How do car dealerships cheat when buying a used car?
Today, the trade-in service is very popular among motorists - buying used cars in a car dealership. It would seem that any car dealership is a serious company, in which deception is excluded. However, they can be deceived even when buying a completely new car, and there are a lot of eloquent stories about how sellers and buyers of used cars are deceived.
Therefore, if you do not want to run into problems in the future, contact only the car dealerships of trusted dealers - we have already written about many of them on our website Vodi.su. They adhere to all the rules of the procedure for accepting a car for sale:
- cars not older than 7 years are accepted;
- thorough review of supporting documentation;
- checking the car on all possible bases;
- diagnostics, repair.
Only proven vehicles are put up for sale. But in reality, buyers have to deal with numerous types of deception. We will consider the main ones in this article.
Common types of cheating
The simplest scheme - the buyer is forced to pay for services not rendered.
Here is a simple example:
- a person drives a car in quite tolerable condition to the salon and receives his money for it;
- managers set a price that includes a lot of services: complete dry cleaning of the interior, oil change, installation of silent blocks or stabilizer struts (although, in fact, none of this was done);
- as a result, the cost increases by several percent.
That is, they prove to you that they made practically a new one out of an old and broken car, which is why it costs more.
At some sites, the technical staff really looks under the hood, but not in order to eliminate defects, but in order to change normal parts for real trash. For example, they can replace a viable and expensive battery like Bosch or Mutlu with some domestic analogue of the Kursk Current Source type, which is unlikely to last 2 seasons.
Another common scheme is the sale of used cars in good condition to dealers. The particular client will not suffer from this, however, in the future, the same car will pop up on the free classifieds site at a significantly higher price than the one paid to the former owner.
Often not very experienced buyers are offered the so-called "hanging". As a rule, these are vehicles that stand on the site for a very long time and already in the literal sense of the word begin to become unusable. It will not be difficult to bring such a car into a more or less normal type of work. As a result, someone will buy auto junk, but at a market price without discounts.
Financial fraud with used cars trade-in
Very often buyers are tempted by low cost. You can reduce the price in many ways:
- indicate it without VAT - 18 percent;
- indicate the price in the currency at the old rate, but require payment in rubles;
- do not take into account additional services (we will consider this item in more detail).
Firstly, instead of an official contract of sale, they may conclude a supposedly “preliminary contract” with you, and after signing it, it turns out that the registration of the DCT is a paid service and several tens of thousands more must be paid.
Secondly, managers can whip up a non-existent hype. So, they will tell you that at this price there is one car left, but there is already a buyer for it. If you want to buy it, you need to pay a few percent on top. This is a very old “divorce” and it is not always possible to unravel it, since the prices for a used car are not clearly fixed and depend on many components:
- technical condition;
- mileage on the speedometer - by the way, it can be easily changed down;
- the average market price for this model - no matter how good the condition, for example, Hyundai Accent or Renault Logan of 2005 is, they cannot cost more than new models in any way (unless, of course, a more powerful engine was installed or other design changes were made ).
Thirdly, some salons act only as distributors. They draw up a sale and purchase agreement with the seller on their own behalf, and then simply add 30% to the price and find a new buyer, and not a car dealership, but the former owner appears in the DCT. Such a transaction may be invalidated in the future.
And of course, common schemes:
- sale of a car with a dark past on forged documents;
- miraculous "rejuvenation" by changing the release date;
- sale of cars and constructors after an accident or assembled from several cars.
You can check all this, you just need to be careful about checking documents and reconciling the VIN code and unit numbers.
How to avoid cheating?
In principle, we will not say anything new. A simple strategy not to get into trouble, consisting of several points.
1. Take the registration certificate and check all the numbers. The VIN code, serial numbers and production date can be not only on a plate under the hood, but also duplicated, for example, on the front door pillar, on seat belts or under the seat - all this is described in detail in the instructions.
2. Look under the hood. The motor must be washed. If there are oil leaks or a thick layer of dust, this may indicate that they are trying to hide the real condition of the machine from you.
3. Sit slightly at an angle to the car, closer to the trunk and inspect the quality of the paintwork: it should be solid, without bubbles and protruding elements. If there are defects, then they should be honestly stated in the description: they repainted the fender or cracked the bumper, etc.
4. Check the gaps between the body elements, they should all be the same width. If the doors sag, this may indicate the digestion of the body and a violation of its geometry.
5. Test the car in motion:
- release the steering wheel in a straight section;
- brake hard on dry pavement;
- listen to the sound of the engine, look at the exhaust.
If the advertisement says that the car is practically new, it must match the description. But the presence of malfunctions is an opportunity to bargain, or look for another option.
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