There are many platforms for buying used cars in UAE. But it’s essential to know how to handle this business. This article by CarSwitch lays down the basic information for UAE buyers.
What are your preferences?
You should decide two things: your maximum budget and what is car segment you’re interested in? The budget includes the owner transfer fees, initial maintenance work, and the price of insurance. After deciding these things, you should start looking into the models of your preferred car segment.
Also, know which manufacturer you are after. After picking a narrow list of cars you want, search online for the forums of those specific vehicles. The forums are highly valuable because they consist of comments from the real owners of the cars. Those owners have also shared the issues they faced while driving that car. This will give you a clear idea of what you should look out for when you meet various sellers.
Dealership or private seller?
There are two choices for buying a used car. These are a dealership or a private seller. Usually, vehicles are at least 20 to 30% more expensive when they are purchased from the dealership.
Many GCC specs of the latest vehicles in UAE have a 5 years warranty given by the automaker. This means that if you want a 3 years old vehicle from a dealership, they will offer you the remaining warranty.
However, if you buy that same car from a private seller, the cost will be much lower. In both scenarios, a warranty is guaranteed. But you have to make sure that the warranty has not been made invalid. This can be ensured by taking the vehicle to the agency where the same vehicle is being sold in brand new condition and making sure that the warranty can be transferred and is valid.
Benefits of choosing a private seller
Even if the vehicle is more than 5 years old, you can have it cheaper if you opt for a private seller. However, dealerships are not completely useless. It is advised to check their inventory and visit their outlets so that you become aware of the actual prices and can negotiate better.
For instance, if you want 5 years old GCC specs Toyota Corolla with less than 100,000 km on it, the dealership may have done its advertising for AED 30,000. The same car can undoubtedly be purchased from a private seller at AED 22,000.
This is because private sellers are flexible in negotiations. These sellers want their vehicles to be sold as soon as possible. On the other side, the used cars dealerships have made the vehicles unregistered and boast plenty of storage space.
Questions to ask during a pre-purchase inspection
- Why are you selling your car?
- For how long have you owned the car? (It’s better if they’ve owned it for a long time)
- How many owners drove this car? (The fewer, the better)
- What are the defects?
- Has this car been in an accident?
- Do you have the service records of the vehicle since you bought it, or at least you have started to use it? When the seller gives you a pile of bills for the work done on the vehicle, read through all of them. If the seller has done all services to the car regularly, it means it’s a reliable buyer.
If the car has gone through serious accidents or has big defects such as faulty transmission or destroyed head gaskets, you should simply walk away.
Things you should bring
- A torchlight to see the engine
- A weak magnet. Place it on the car to detect anybody filler
- A tissue paper to check the shade of automatic transmission fluid and other fluids as well. If the fluid is dark and smells burnt, don’t buy the car.
Test drive
It is crucial to have a pre-purchase test drive before buying the vehicle. This is because you can be familiar with any remaining defects just by a few minutes drive. There are many things to observe during a test drive.
For instance, check the oil gauge, temperature, lights, airbags, etc. If the vehicle has features of a sunroof or cruise control, make sure to check that too. Before doing the test drive, inform the owner what you will do and check.
For example, whether you will rev the engine or accelerate hard. In case any of the features do not work, you can add these defects while trying to lower the price in negotiations.
