Buying a used car can be a dangerous process, and there are many people out there who are all too ready to fleece you. In order to avoid the many pitfalls it is necessary to exercise a certain amount of caution.

Just as you don’t want to pay too much for your car, you should be very careful if the price seems too good to be true, as it probably is. Although it is possible to find a bargain, opting for the lowest priced deal can be a bad idea unless you are convinced of the reason for it.

Most people buy their used car through car listings on the web, like http://www.motors.co.uk/buy-a-car or in printed magazines. This means that you will need to phone up the vendor. Before you do it is worth spending some time deciding the questions that you will ask.

Ideally this will be a mixture of open-ended and closed-ended questions that will de designed to probe the seller for factual information on the car such as the length of time it has been in his or her possession, its mechanical and general condition, whether it has an MOT and so forth, along with questions that might reveal anything untoward. A useful question is to ask whether there in anything about the car that you ought to know but has not yet been mentioned.

Next we recommend that you do a vehicle check just to make sure that the car is totally legitimate and that the vendor is legally entitled to sell it.

The next step is to look at the car, and it is much better to do this at the seller’s home address. This will allow you a further chance to check them out. If you do not know very much about second hand cars, then it is a good idea to somebody who does along with you. Make sure that you take along with you the notes you made when you spoke on the phone.

Always take the car for a test drive and make sure that you contact your insurance company before hand in order to arrange comprehensive insurance for this drive. This is something that many people foolishly neglect to do. If you decide you want the car, make sure that you look at all the paperwork first.