Yesterday, I said good bye to my 2006 Mini Cooper S. I sold it to some company which only take damaged cars. That’s a sad story, not only because I lost a lot of money on that car, but also that’s the first car I owned in my life.
I decide to write some articles about that car. I feel lucky I owned it, but also feel bad I didn’t take good care of it.
At the end of 2013, I relocated to California, and then found it is impossible to live without a car here. At that time, I always took my kindle with me so I could finish a novel when I waited for the damn bus coming.
So I need a car. But I should get driving license first. And in order to get the license, I need a car.
As usual, I checked some Chinese forum to see whether they have some experience about buying a used car in United States. Sometimes it is good to listen to the people from your country. And their first advice is that: Do Not Buy a used car from dealer. Because you are not native, and even native people will be confused and buy a car at very high price from dealer. Even worse, that car might be a lemon.
Now I realize they know nothing as well. They might think Subaru is an American company like one of my colleague. I mean, of course, there is some bad dealer, but there are some good ones, and you can find really nice cars. Recently I purchased a trade-in car from dealer, and both car and price are good.
Interestingly, their second advice is, going to Craigslist, but be very careful. There is a long post, and they list all kinds of tricks about how to avoid scam and lemon cars from Craigslist. It seems they prefer a even harder way to buy a used car. At last, of course, you need to do a pre-purchase inspection.
One of my friend, she purchased a 2008 BMW 328i with around 40000 miles from Craigslist for $15000. That’s a very good deal actually. Like me, she knows little about car. She took this car to FireStone for inspection. I haven’t been to FireStone, but it seems they don’t have good reputation. But the main reason she bought this car is that, the previous owner is working for google, and left a good expression on her.
Something similar happened to my another friend, he bought a Ford 500 from Craigslist with 70000 miles for $7000. And now it has $120000 miles on it and still runs well. He didn’t even do a inspection when he bought the car. I think he is a lucky guy, but he told me that it is not all about luck. He bought this car because the previous owner has a very beautiful house.
It turns out that, it is necessary to do a background check on the previous owner if you want to buy a used car from Craigslist, which is much harder than you find some reviews about dealer on Yelp. Especially if you meet at some public parking lot with cameras around.
When I started to browse Craigslist, I didn’t know what kind of car I want to get. It was totally waste of time. And according to my friends’ experience, it is totally depends on what kind of person is selling his/her car.
Another problem for buying a used car is that, how you can get there to check the car. You don’t have a car. That bothers me a lot. You have to make an appointment with the seller, rent a car, and go there. It only works if the seller will not cancel the appointment, not sell the car to other people, and not forget about the appointment. You can not rely on the seller because most of them are bad private dealers or the people who want to get rid of their lemon car.
So, I browsed the Craigslist for 1 month and didn’t do anything.
One day, I was having dinner with my colleagues, talking about which car I should get, one of them told me that, his friend, Sherry, wanted to buy a bigger car, and sell her Mini Cooper. He asked me whether I am interested.
I said no immediately. Come On Man. I want to drive like Dominic. Can you imagine Dominic is driving a Mini Cooper to tow that huge metal box? I don’t want to be pussy. I want a Charger!
“And it is red with a Micky Mouse on the top of aerial”, he added.
One month later, I took this car, and it became the first car in my life. And the first modification I did on my car is that, I got rid of that stupid Micky Mouse.