Pur­chas­ing a ve­hi­cle, whether new or used, re­quires a siz­able in­vest­ment for the av­er­age cit­i­zen. For many of us, a re­li­able ve­hi­cle is seen as a ne­ces­si­ty and as such, we may be com­pelled to make such an in­vest­ment, even though it may leave us in fi­nan­cial strain. As we are al­ready mak­ing the de­ci­sion to part with a lump sum of our hard-earned mon­ey, we should en­sure it is a good in­vest­ment and not one that may be more cost­ly a few months down the road.

The con­cerns as­so­ci­at­ed with pur­chas­ing a used ve­hi­cle would not be the same as with a new ve­hi­cle. Peo­ple pur­chas­ing di­rect­ly from the deal­er­ship can rest as­sured that any ve­hi­cle they are dri­ving out of the show­room is prop­er­ly reg­is­tered in their name and would not have signs of tam­per­ing or fraud. This does not mean new ve­hi­cles are free from de­fects. There have been some cas­es where peo­ple pur­chased new ve­hi­cles which con­tained me­chan­i­cal or elec­tri­cal de­fects. De­pend­ing on the deal­er­ship, these is­sues would be quick­ly ad­dressed, where­as, in some in­stances, peo­ple opt­ed to take le­gal ac­tion against the deal­er­ship.

When pur­chas­ing a used ve­hi­cle, adopt­ing a more pru­dent ap­proach is rec­om­mend­ed, as there are more dif­fi­cul­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with this type of pur­chase. It is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that peo­ple may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be up­front or truth­ful in an­swer­ing ques­tions. As such, be pre­pared to do your own in­ves­ti­ga­tions. The start­ing point may well be the reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments for the ve­hi­cle. There is a new trend where peo­ple, in rush­ing to make a pur­chase, fail to con­sid­er whether the ve­hi­cle can be prop­er­ly trans­ferred. They usu­al­ly fall prey to ex­pe­ri­enced sales peo­ple who con­vince them that they al­ready have sev­er­al of­fers, so that the ve­hi­cle may not be avail­able for much longer. Peo­ple, in their haste, end up pur­chas­ing ve­hi­cles reg­is­tered in the name of de­ceased in­di­vid­u­als, or third par­ties, or the orig­i­nal own­ers, al­though the ve­hi­cle had changed own­er­ship sev­er­al times. The sales­per­son may al­so con­vince you that all the doc­u­ments are ready and can be eas­i­ly trans­ferred.