Available Car Guide

An available car, also called a used car in a lot of the world, is one that has been pre-owned by someone else.  This can be anything from a luxury model with hardly any miles on it to a clunker that looks like it has been through the wringer.  In times past making a bad purchase on an available car was not really expensive.  If the engine was out that was pretty easy to tell and the same with the transmission but other than that most repairs would not be that expensive.  This has now changed with the high tech cars of today.

For years a car consisted of mostly mechanical systems.  The engine, transmission, drive train, brakes, and body.  These were usually easily repaired by most repair shops because the basic ideas were the same for every car.  If a guy could change points in a Chevy then he could also do brakes on a Ford.  In the 1970's this started to change.  Suddenly cheap gas was no longer available and we started to worry about the environment.  These two factors came together to force car makers to make radical changes in the fuel and exhaust systems of the average auto.

Also at this time, micro-electronics and miniaturized computing were available and this allowed for control systems that were only dreamed of before.  Now the flow of gasoline into the engine could be controlled to the smallest percentage which meant more of the fuel would be burnt giving better fuel economy and decreasing emissions.

This was all well and good but it meant the systems got dramatically more complicated over the years.  This has done two things.  It has forced mechanics to specialize in only a few makes and really most of the specialize in a particular system within that make of car.  For example, they may be fuel technicians or ignition technicians or power train.  There is just so much to know now for each car a mechanic needs to specialize.

It has also made repairing cars more expensive.  It is not uncommon for a basic repair to cost over a $1000 now when only one or two parts are changed.  This makes buying an available car a much bigger gamble than before.

Since repairing cars is so expensive now it is very important that you do both a personal test of the auto and take it to a mechanic who can check it out.  When you do your test drive look at these potential problems

• Brakes-when you push on the brakes is there a noise or pulsing?  Do they stop the car well?  When you push on the brakes does the car try to pull one way or the other?
  
• Engine-does the engine idle smoothly?  You should not see any rocking back and forth of the engine when it is idling.  When you accelerate is it smooth or do you feel jerking?  You should be able to take off from a stop sign by pressing on the accelerator quickly and the car should not hesitate.  At highway speed is the engine smooth and when you push on the accelerator to pass does it have power?
• Steering-if you lightly release the wheel does the car continue to go in a straight line with maybe a little drift to the right or does the wheel pull to a side hard?  Cars are mead to have a slight pull to the right in case you fall asleep so you drive off the road and not into a headon.
• Transmission-do you feel any slipping when you accelerate or does the car respond well?  The car should be responsive to your acceleration.

If the available car passes all these test then you should take it to a mechanic for further testing.  This will cost some money but it is cheap insurance against a massive car repair bill.