 Earl Glanshaw forming here at Township Chevrolet for another edition of Tech Talk and we're gonna stick with our how-to segment. One thing people have a lot of, I don't know why you want to say it, a lot of, you get nervous about is going to look at used car, especially when you're not buying it from a dealership or from a used car lot. You're buying a private sale and a lot of people you know get themselves into an issue where they have a car that they you know requires a lot of work or it wasn't what they wanted or so we're just gonna go through a few tips and tricks maybe some things you never really thought about that might help your car buying experience when you have to take care of it yourself. So we'll go ahead and we'll kind of look at the outside of the car first, move to the inside just a few things to think about and we'll kind of go from there. So maybe some things you didn't really think about. You're going to look at this car it's you know it's a Sunday or Saturday. Graduates you go to is closed maybe your father's not around or your brother or your mother whoever else would help you kind of go look at that car your best friends you got to go yourself or you're going with someone who's not too knowledgeable on looking at cars either. So a few things you might want to think about taking. One, clothes you don't mind getting dirty. If you want to get down underneath the car lay down on the ground take a look at some stuff get down on the nitty gritty and look at some you know underneath the engine bonnet get in there and actually feel some stuff and put your hands on some stuff to see if it's the car you want or you know if there's any mechanical issues or you know see if you see any fluids leaking you want to see what kind of fluids they are that are leaking out of there dirty clothes or definitely you must have bring a rag with you to wipe your hands off as you're going or to put down on the ground to kneel on and everything to think about too is flashlight flashlight is great you get out there you get it looking you see something kind of down low you're not really sure what you're looking at you can't get a look in there or maybe there's a dome light in the car that doesn't work because you gotta remember you're going to look at a car that you're not too familiar with maybe the trunk light doesn't work you want to get in there and take a look at the trunk floor to make sure there's no holes in it so just a couple of things you might want to think about before you head to go look at the car you gotta remember it's your money you're spending so don't be shy to look at everything if someone's really interested in selling the car and they got nothing to hide they won't mind you looking it around and if you can get out for a test drive you want to come to a parking lot somewhere where you're kind of away from the eyes of the guy who owns the vehicle and he had that opportunity then great go ahead and if that makes you feel more comfortable definitely go ahead the ideal thing obviously would be to take it to a garage or another or shop or someone you trust had them put it up in a hoist and check it out from one end to the other but unfortunately we're going to we're going to pretend that you can't do that you're kind of on your own and you're really looking at this car and this is the deal you wanted and you want to you want to look it at yourself so um so we'll start at the outside of the car got our flashlight got our clothes so we can get dirty and uh let's start taking a look so one thing everyone hates buying is tires uh for the most part they're one of those things they you know they cost quite a bit of money you put them on and instantly the day you put them on they're wearing out tires are a great thing to check out on a used car for one you don't want to spend the money if you're buying this car and you're putting a lot of money down on it maybe you don't want to purchase those tires so you want something's going to have tires on it for a while number two there's a lot of telltale signs that the tires can tell you about how the car has been looked after if there's any steering or suspension issues and maybe even how the car has been driven so when you take a look i've got a video you take a look there maybe i'll see if philip can throw it up in the description somewhere or throw it up above my head somewhere and uh you guys can click on that kind of show you it's all about tires and alignment stuff like that so if you take a look and you see that their tires worn on one side of the other or it's cupped really bad or it's one tire's really worn out on one side of the car but not on the other that could be an alignment issue could be a suspension issue uh could be shocks or struts that are worn out or could be some with a heavy foot maybe they got a son or a grandson or maybe the husband's driving the car um and you know uh really heavy on the gas or heavy on the brake so just something to consider you can also take a look in right quick through the wheels take a look at the brakes see how rusty the rotors are the rust the rotors the most part should be you know fairly shiny they're not it's not a jewel obviously but if you see a lot of heavy rust build up on it it's one of two things either a it's been sitting for a while and the guy's been trying to sell it and that's kind of a you know maybe either he's asking too much or maybe the car is not worth what he's asking so kind of take that into account too also it'll kind of you can you can see the brakes through most wheels and you can kind of get an overview of that so while you're down looking outside of the car you've looked at the tires tires let's say I'll look good you're gonna look at the rest of the car you're gonna look for any body damage most of the time if someone likes their car and looks after it takes care of it they get that kind of stuff fixed up so you're gonna look for things like any scrapes or dents or bangs you're gonna look for uh any spots where paints missing are chipped off because it may not be rusted now but in six months time after you own the car maybe it will be rusted it's something you gotta you know think about getting fixed up um you also want to take a look at the glass fill uh that's real expensive too right so you know some windshield especially they got the rain sensing windshield uh or it's an off kind of make model uh windshields can be really expensive and if it's already cracked whether you get glass insurance they're not going to replace your window for you if the window's already cracked when you buy the car so that's something you're gonna have to spend it a pocket so that's something to look at too um you look down the side of the car the back car obviously you want to check the lights you're going to want to check uh see if your things like your rear defroster all your safety equipment back here your reflectors are on your bumpers are good and secure um all the door handles are in there uh all your hubcaps your wheel nuts all that kind of stuff so just in a quick look around the vehicle you can really get an idea of what kind of condition it's in obviously this car looks really good it's got good tires got good brakes i don't see any damage anywhere everything looks pretty good so um maybe we'll pop the hood next and we'll get a look under there and uh give you a kind of a couple pointers on what to look at under there so this is where you want to have that rag ready have your flashlight ready so open the hood obviously one of the quick things to check pull the dipstick check the engine oil make sure it looks clean if it's not clean or dirty ask him when he's had a change maybe ask him who's changed it maybe it's a dealer maintained thing or it's been done at a professional shop in the city or the town where you're from maybe you know the technician that's been looking after you can go actually ask him some you know direct questions about the car uh if he says he does it itself not necessarily mean it's a bad thing just means that you know maybe he didn't use the right oil maybe he wasn't as vigil to do his oil changes when he was supposed to so you can get really down in those areas around here you want to take a look make sure there's no leaks obviously the oil's low maybe it's burning it maybe it's leaking it so take your flashlight take a look around you're just looking for any spots that are wet you don't have to know what it is where it's leaking from you just want to know if it's leaking or not is that something you have to be concerned about uh maybe ask the person that's you're buying the cart and they might tell you all that timing cover gasket has been leaking like that for the last couple years my technician says it's not too too bad i've been just keeping my on it uh maybe it'll be that shock surprise oh jeez i didn't know that was leaking it maybe it gives you a bit of bargaining uh tool there to kind of to beat the price down a little bit so everything under the hood here looks pretty good um you know it'd be nice to be able to open the air filter check all that kind of stuff but you gotta you gotta remember you're kind of limited on your time you're limited on your tools and um you know he's probably not wanting you're poking and prodding at the car too too much and you know pulling pieces off right but that's kind of stuff you can do that's really not intrusive maybe take a look at the battery this one's covered up but on a lot of older vehicles so this you can take the cover off you know if you get a whole bunch of buildup of corrosion and stuff around the battery it might tell you that you know maybe it's not as maintained as good as he says it's gonna as it's maintained so just a few other things to think about there um so we checked all the fluids we look kind of around the car tires brakes and stuff and what we can see um another good opportunity get the hood up here you can kind of land underneath the car and uh you know you get your dirty clothes on and you can you can get under there take a look at the floor pans you're looking for any real heavy rust same thing on the body if you see a bunch of rust uh then maybe you want to just wait the extra day and take it somewhere to get it checked out or you know if you know well enough about it and it doesn't look too too bad then maybe take a chance on it but at least take a look so what we'll do right now is guess maybe we'll move to the trunk that'll just take a minute and we'll show you what to kind of have a look at in there so a trunk's not an area that most people look at when they go look at a car I'll tell you there's a couple things you really want to check out in here number one if you're buying this sedan and you know you've got a lot of stuff you like to carry and having the seats flipped down are important well that's where your seat locks are so that's where you can check the operation of these seats make sure they fold down maybe that's something important to you these could could be a you know thing that's expensive to fix so you want to make sure that's done um you can check make sure you get a spare tire if you got a spare tire in there and it's worn completely right off or it's never been replaced or it's you know got no air in it um you know maybe that's another sign it's not maintained very well this is also a spot that a lot of cars will tend to have a leak so you want to check and make sure there's no real heavy rust issues or any air any signs anything leaking in here so even though the trunk is empty and you know it doesn't seem like it's that big a deal it's a real good spot to see some telltale signs of how the car is looked after so let's take a look on the inside of the car all right so now we're inside the vehicle and if you haven't already gone for test drive good time to go for test drive uh when you're driving put your foot in the brake does the brake pedal pulsate does it make a bunch of noise it might be an indication that you got a brake issue does it take it up to highway speeds does the steering wheel shake could have a wheel at a balance or maybe a bent wheel or maybe get something else going on going on with the drivetrain so um another thing to do too you want to make sure anything that's important to you in here that's electrical you want to make sure it works because this stuff in the new vehicles now uh you know it's expensive to replace this isn't just your uh average everyday radio or uh HVAC unit so you want to make sure that stuff works turn the radio turn the heater on make sure all the settings in the gear work it only takes a few seconds to do and we could really save yourself a lot of money down the road power windows power mirrors whatever is important to you and whatever you're going to use that car for if you're driving if you're going to go buy this car it's just a winter beater that you're going to drive around just to get back and forth to work and you don't care if the radio works or if the power windows in the back work well then that's not important to you but anything you kind of got to know what you're going into and what you really want to get out of what you're investing in the vehicle right and how much you're spending on it so there's everything in here every button here's got to work and got to do something so it only takes a second to press every button to make sure it works um also it's a good time to look take I mean obviously if the car is cleaned inside and the interior looks great this is where the person spends most of the time that owns a vehicle so if they don't care what it looks like in here chances are they don't care about anything else in this vehicle so this is a good way to determine well this is a this has been really looked after there's no rips there's no tears there's no stains it's not all piled up with dog care there's not scratches all over there from the dog jumping up on the on the window so you kind of get an idea of this guy really looks after his vehicle this lady looks after your vehicle and you know she's looking for it to last a long time and when it comes time to sell she's looking to have something worth selling so these are all things you want to look at wipers all that kind of stuff um another thing to think about too if you're buying something fairly new especially private sale and you're getting into a higher dollar or it's new enough where you think the the person still might have payments on it call your bank do a lien check make sure that there's no money owing on that car uh you can maybe buy the car in a couple weeks later a month later you could have someone come to your door and just take that thing away from you so um you definitely want to do a lien check and if you're buying you know from a car lot maybe a smaller car lot um or even a dealership you want to ask them to do a car fax report that'll kind of tell you if it's been damaged if the odometer's been messed with if uh you know it's a theft recovery or it'll give you the history of the vehicle it'll even uh show you what maintenance stuff has been done and recalls and stuff like that so it's uh you know most reputable places will provide that for you if you ask for it obviously you can't do it a private sale but if you get the VIN number you can pay for it yourself you can go online there's a few companies that do it and you can get your own car fax report so go look at the car if it's everything you wanted and the price is right um and you're seriously buying it and you're investing enough money depending on what that is there everyone's different a hundred dollars to some people's a lot of money it could be ten thousand dollars it could be fifty thousand dollars whatever it is to you where you kind of feel like this is not something you just want to lose uh definitely get your lean check done and get a car car fax report done and then um when it comes time to uh to sign the paperwork when you're dealing with a private sale you're going to want everything on the registration signed so the person's name the date what you paid for it and the kilometers it'll all be on the back of the registration they keep half for their license plate and PEI and you keep the other half to go to the DMV to get it registered your name it's also a good idea to have a bill of sale done up and all the bill of sale needs to have is the person selling the car the person buying the car their name the VIN number how much you're paying for the vehicle and the date both you sign it you take that to the DMV and you shouldn't have any problems and it comes time to register that vehicle so just a few things to think about I know it's a longer video but just some stuff to think about grab your flashlight grab some clothes you don't mind getting dirty and get right in there and just remember it's your money you're the you're the person buying the vehicle and you're the person to live with the decision so you definitely want to take your time and look that thing over right so hope you guys enjoyed the video if you guys have any any questions or any comments drop them down below any suggestions on videos just let us know here and anyway we look forward to seeing you