I went used car shopping in the Vancouver area in 1999 for the first, and hopefully the last time. It was not the greatest experience, but in hind sight, I could have done things differently and ended up with a better vehicle.
Many of the cars I looked at were private, and some from new car dealers. I steered clear of the used dealers and of repo lots. There was one cherry of a car that I passed over - a girl with a '91 Civic that looked like she obviously loved. I had to pass it by because I felt she was asking too much and she wouldn't move enough on price.
One lady with a near perfect Protege, drove like a dream. According to her, no accidents over $2k. Until an ICBC check turned up a $4k "collision with animal" claim. Deal was off there, mostly because of the deception.
One guy had another Civic in his underground garage, uninsured. He didn't want to bother with insurance so I could test drive it - only to drive it around inside the garage.
Then there was the young couple selling their Sentra. I asked all about it - all their responses were positive. I made an offer, they didn't meet me in price, so I left. Twenty minutes later, they called me back and agreed, so back I went. I had my own sales contract worded to protect me, so I asked for the ICBC papers to get the car and owner particulars. So I copied everything down until I saw the word "REBUILT." They denied any knowledge of that, and that they unwittingly bought it from the last owner without knowing that. BS!!! No deal there.
The cars at the new car dealers were not particulary impressive so all got passed over.
Finally, after being car less for too long, and needing one soon, I bought my worst car ever from some surfer boy - a '93 Civic sedan. My first mistake - going to BCAA inspection service - they missed something critical that I discovered shortly after I took possession, the radiator was clogged solid, probably never had coolant changed in its life according to my mechanic. Then the other problems began - chewed up distributor, alignment that would never stay true for long, horrible emergency handling. Being an out-of-province car, which I was aware, I wondered if there was something in it's dark past in Ontario that I should have known, like a very serious accident. I nursed it for 3 years / 60,000 kms before the mysterious disappearing engine oil. I ended up dumping it onto a used car lot. Not as bad as it could have been, but certainly not a great experience.
In hindsight, I would have picked one of those so-so cars off a new car dealer's lot, made them fix up whatever I had issue with, and I'm sure I would have been much happier.
