Used Car Buying Tips
These are from one of my site's members. He posted this on a forum. (My site has lots of forums.)
When you search for a model of car, you will see a histogram of the reported numbers of complaints by year. When you click on a year, you will see a list of common problems, recall notices and more information. I avoided years with large numbers of complaints and used the list of common problems when I inspected each car. I didn't buy a particular car that was in "excellent condition" because it had the exact problems that I saw in the list. I also found the following site for estimating repair costs for one's location.
A discussion forum may exist for a particular make of car. The discussions might help you when making a purchase. For example, see the Forums at