression”? Think about what that person is may be like when you call them, many times you’ll have someone on the other line that you will probably not want to do business with.

Buying a car you find online is a lot like buying a car through a classified ad in the newspaper. In either case, use your best judgment.

Know the car’s market value

Be suspicious of a vehicle priced significantly below market value. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Obtain a vehicle history report

A vehicle history report can provide useful information, such as who holds the title to the car and whether the car has been in an accident reported to authorities. You’ll also find out whether the car was ever reported stolen, salvaged or damaged. (We include a History report and often additional information with every inspection)

Inspect the car

Schedule an inspection with a professional mechanic or an inspection service if the car is not in your area. An early inspection can help you identify problems. However, keep in mind that an inspection isn’t a warranty and won’t guarantee a car is free from defects or that inspectors have identified all existing problems.

Confirm contact information

Before you send payment, verify the seller’s street address and phone number- an email address is not enough. ZIP codes, area codes and addresses should match up. Be wary if the seller is located overseas. (BAD ADVICE – Work with sellers face to face only)

Use email wisely

Avoid sending sensitive personal or financial information (such as your social security number, credit card number or checking account number) to a seller via email. Remember that email communications are not secure and can be easily forwarded to others.

Get a detailed receipt

Ask the seller for a receipt that states whether the vehicle is being sold with a warranty or “as is.”

Get title to the vehicle

Make sure you know what’s required in your state to transfer title to the vehicle you’re buying.