How to Detect Hidden Defects in a Used Car

by Edon Canada

Imagine yourself in the seller's shoes. You are trying to sell your old coupe for a bigger sedan. You gather the keys, rummage through your pile of junk for the owner's manual and old service records. You clean the engines, vacuum the interiors, rub out the stains on the cushions and put your coupe through a car wash.

When you get home to admire the sheen of the freshly polished wax, you notice some scratches and dents. Luckily, you have the cosmetics for such a contingency. And if your luck holds out, buyers wouldn’t even notice the dents and scratches. You are now ready to meet the buyers with a smile borne out of a clean conscience.

Imagine and remember this because this is exactly how a private seller with an ounce of business sense would prep his or her vehicle before a sale. Dealers could do it a lot better when they try. So, how do you see past the haphazard paint job? There is a way to detect hidden defects on the vehicle.

Body

• Check if the paint on the outside of the car matches the paint inside the door frame. Check for gritty surfaces and paint overspray on chrome – possible signs of a new paint job or masking body dents and scratches.
• Check if the panels line up evenly. Also check if there are any scuffs, scratches, dents or irregular protrusions in the wings and bumper – these could be warning signs of past accidents.
  

Doors and Trunk Lid

• Make sure that doors and lid open without any creaks and close smoothly without being slammed. A door or lid that doesn’t fit evenly could indicate that the vehicle was involved in a collision or was regularly driven in rough roads.
• Check that the locks work properly.
• Look for rips and stains on the interior panel of the door and scrapes on the bottom edges.
  

Windows

• See if there are any hairline cracks or tiny holes in the glass.
• Make sure that they move up and down smoothly and if they fit snugly when fully rolled up or down.
  

Tailpipe

• Check if the tailpipe is damaged from poor reversing.
• Examine the rear bumper for excessive soot from the exhaust. If the tailpipe has black gummy soot, this may indicate that the engine has worn rings or bad valves, which could mean expensive repairs.
  

Tires and Shock Absorbers

• Check the tires (don’t forget the spare) if they are unevenly worn as this may indicate either bad alignment or worse – damaged suspension.
• Put your full weight on a corner of the car and release – if the car keeps rocking up and down, be wary about the condition of the shock absorbers.
  

Interiors

• Check if the steering wheel points straight when the wheels are aligned ahead.
• Check the upholstery for cigarette burns, rips, stains or scuffs. Low mileage readings but worn out driver’s seat and brake and accelerator pedals could mean that the odometer has been tampered.
• Musty smell, dirt under the mat, moisture inside the trunk and watermarks on the interior panels of doors are likely indicators of flood damage.
  

Lights and Mechanical Devices

• Make sure the lights, air conditioner, heater, windshield wipers, radio and other accessories work properly.

Already sounds like too much work? This doesn’t include checking out the engine and gauging the vehicle’s driving performance yet. That’s a long topic that needs to be addressed in a separate article. Nevertheless, what we’ve discussed could help you unmask any hastily dressed up lemon to reveal its true colors, so to speak.

If you want convenience, buy from a reputable dealer who sells the vehicle “as is.” The dealer does the checking for you, documents all the dents, scratches and damages worth noting and includes the information in the vehicle description. Then all you need to do is negotiate the price.

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Vehicles Men and Women Want

by Amalia Aviles

We’ve seen how vehicles evolved through the pictures in history books and museums. They had different forms and functions. However, function wasn’t the only important factor to designers and consumers. Aesthetics and style played crucial and constant roles as well.

Ancient civilizations have started the tradition of designing and embellishing their chariots, wagons and other ancient forms of transportation. Egyptian chariots of gold and silver decorated with date palm branches, animals and other motifs were the most preferred.

Today we see how different people especially the men, choose to buy cars with slick wheels and other parts and accessories. The whole craze is absolutely nothing new and as the famous saying among men goes- “you don’t drive a car, you wear it”. A car can magnify a lot, if not all of the traits of its owners and here some of those clues.

• For the women, safety, reliability and value are at the top of their list while men prefer performance, power and style.

According to Imre Molnar, dean of College for Creative Studies (Detroit), men’s desire to showcase power and aggression with the vehicles they drive stems from an “animal nature”. They dress up their vehicles as if it’s “mating season,” he quips. Molnar further elaborates that these attributes of masculine, big wheels, flush or protruding wheel faces and high “shoulder line” and taut lines can be found in most vehicles men drive today. Predator-looking vehicles that sit higher at the back have the “ready to pounce” look and this has become very common among sedans. At the top of the list are vehicles made for looking good and going fast or as Molnar calls them “testosterone show-off devices”.

• Studies, however, prove that most women prefer vehicles that are understated, opulent and with a comfy interior.

“Ease of entry and useful interior storage, including space for a purse, are elements that make vehicles especially attractive to women,” states Brigid O’Kane, a design professor and coordinator of the Transportation Design Track program at the University of Cincinnati.

• To create a distinctive look, women wear jewelry, high-end fashion and expensive handbags rather than cars while men create an image of wealth and influence by the cars they “wear”.
• Buying used vs. buying new: While men are most likely to buy used vehicles if they can’t buy the flashy new one, women are prone to settle for a new affordable car rather than their dream model.
• In general, men are more willing to sacrifice a smooth ride for sharp handling than women or to overlook an impractical cargo arrangement for an engine more pep, experts say.
• Strategic Vision’s new-vehicle experience study shows that 31 percent of men said driving is one of their favorite things to do, while only 18 percent of women said the same.
• According to the experts, SUVs with a “big and powerful” look resonates with men, while small, inexpensive vehicles are preferred by women.

So now you’ve got clues on what vehicles most men and women want. These studies and indicators fairly explain what vehicles both sexes prefer to drive or “wear.”

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Electric Car Batteries: Benefits and Drawbacks

by Guile Canencia


So you’re thinking of getting an electric car? Well, one of the first things you need to do before getting one is to learn a few basic things about these vehicles — especially with regards to how they run and where they get their power. And like all things electric, an electric car relies on an independent power source — the battery.

A normal car (powered by an internal combustion engine) only needs the battery to start the engine as well as run the air conditioning system and the car stereo. That isn’t the case with electric cars. In fact, the battery used in electric cars runs about everything. When electric cars were first introduced, the primary concern was (and still is) the quality and reliability of the electric car battery, i.e. how long can the battery last before it needs to be recharged. Fortunately, the last few decades has produced significant improvements on how electric car batteries are made. Now we already have nickel metal hydride (NiMH), lead-acid and lithium-ion (Li-ion) types that are rechargeable and readily available in the market.

Compared to normal car batteries, how do electric car batteries fare? Here’s a look at the benefits:

Cost-effectiveness. For five bucks worth of electricity, your electric car can run for more than 300 kilometers. Now if you do the math and compare that with your current gas costs and equivalent mileage, you’ll see that going electric can be quite economic in the long run.

Cleaner & Greener. Although you still need to burn fossil fuels in order to generate the electricity needed to recharge electric car batteries, the pollution produced is very minimal compared to the pollution caused by internal combustion engines. Plus, with better power generation sources like nuclear plants, the level of carbon emissions in the process of recharging becomes even lesser.

Re-usability. Electric car batteries can be reused and recycled. So you don’t need to worry about how you can dispose of your battery pack.

However, like any new technology, electric car batteries are not perfect. Here are the drawbacks:

They’re heavy. Because electric car batteries are designed to provide more power, they need to be connected to battery packs to ensure heavy duty performance. And these battery packs are not light. A battery pack can weigh as much as half a metric ton. But don’t worry, there’s hope — manufacturers are designing electric cars with lighter body frames to offset the battery’s weight.

Recharging time. Unfortunately, there’s no technology available yet for quicker and easier recharging. You still need several hours of downtime before your electric car can run again.

Maintenance. Electric car batteries are still uncommon, which means the number of service stations which can do repairs is still fairly limited, too. And since they’re quite fewer, maintenance costs might be a bit higher, too.

No doubt, electric car batteries are still a work in progress. It has its own set of limitations but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. But in a few years, the new generation of batteries will be lighter, more economical and most importantly, more powerful. That’s certainly a comforting thought.

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