There are many opinions and ways to go about doing this, speaking from a few years of searching for cars, and buying them from all sources including private parties, dealers, junkyards, etc. here are my thoughts.
Consider what you need. Not what you want, but the actual needs IE: How many people can it comfortably hold? How much cargo space does it have? Does it have the LATCH system for car seats? Does it get the MPG you need? These considerations are going to get you in the general grouping of what to look for. Best to jot them down once you have the list of needs; you can narrow down your search drastically. Currently there is an abundance of good quality cars that will last you a long time out there. We will use my recent (and hopefully last in a while) car purchase as an example.
I needed an automatic (I can drive stick, but just incase some one else drives) with four doors, high crash test rating (my friends can attest to this need), ability to hold two car seats (nothing yet, but thinking about the future), above 25 highway MPG, and within my allowed budget for payments.
These needs left me with a pretty large list, tho the payment requirement narrowed it down. Now once I have the list of vehicles that meet all my needs, I was able to go into wants. What did I truly want in a car? Well reliability for me is a big one, also performance. When I looked again at the list of cars that fit the needs, I noticed that I was able to get a bit nicer car then I really expected. I found a large selection of auto’s that had options I had never really considered (but now enjoy).
Now be prepared to compromise on your wants, there were a few things that I did want, that this car did not have. Really think about what you want compared to what is out there, all wheel drive would have been nice, but it is not a need for me. Another want was the ability to add a remote start, unfortunately I can not with the ignition and ECU this car has. But with what was available to me, this car filled the most wants, and all my needs.
So you narrowed it down to a car that fits your needs and hopefully most your wants, the next step is important, you need to drive it. Seeing the car, reading about it, and driving it are amazingly different, one of the cars on my list was a great vehicle, a nice 2005 Infinity G35x. When I got behind the wheel of it I started to notice a lot of little things that irked me (these were fixed on the next generation, but that was out of my price range) the placement of the climate controls and their function, the shape of the steering wheel to name a few. I must have driven twenty different cars that fit my needs and most my wants. There was one car a 2006 Saab 93 Aero that I kept falling back on and started to compare the others against, this was the car for me. Defiantly not the car for everyone, but the little quirks it had were what was appealing to me.
A simple thing that I see people overlooking all the time, make sure it is a car you like. I have made this mistake myself a few times, I did not like the car, and so everyday I found more reasons to dislike it. Now with the car I have currently I like it, so the little things that annoy me are so overshadowed by how much this car fits me that I don’t really notice them anymore. Something else to accept, especially when looking at a used car, perfection is impossible, so stop trying to find it. Every used car will have something’s that need attention, it may be just a good cleaning, and it may be a new set of tires.
That is it for now, Next up I will spout my advice on the mechanical aspect of car shopping.
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