Buying a used car from a private person is not difficult. Those who know the procedure can save a lot

You may have excluded car dealerships from your search engine due to the lack of transparency of some of them, but it may not be easy to find your way around the used car market from private owners. In the advertisements, in addition to real long-term car owners, you will also find car mechanics and dealers who earn extra money by selling used cars. We are not saying that it is clearly a bad choice to buy a car from them, but it is good to be careful.

You can easily recognize a small dealer, he usually offers several cars under his name at the same time. Vehicles are often imported from abroad, which entails a greater risk of the speedometer winding up before the first registration in the Czech Republic. This unfair practice may not be the responsibility of the Czech importer directly, but also of a clever seller in another country.

On the other hand, selling from an independent auto mechanic can be an advantage. He may put the car in a better condition than in which he bought it. Sometimes just by replacing the EGR valve, filling the air conditioner or replacing the pullers. However, if you are buying such a vehicle, buy only the one that belongs directly to the seller. It means that he took the risk upon himself when importing and therefore checked the car thoroughly. When he invests his own money in a car and has to wait to see if it will appreciate, he probably won’t get a full shunt. Leave vehicles on commission, i.e. only brokered sales, unnoticed. It means that the seller knows almost nothing about them and does not bear any risk by selling them.

The ideal used car seller is an enthusiast who keeps the documentation away from all interventions by the car service. This is usually discussed already in the ad, where all recent repairs are described. You might then know that you don’t have to do the wiring for some time and you only need to change the oil in the summer. Photos are a good guide. They should be around the car, from the cabin and trunk. If they are not complete in the ad, the owner’s insidiousness does not have to be hidden behind it. People often don’t know how to take photos at all. So feel free to send me more pictures.

When inspecting the car in daylight, carefully go around it, let them tell you the history of the car – why the owner bought it, where he drove it, where there are minor defects, etc. It is not so much about talking as about revealing possible ailments of the car. Don’t be afraid to bend under the car, the chassis is best checked from behind. If you see slices that look like burnt puff pastry, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s surface corrosion. In the cabin, focus not only on the functionality of the electricity or air conditioning, but also on smells that could reveal mold from a “heated” car.