rev up your engines today I'm going to show you five signs that tells you not
to buy a used car that you're looking at now yes if you've been watching me
anytime you know I'm a big proponent of buying used cars cuz you could save a
whole bunch of money new rule always check the tailpipe with the car running
you don't want to see smoke coming out your cars exhaust should be perfectly
clear meaning that the engines running fine now of course if you live up in the
colder climates in the winter you're gonna see all kinds of smoke coming out
of your exhaust but that's something different when you burn gasoline it's
hydrogen and carbon and Earth's atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen and
various things one of the byproducts is water vapor
well exhaust gas is hot so you got hot water vapor it's like steaming when it
gets cold outside you'll often see a bunch of it coming out of your exhaust
hey you'll even see it coming out of your own exhaust out of your mouth
because we humans breathe out water vapor that's a higher temperature than
the outside I'm not a weatherman but in a certain dew point when it gets colder
you're gonna see steam coming out of your mouth so if you live in a cold
Nordic climate you're looking at a used car in the winter you're gonna have to
take it into a heated garage to check down and out cuz they're all gonna be
smoking, now any smoke is bad but the worst is the white smoke which is often
a blowing head gasket which can be tested or burning oil which will smoke
white or even a car that's using too much fuel and too much gasoline it can
make it smoke white if it's really leaking it has to be horrendously
leaking then but if it's leaking too much a little and it's running rich then
you get black smoke coming out of the back but you see it in that smoke unless
you're a mechanic like me and you can see an obvious problem walk away from
the car do not buy it don't listen to a seller saying oh yeah it burns a little
bit of oil yada yada even if you're getting a car really
cheap and they'll say yeah you know the head gaskets blown it needs a head
gasket because maybe needs a head gasket or maybe it needs the whole engine could be
the heads crack and you don't want to mess with something like that unless
you're a mechanic and you're buying a car for three four five hundred bucks
and you know you're gonna put another engine in it anyways for the normal
person you see smoke coming out of that tailpipe run away from that car and look
for notice there are plenty of cars out there that don't smoke better for sale
now the next sign is telling you not to buy this used car it's a car that
doesn't idle correctly you're in Drive you're sitting there and it's shaking
too much because theoretically there can be dozens of different things that cause
that something as simple as a vacuum line has come off something as complex
as the engine just flat worn out and it's lost most of its compression and
needs to be rebuilt for thousands and thousands of dollars don't ever listen
to people that say oh it just not it's like that because it needs a tune-up you
have no idea now if you're a mechanic or mechanically inclined let's say it's
shaking you open the hood and you see a vacuum line is falling off and you push
the vacuum line back on and then it runs perfectly fine well then go ahead and
road test it maybe when you're done pull on back off and say ah I like the car but
you know it doesn't run right and I don't want to pay a lot for it maybe you'll get a
better price for it that way but unless you find something so obviously wrong
that's simple to check if a car isn't an idling right walk away from that
there are just too many possible bad scenarios for a bad idling cars lots of
them out there that idle fine go pick one of those instead of the one you're looking
at now the next time that you should walk away from used car as if upon
startup your clacking noises or noises it doesn't matter if they go away in a
minute or two if they make any noise like that block away engine should start
up the only thing you should hear is the starter spinning the engine you should
start up smooth if they clack there's something worn and if they go bad
those are rods knocking because the creek bearings that the rods are bolted
to are warm and when the bearings are worn the rods go what's called rod
knocking once you start it up if the oil pressure builds up that oil will fill
the gap on the rods on the bearings the bearings are still worn and one day it
going or not and it will throw a rod that's the end of the engine now that's
a worst-case scenario but even ones that are tickin away there's a problem so you
got a modern cars got hydraulic lifters just started up in a tick tick tick tick
tick and after a minute or two it goes away generally means the lifters are
worn but some modern cars have 32 of these lifters the money it costs to
replace 32 hydraulic lifters is gigantic do not want to buy a car like that and
waste your money but let's say you're mechanically inclined like me at least I
hope I am you hear weird noises on a used car you got some time a few tools
take the fan belts off if the noise goes away then you know it's something the
fan belt drives like an alternator or a water pump in my own past
I bought cars like that got him dirt cheap for like 500 bucks cuz the owners
and they thought the engines were going out but it was actually a water pump an
alternator bearing you take the fan belt off and a noise goes away and then you
might think about buying the car but if you're not mechanically inclined you
start it up you hear any noises walk away you're looking at a car like that
and you turn off and check the oil and the oil is really low and used to tell
you oh you're poor somewhere on the noise goes away yeah clothes away then
but the damage has already been done years ago
I had a customer bring me out Toyota from he used car lot and it was one of
these quality checked used cars guaranteed by the dealer first thing I
did was check the oil was down a quart and a half of oil that means it burns
oil the damage has already been done when they guy returned it back he said the the
dealer said oh oh we forgot to do the service in that car don't worry we'll do
the servicing customer explained to him hey Scotty says don't buy it it doesn't
matter he changed the oil now the engine has already been worn you changed the
oil now hey it's clean but the damage is earlier and done it's burning oil now
situation of complete stupidity because if they would have changed the oil on
filter before they brought it to me I wouldn't have notice that the oil was
low cuz it wouldn't have been low and it would have been clean no you know you're
gonna do checks like that when you're buying a used car anyways and if you
don't find a used car and it's really low on oil don't buy it it's got a
problem now the next sign that you should walk away from a used car is take
it for a drive if it doesn't shift perfectly smooth
in reverse and forward in the city and on the highway walk away from it there
are just too many expensive repairs on modern transmissions when they don't
shift right you don't want to get involved in it if you're ready on a car
yeah then you got to figure okay am I going to put thousands into the
transmission or am I gonna get rid of the car you don't want to buy one that
already has a transmission problem and like I say first back it up reverse
gears off in the first gear to go out in a car if it clunks or it slips or hear
something I see all the time you start up a cold engine you put it in reverse
it doesn't go anywhere then you shift it to drive it goes forward a little then
you shift it reverse and then it backs up that means the transmissions starting
to go out do not buy that car and like I said when you're Road testing it driving
the city to see how it shifts from zero to 30 up down around and take it on a
highway and if at all possible find a nice hill or ramp that you can go
higher speed and accelerate up when transmissions start to go on a lot of
times at highway speeds when they get a full log going up a hill they'll start
to show problems and it's a dust you'll walk away from it and another good
transmission test is take it on a highway put it on cruise control for
five ten minutes see how that works if it starts getting hurt the jerky on the
cruise control a lot of times that's the sign of the transmission starting to go
out then you just walk away you don't even think about buying them now the
fifth and last sign that you shouldn't buy a particular used car has to do with
the use of a stand tall get yourself a scan tool if you're serious about buying
a used car but costs if you're going to save money buying a used car even if
you're gonna have a mechanic check out the car the mechanics are gonna charge
$100 or more to check the car out thoroughly you can get good scan tools
for a lot less than that for what you're gonna be using them for you can get a
handled one you get one of these dongles that plugs in and you use your cell
phone to read codes but you want to have one because everything is computerized
these days and it doesn't matter if the car you can
add the check engine light isn't on I've had lots of customers over the last 52
years bring me cars with the check engine light wasn't on and as soon as I
plugged in a scan tool it had all kinds of codes the previous seller that either
pulled the bulb out for the check engine light so didn't light up or in
the mater once they took the dash out then they popped a little LED with an
icepick so wouldn't light up anymore and then
put the dash back on and since you can get a scan tool for as little as twenty
dollars used a dongle one for anywhere from a good one from sixty to one
hundred and eighty dollars or a handheld one I've seen sixty dollar ones that
were perfectly good you really want to have one of those when you're checking
out a used car because if you have a used car that's gonna fail do you really
want to take it to a mechanic and pay him 100 bucks you can buy scan tool for a
lot less than that and do the first check you don't want to have the
mechanic checking out a bunch of clunkers maybe he won't care you may get
100 bucks a pop but you're paying 100 bucks a pop you want to eliminate any
other crappers before you have your mechanic look at it and there's nothing
that can beat a scan tool of course don't read any called problems if the
car has and if it has honey okay don't buy the car that's my advice a lot of
times the guys will reset it so won't have any codes yet in that case when you
plug one of these in you go to the obd check as you can see here well scroll it
down well we want to state obd check and we'll turn that on and what does it say
mill status is off monitors are okay monitors incomplete are zero that means
they're all completed and they're all okay
now if you do that and you find that there's a bunch of readiness that aren't
ready yet to say not ready that means that someone has recently reset the
computer and he's probably something wrong with a car buy it then because I
there's a problem they're trying to hide or if they didn't reset it it means that
it has a problem because it will not say that system is ready I've seen cars that
had not ready for 800 miles that meant that particular part of the car had a
problem now try as they may if somebody's trying to cheat you with one
of these it's virtually impossible if you plug in one of these machines and it
says no communication with PCM that's a bar control module don't buy the car
because if it adds a problem either in the computer in the wiring or any other
sensors and you plug one of these in and it will not communicate with the car
that means it's got electrical problems that you don't want
get involved in your mechanic like me and even net I'd shy away from a car
like that cuz I have no idea what's wrong until I fix it could be as simple
as crank sensor went out it cost me $30 in parts would be as complex as it needs
a new computer that could cost two thousand dollars so you hook one of
these up and it says no communication walk don't run away from that used car
now there are lots of good used cars out there that all I ever bought my whole
life but there's a lot of bad ones do so you want to do these five checks before
you buy a car I'm giving away a scan tool so somebody can check how to use
car good their chance to win place a clean non-offensive comment on the
youtube comments below to get a nice scan tool so they can check out a used
car before they throw their money down, so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell