Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Used Car Buying in Charlotte



Take a drive down North Tryon Street. Start near Uptown Charlotte and go straight onto the UNCC area. As you go make sure to look to your left and your right and you’ll find a landscape dotted with car lots. This is just one street in a city of over 700,000 people. When you spread out to the metropolitan area that surrounds Charlotte that number jumps to well over a million and the number of used car dealers multiplies accordingly. The argument could be that the most difficult part of buying a used car in Charlotte is actually finding the right dealer to go to.

But the reason that these used car dealers exists is quiet simply because there is a demand for them. Charlotte is very much a new city, with most of its urban growth occurring within the last 50 years. Unlike older metropolitan areas such as Boston or New York where urban planning envisioned the city as a central hub for business, recreation, and living, Charlotte is much more decentralized in its development. If you want a good cup of coffee you might want to go to NoDa, if you want a good movie or book you might try Plaza Midwood, and if you want authentic Mexican food you will end up some place in South Charlotte.  And it stretches on from there. If you want to go to the mall you usually will drive to Pineville or Concord, and some of the best golf courses are down in Rock Hill. In short, Charlotte is a city where you drive.

Besides that used car sales are the most lucrative part of the automotive industry, and the options to buy a used car in Charlotte are as diverse as they are numerous. Dealerships range from large multi-state super stores to small dealers selling salvaged titles and pipe dreams. While you should always go for the dealer and the car that is right for you, your first inclination may be to run to the larger dealers out there and snap up the first thing you see. But  you should consider weighing your options first. Before you ever hit the lots you should do your research online. While it may not behoove you to go crawling through car manufacturers sites since you are in the used car market, most car dealers maintain their inventory online in a number of places. The first would be their actual site (such as Crown Auto’s vehicle inventory is hosted at buyatcrown.com). Searching for a car dealer by name will provide you with the added benefit of seeing customer reviews from places like Yelp, Google, and Yellowpages.com. Next on the list would be the large, directory style sites like Autotrader and Cars.com. While their inventory doesn’t show every car for sale in the area it does give you the option to find something that you can afford while combing through several different dealers’ inventories. Finally there would be the online ad-generating websites, obviously the most famous of which is Craigslist. While such sites are known for shadey business practices, more times than not costly items such as vehicles are tightly monitored, which results in excellent quality. However this comes with the major drawback of you passively browsing instead of actively searching, giving you less control over what you see.

Whatever the method you use however, make sure to do proper research. With a used car many reviews will be available from others who have driven the same model of vehicle for a number of years. Make sure to check for any recalls or known issues with that particular make and model of vehicle, and if possible pull up a CarFax report on the particular vehicle you intend to buy. Remember those old GI Joe PSA’s that used to say “Knowing is half the battle.”? Well the same holds true for buying your next used car. Equip yourself with as much knowledge as you can. Then contact the dealer.

After you contact the dealer, and obviously take your used car for a text spin, get it checked out by an independent mechanic. While we aren’t saying that car salesmen aren’t honest (after all we’re car salesmen and we are pretty honest) it’s always better to have a second opinion. Once this is done now you have to sit down with the dealer and talk turkey. Notice that coming down on the price of a vehicle and coming down on your monthly payments are two different things. If the dealer lowers what you are paying every month, the vehicle is still the same price and you will end up paying more in the long run due to interest. Always doublecheck all of the paperwork before you sign, and most of all use your head.

Follow our advice and no matter where you go, your next used car buying experience will be a positive one.

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