Used Cars Under $1000

You are given 1000 dollars to buy a car, not just any car but one that runs good, and has little to no problems, the problem is you are not sure what types of things you should consider.

The first thing you want to do is expect the tires, how do they look? Are they wearing evenly, or is the wear uneven? If they are uneven, there could be several things wrong.

Here is a list of the most common problems:

• Toe wear- bad tie rod ends
• Camber wear- ball joint problems, also could be a front-wheel drive cradle, or a broken spring,
• cupped wear- shocks, or could also mean that the tire is out of balance.
• If the tires look like they were just replaced, try to find out why.
• The next best place to look is under the hood, this can tell you a lot about the car, when was the last time any maintenance was done; there should be stickers, with dates on them. If any of this looks fishy, then it probably is.
• Anyone who wants to sell a car knows that turning the odometer back, will bring in a higher profit, if there are any signs of tampering, then you may want to go to carfax to check it out.
• Another thing that you will want to check is the history of the car, has it been in a flood? Have there been any major recalls on it? What about any accidents make sure that you check all of this out before spending 1000 on the car.
• One of the biggest mistakes that people do is not to have the car checked by a mechanic, they can tell you if you are going to be throwing away your money.
• CV joints can be expensive to replace. And if they are loose they may be ready to break, and can put you in life or death situation

When buying a used car, the automatic transmission is one of the most important parts to check. Find out if the car was used to pull something, this can cause a transmission to go bad quickly. When trying to figure out if the transmission is any good, make sure you have a piece of white paper, a paper towel will work just as good. Wipe the dipstick, the fluid should look clear, there should be no metal or black flakes, and the fluid should not smell burnt. If you are not sure about the transmission, don’t buy the car as it may need a new transmission put in it before you can even drive it. If it a newer car without a dipstick, take it to a service station.

When you put the car into the reverse position it should shift smoothly, and should kick in almost instantly, when you remove your foot off of the gas, it should want to back up, without any jerks. Now place your foot back on to the brake, and shift gears, going through them one at a time and very slowly, it should also shift easily, if it seems to take a while for the transmission to kick , there is a bad transmission in the car, and you could be looking at another 2000 just for that part.

When you test drive a car, don’t do what a lot of people do to see how fast you can get it to go from 0 to 60, start out slow and feel for the gears, they should not jerk, when accelerating, instead you what you should feel and I have learned from experience is a nice what I like to call a kick in horse power, if you do not feel this then don’t buy the car.

Start speeding up but this time give the car a little more gas, what do you feel? Does it downshift properly? see how long you can drive the car, sometimes the transmission can act fine when its not warmed up, if the owner won’t let you drive it long, don’t buy the car, more then likely it has something wrong with the transmission and he knows it.

If you still have doubts have a mechanic look at it, also there are some places like auto zone that give free, system checks, you may want to have them check out, their machine will tell you if there are any mechanical items wrong with the car, I wish I would have known this when I bought my car, for 500 dollars, I would not have bought the car.  However, you can still get used cars under $1000 if you look hard enough.