5 Signs You Shouldn't Buy A Used Car

Hello everyone and welcome to this video that I've partnered with Progressive and we're going to talk about five

signs

that you

shouldn

't buy a

used

vehicle. Now, this video is designed with the average car buyer in mind, so if you're more mechanically inclined and want to take on an older project car that has glitches, it's going to fix more power for you, but if you're the average car buyer cars and are looking to avoid some headaches, here are five

signs

that maybe you should stay away from a certain

used

vehicle now, the first sign we'll talk about is a smoky exhaust.

There's actually quite a bit you can learn about an engine based on the exhaust, whether it smokes, and what color it is, if any. It is smoke and this is not talking about steam, so if it is cold outside and you have just started the car, the car has not warmed up yet and you see steam coming out of the exhaust pipe, that is normal, there is nothing to worry about, but If you start to see smoke, especially once it's warmed up, and you know that depending on the color, it can tell you certain things about the engine, so first of all, if you see white smoke, you'll know it's some kind of smoke. thick, pillowy white that comes out of it once it has been heated. has already warmed up well, that indicates that coolant is somehow getting into the combustion chamber, so you could have a cracked cylinder block, you could have a cracked cylinder head, at best maybe be just a blown head gasket, which is still not a good thing. so you really don't want to see white smoke coming out of the exhaust, which indicates that there is coolant entering the combustion chamber.

You don't know how long the coolants have been there and it could be causing additional wear, so it's not a good sign if you see white smoke, also if you see smoke with a bluish tint, this indicates that oil is entering the chamber. combustion, so it could mean that the piston rings have become too worn and are not properly sealing the combustion chamber. It could also indicate that the valve stem seals have too much oil passing through them, the oil is leaking down and into the combustion chamber and eventually you may see grayish or blackish smoke coming out of the exhaust and that would indicate a rich or incomplete air-fuel mixture. combustion, so if you accelerate and you see a little black or gray smoke, it's probably okay, that's normal because it will have a richer air-fuel mixture when you accelerate hard, but if it's idling and you see black smoke. from it or at a lower throttle and you see black or gray smoke coming out of it, it has incomplete combustion and is just running a little rich and many things could be causing this, it could be as simple as a clogged air filter.

You may know that the combustion chamber is not sealing completely. You may have some problems with the intake valves. It could be the result of a spark plug not firing properly. There are a number of reasons why you may see black or gray smoke and ultimately, this indicates that you have incomplete combustion. Ideally, you don't want to see a lot of color coming from the exhaust again. If you see some steam when it's cold, it's not a big deal and another thing you can do is just to see if the engine is maybe burning oil, just wipe the rear bumper and see if you get any black stuff on the glove and that would show you that you know that some of the oil that would be burning will be trapped in the turbulence as the cars Drive and stay with this bumper, so if it was recently washed, then you know you won't be able to see this, so do a test of nice long drive and once you get back from the test, clean it. bumper and see if you get any oil on your glove and that would indicate that you know this thing is burning some oil.

Now the number two sign that maybe you

shouldn

't buy a used vehicle is if you see engine oil leaks. bay or other fluid leaks into the engine compartment, as well as the general condition of the engine compartment Now, if you open the hood and everything is spotlessly clean, that indicates that the user has just cleaned it, which is good, but it is possible You may not be able to learn certain things about the engine when it's freshly cleaned, so what I would recommend is to take a nice long test drive and then park it, open the hood and see what you see after that long test drive, see if any leak has appeared.

So the things we're going to look for, you're going to want to look around the engine block and see if you know our other engines are leaking. Are there oil leaks around? Is there coolant collecting anywhere under the belly? engine pan, something like that, look to see if there's any smoke coming out of the exhaust manifold that might tell you that there's some oil on top of it, which could be dripping from somewhere and then again, generally you just want to look at the condition from the engine compartment, so check the hoses, check all the connectors, check the electrical connections, make sure everything appears to be in good condition, you don't want to see cracked hoses, you don't want to see cracked belts, so check the tension .

The belts make sure that you know that they have been maintained and have held their position correctly so that you know that there can't be timing problems due to belt slippage or something like that. Another thing that can be helpful is to look up on the hood. of the car so sometimes fluids are sprayed on the hood and that can indicate where there might be a problem so look at the hood of the car and if you see dark spots on it or certain areas that look like something is being sprayed on he. Check under that and see if there's anything going on there, but again, after that long test drive, make sure everything looks like it did before the test drive and also check under the car, just make sure it doesn't drip nothing.

From there you don't want to see oil dripping from the engine or coolant dripping from somewhere, so just make sure all fluids are well contained inside the vehicle. Sign number three is milky or cloudy motor oil, so you want to take a look at it. Look at the engine oil and make sure it doesn't look like coffee and cream. This would indicate that some coolant has leaked into the engine oil. If your engine oil has just been changed, this will make it a little harder for you, which is why it's important to take that long test drive and then look at the oil again after the test drive and make sure it hasn't changed. in appearance and certainly don't have coolant because if you have coolant, if you notice that it has that milky appearance, then you probably know a head gasket failure or a crack in the block, both of which are not good situations and if you have coolant , it doesn't.

I don't know how long the coolant has been circulating through the engine and therefore the engines are not receiving adequate protection and as a result there could be additional engine wear and it is probably a good idea to stay away from you and He certainly doesn't want to do it. Check the engine oil dipstick and then see thick, slushy oil. You know that will indicate that they haven't been keeping up with their oil changes and another way you can tell this is by looking through the oil filler cap, so remove that oil filler cap and take a look at the inside, grab a flashlight and look around and make sure you know the oil looks clean and you don't see any sludge or deposits built up all over the valvetrain, which will let you know they've been keeping up. with your regular oil change intervals and it is very important to know that the engine is in good health.

Sign number four is excessive rust. You certainly don't want to buy a vehicle that is rusting, so you can and definitely do look under the vehicle. I don't need a lift to do this. I just lifted this car up so you can see it better with the video below, but you know you can just crawl under the car and look at it. You can stick your head underneath. Another simple trick is to simply drink. your cell phone, you know, start recording a video with the light on and then hold it under the hanger locations under the frame, looking at different areas and then check the video, you know, frame by frame and look for rust under the vehicle, so a simple trick. just put your phone under it but you want to look for rust, you know, near the suspension, the suspension components, the frame under the vehicle, often you'll start to see some rust on the exhaust, you know, it's not very uncommon to see a little rust. the exhaust, but you certainly don't want to see anything excessive, you don't want to see holes in anything and also this is a good time to start looking for body damage, so you don't want to see any frame or body damage. and you can look around while you're under the car looking for that kind of stuff underneath and also looking at the panel gaps on the outside of the vehicle that can help indicate whether this car has been in an accident or not if the accident history doesn't.

It doesn't show anything that starts to show, you know, does the paint on the panel match? The gaps in all the different panels around the vehicle? Those tend to match up and line up to indicate whether or not this vehicle has been in a serious accident, maybe someone. It crashed into the side of the garage when they were parking, I misjudged, but you're actually looking for some major frame damage here and looking for excessive rust around the suspension under the vehicle, making sure it doesn't fall off. apart from you the moment you drive it away, now the fifth and final sign that you should not buy a vehicle is if the engine is full of codes, so I use this wireless connector, this is an obd2 plug, plug it directly into the vehicle and then I can scan and see if there are any codes so you start the engine, plug in the tool and see what it says and for my car you can see here there are no codes so now it's a good sign if there aren't any. any code that doesn't mean the engine is in good shape but it's certainly a good warning to know if there's anything this detects and you can also go to almost any auto parts store and they will scan any car for free so It's a good way if you don't have a scan tool, a free and easy way to do it, just go to a parts store and they will tell you what codes there are and what those codes may indicate that could be wrong with the vehicle.

Many thanks to the progressives for collaborating on this video. In fact, I've created several other videos with them, so I'll include links to watch those that talk about the science of winter driving, talk about the differences in different types of tires, and also talk about simple things you can check out on your car every six months to make sure everything is in good working order so again I will include links to them and thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them below.