Buying a used car - 10 top tips

I beg to differ :)

If you honestly believe what you're saying to be true, then good luck to you. However, anyone who suggests it takes more than a couple of thousand kilometres to "run in" an engine has no idea what they're talking about.

Regards, Noddy.

============================ Now why would I ever buy a Car I do not like in the first place? There is always the chance That the car I bought would be a piece of junk BUT that would be my fault for buying it...

Bob Griffiths

You sound like the guy who tried to tell me that every new engine is run at 10,000 rpm's for 8 hours straight before being sold.

Well.... could be you find out it wans't all you expected or wanted it to be and decide to go with something else. It's happened to me before. My Pathfinder lasted me all of one year before I sold it for another vehicle. Most of that time I was worried about resale value... my current car I like a lot and I don't really worry about resale that much (I mean I didn't hate the Pathfinder, but something inside me didn't like it cause I was constantly looking at car ads for fun and constantly worried about resale value).

Alice

No, I don't think I sound much like him at all really...

Regards, Noddy.

Noddy made the world a better place for us by saying..

spose the fact my 398000 KM Mk2 Golf GTi (afaik original motor) just keeps getting quicker and quicker, still uses bugger all oil, and has been driven in a rather quick fashion all its life must mean it's a freak..

(and *still* for sale.. c'mon, someone must want the f'kin thing, it'll be a full on classic soon)

Either that, or you're imagining things...

No it won't :)

Regards, Noddy.

Here is the logic most of us use:

Car engines wear out over time. They wear quickly the first few miles, and then less as time goes on. The amount of wear per mile at

Here is noddy's logic:

Car engines wear for the first 20 miles then stop wearing whatsoever.

Actually, this is completely inacurate...

The amount of wear, or the wear rate, has absolutely *nothing* to do with the mileage, but rather the type of *usage* the engine is subjected to.

How you come to that conclusion based on what I said is completely beyond me. I guess you didn't do so well in school :)

Regards, Noddy.

Really. So, machines do not wear out over time. They simply wear out all at once, at the end of their lives. I see. And they don't wear at different rates, well, except, as you state, at the end of their lives, when wear accelerates to infinity.

So which is it, they wear at a constant rate, which blows your comment about it happening in the first 500 miles, or they wear at different rates, which blows what you say above? Actually, I don't care what you think it is, and I'll bet nobody else does either. We all know you are wrong.

Uh, from comments like you make above.

So far, so good.

There is an inherent assumption here that the vehicle is being driven relatively "normally".

Not quite. It is a possible scenario that is based upon a number of assumptions regarding the design and construction of the vehicle and the manner in which it is treated...

Correct. This is basically saying that we aren't going to make as many assumptions as DTJ has made. The pattern of usage is clearly one of the DTJ's assumptions.

This statement shows a substantial comprehension problem. It is _not_ what Noddy said at all. What Noddy said is that it depends how an engine (or other mechanical device) is treated as to how rapidly it will wear. If the first owner of a car treats it well, but the 2nd owner thrashes it, it is entirely reasonable to expect that the engine will wear more rapidly when the 2nd owner forgets to check the oil and coolant levels for 6 months when compared to the original owner who routinely took the car to the dealer for scheduled services...

If your driving style is as bad as your comprehension skills, I'd expect that yours will have a substantial increase in wear rate when you buy it. Everything will wear to some extent over time, but that wear is not purely a function of time - there will be _some_ wear while ever it is operating. How _much_ wear is a function of usage, which is precisely what Noddy said above.

I can't find anything like that stated anywhere in Noddy's post.

Clearly not. There is a _high_ wear rate during bedding in, then the wear rate tapers off to comparitively little.

The amount of wear during the bedding-in period is quite high. The wear after the engine has bedded in is miniscule by comparison provided that the engine is treated properly.

Ahh. That complete lack of comprehension again. No, a different rate of wear over time does not contradict what he said above.

I guess that you must have intended that comment for yourself.

Where did I say they don't wear over time?

Engine wear rates are governed by a multitude of things, and the mileage a car travels plays a minor part in it's life expectancy.

Engines wear incredibly quickly during the bed in period, but the wear rate then slows dramatically once everything has found it's running clearance. However, in having said that, you need to bear in mind that engines are machines with rotating and sliding components, and that they wear to a degree every time they're running.

The biggest factors by far in terms of engine wear, apart from the input of the driver, are temperature, lubrication and cleanliness.

The lubrication side of things is obvious, as we all know what happens to engines when they're lacking in this department, however operating temperature and cleanliness of the fuel/air mixture are equally as important, and often overlooked or neglected. Engine wear increases dramatically as operating temperature falls below optimum, and running an engine "cold" is just as destructive as running it too hot. Similarly, supplying an engine with dirty air kills ring seal very rapidly indeed.

When a car's engine is run under ideal conditions in these key areas, and combined with a driver who has a clue, wear rates tend to be very low, and there's no reason not to expect your average engine to see half a million kilometers of usage without any problems. However, we often don't see all of these points being religiously met by everyone out there, which is why it's not uncommon to see identical engines in different cars having quite dramatically different useful lives.

You're *so* off target here, it's really funny :)

No offence pal, but you *really* need to brush up on your comprehension skills....

Regards, Noddy.

In this thread.

Uh huh. Here we go again.

Good to see you are finally listening to the facts.

Mate, if English is your first language, you've got some serious problems with it :)

Regards, Noddy.

i wish cars had full disclosure rules like those of real estate, but that may put used car dealers out of business

I like this guy. He has great advice. I'd like to add:

Well too bad you can't speak English, you have to resort to that British s*it that you guys THINK is English.

And that is an observation from a graduate of the American public school system, I'd imagine.

Try again. Think first this time.

Get back to us when you know what you're talking about....

Regards, Noddy.