How to Buy a Beater: 5 Tips for Bargain-Basement Used-Car Shoppers

Need some advice on buying a dirt-cheap set of used wheels? You came to the right place. Used cars routinely outsell new cars by more than 2 to 1, and plenty of those transactions are at the uber-affordable end. Even amid a shortage of used cars, approximately 1 in 10 private-party or classified ads on Cars.com are for cars less than $6,000 as of this writing. Such prices will usually land you an older, high-mileage vehicle with its share of issues, but the right scrutiny can make the difference between a workable runabout with addressable — or ignorable — flaws and a rolling list of expensive repairs.

Related: Tips for Buying a High-Mileage Used Car

As always, start with our used-car inspection checklist. Cheaper examples demand even more attention, especially on the mechanical front. Before you trade a wad of Benjamins for a set of old keys, bone up on a few tips for how to buy a beater:

1. Mechanic’s a Must

We’re putting a mechanic’s inspection at the top of this list because it’s the single most important step in buying a cheap used car, even if it comes near the end of the process. For any car in the final stages of consideration, visit a trusted third-party mechanic (or a well-rated facility nearby, if you’re shopping far from home) and ask for a thorough used-car inspection. It might set you back $200, but it can reveal expensive problems that lurk beyond a visual inspection and test drive. Among the items inspected should be engine compression and the underbody, which can reveal expensive drivetrain problems, significant corrosion or a major incident.

It goes without saying, but always get the inspection before you buy the car. If the seller refuses to let you take it to a mechanic, consider that a deal breaker. What are they trying to hide? Move on.

2. Pick Something Popular

Defunct nameplates with limited availability might earn you street cred among certain friends, but when it comes time to replace parts, that same rarity will make for a short supply at junkyards or aftermarket manufacturers. Pick an old car that was popular in its day, and you — or your mechanic — should have relative ease sourcing replacement parts when things go kaput. That, in turn, should mitigate repair costs.

You don’t need to dig up archived sales reports to determine if your prospective vehicle was popular. (Well, you could.) The supply of that vehicle on the used market should provide enough clues. As a bonus, higher supply gives you extra leverage when negotiating a good deal and plenty of other cars to check out if the example you’re considering doesn’t work out.

3. Verify, Then Trust

Always procure a vehicle history report on an older used car. Such reports, which come from vendors like Carfax or AutoCheck, can tell you if a car had multiple previous owners, wholesale transfers, a rebranded title or incident reports. Although they aren’t comprehensive, they give an important outline of a vehicle’s history.

Combine and cross-reference that information with any service records from the seller, which can document additional vehicle maintenance and repairs that weren’t reported to data brokers. Dealers seldom present these extra records, but any scrupulous private seller should at least furnish them for the time they owned the vehicle. Missing records aren’t necessarily a red flag, but dubious ones may be a reason to walk away. You probably don’t want to rely on a car that went two years between oil changes or required a pile of major drivetrain repairs.

Bring a knowledgeable friend when you look at the car, too, as it adds a layer of security for private-party purchases. It also allows them to follow behind you on the test drive. Such a view can reveal anything from a broken brake light or exhaust smoke to fluid leakages or even “dog tracking” — misalignment between the front and rear wheels that’s a sign of potential frame damage.

If your mechanic confirms it, such major frame damage should fall under a list of deal breakers regardless of budget. Other such circumstances include low cylinder compression, smoke in the exhaust, flood damage, coolant in the oil, rusted underbody components like fuel or brake lines, or a seller who won’t let you take the vehicle to a mechanic. Beyond this, many older cars have problems you might be able to live with depending on your tolerance for defects or uncertainty. Those include body-panel rust, sketchy service records, superficial body damage or a less-than-clean title.

4. Be Fine With Fewer Frills

As the old adage goes, more high-end features equals more problems, but exceptions exist. Toyota luxury brand Lexus has feature-loaded cars aplenty, yet it enjoys a longstanding track record of few reliability problems.

“We do not have any data that suggests that just because vehicles have high-end features that they’re inherently less reliable,” said Mike Quincy, an automotive writer with Consumer Reports.

Quincy noted Porsche as an example of high-tech and reliability, while models like the Chevrolet Colorado and Jeep Wrangler still have poor reliability despite their relative simplicity.

“Sometimes the complexity isn’t in the type of a vehicle — in other words, it isn’t just high-end models that have issues,” Quincy said. “We have luxury and high-end cars that are both reliable and unreliable.”

One thing seems likely, however: Your dollars, however few they may be, may stretch further by choosing fewer frills. Well-equipped cars, particularly from luxury brands, can still cost more — even when quite old — because they were pricier to begin with. Take a Toyota Camry and its upmarket sibling, the Lexus ES, for example: As of this writing, the median Cars.com list price on a 15-year-old Camry is about $8,000. The median price on a similar-vintage ES? About $11,600. Buying a car with fewer bells and whistles might seem less appealing, but it could land you with a car that’s a little bit newer.

More From Cars.com:

• What Are the Best Used Cars for $10,000?
• What Should a Used Car Inspection Include?
• Is Oil for High-Mileage Engines Worth the Cost?
• Is a Used Car a Good Idea?
• How to Avoid Used-Car Scams

5. Spring for Safety

Newer cars tend to be safer, and that’s one differentiator worth devoting a few extra dollars toward, whether it’s getting an example with key optional safety equipment or a not-so-old model with better crashworthiness. No age-old car will hold a candle to modern vehicles in terms of crashworthiness or safety technology, but some scrutiny can help you avoid the real stinkers of their respective eras. If your budget buys a car from the 1990s, look for something with antilock brakes and decent scores in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s moderate overlap frontal crash test, which began in 1995. For cars from the 2000s, look for examples with electronic stability systems and side protection, the latter of which translated to better scores in IIHS’ side impact test.

A safer choice might be more affordable than you think. As of this writing, the median list price on Cars.com for a 2006 Hyundai Sonata, which satisfies all of those items, is less than $4,000.

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