Quote:
Originally Posted by signes
This makes no sense, any used car can have a history of abuse (or good care for that matter), whether it is two years old or five. And I'd rather buy a car that is five years old that was tracked occasionally by somebody who who performed the right maintenance than a newer car owned by somebody who didn't give a shit. Each car needs to be look at individually.
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In my case, I bought from a private seller. Based on my meetings with him, I could make a pretty good guess about what he did with the car and how he treated it. If he had owned the car for 4 years I would have been less sure of the accuracy of my guess.
This guy could have put a super charger on it and put 14k miles on it at the track, but based on the guy and how long he had it, I am sure that none of that happened. I mean, who buys a new M3 on lease, puts a super charger on it, and then parts it out and sells it in 1.5 years. Some people do yes, but probably not this guy. He was busy doing other stuff and I know this because I got to know him.
There are a lot of things that affect the accuracy of your guess regarding if it's going to be a good car or a lemon. It's good to get a car that you can accurately guess the condition of. So if you can make a good guess on a high mileage car or an old car, or any car, then I think that's alright.
At a minimum I would only bet on a car with at least 3 months left on the full coverage warranty.
The more money you have, the less you have to worry about any of this. If you don't have a lot of money, making a good bet becomes more important.