The Top 3 Questions You Should Be Asking Before Buying a New Car
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Money matters
Before you can even begin to look for a new car you need to work out your own spending limit, i.e. your budget; and you need to consider some of the following logistics:
- Have you remembered to budget for insurance?
- Have you included the cost of an extended warranty or a service plan?
- Have you remembered to account for the price of petrol/diesel?
- What is the maximum value you could secure to put down as a deposit?
- Will you be putting down a deposit and making monthly payments on your car or are you looking to purchase your new car cash?
Its better to approach a dealership with a hard cap maximum budget in mind so that you can avoid being tempted by vehicles that you know you cannot afford. No respectable car salesman is going to show you a Ferrari if you told him straight up that youve got a Toyota budget, so to speak.
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Where are you going?
Before you can commit to a new vehicle you need to ask yourself where youre planning on going in it and whether or not the car was built for that kind of travel. Driving a gas-guzzling 4×4 monster 5km from your house to work every morning on a tarred main road seems uneconomical and environmentally unfriendly. You could also however not attempt to go bundu-bashing in a Lexus. Before you go shopping for your new car decide which is most important to you: comfort, reliability, or utility? Do not consider vehicles that you know arent built to meet your needs.
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Will it go 500 miles and will it go 500 more, just to be the car that drove a 1000 miles to break down at your door?
Vehicles, like the human body, are only good for a certain amount of time, or rather, distance traveled in the cars case, before they start to fall apart; so to speak. By purchasing your new vehicle from a reputable dealer youre ensuring you arent being sold a car whose odometer has been tampered with. Do some research prior to heading down to the lot about the expected distance covered in what is considered a lifetime for the vehicle youre interested in, and then check that figure against the odometer before you purchase the car.
