5 Signs You Shouldn't Buy A Used Car

hello everyone and welcome in this video I have teamed up with progressive and we're going to be talking 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 you want to take on an older project car that has its flaws that you're gonna fix up more power to you but if you're the average car shopper and you're looking to avoid some headaches here's five signs that you maybe should stay away from a certain used vehicle now the first sign we're gonna be talking about is a smoky exhaust there's actually quite a bit you can learn about an engine based on the exhaust if it smokes and what color it is if there is smoke and this isn't talking about steam so if it's cold outside and you've just started up the car the car isn't warmed up yet and you see you know steam coming from the tailpipe that's normal that's nothing to worry about but if you do start to see smoke especially once it's warmed up and you know depending on the color it can tell you certain things about the engine so first off if you see white smoke you know kind of a thick pillowy white smoke coming from it once it's already warmed up well that's indicating that coolant is somehow getting inside the combustion chamber so you could have a cracked cylinder block you could have a cracked cylinder head you know best case maybe it's just a head gasket which is blown which is still not a good thing so you really don't want to see white smoke coming from the exhaust indicating that there is coolant getting within the combustion chamber you don't know how long that coolants been in there and it could be causing additional wear so not a good sign if you see white smoke additionally if you see smoke with kind of a bluish tint to it this indicates that oil is getting inside the combustion chamber so this could mean that the piston rings have worn down too much and they're not properly sealing that combustion chamber it could also indicate that the valve stem seals have too much oil passing by them oil is leaking down and getting within the combustion chamber and finally you may see grayish or blackish smoke came from the exhaust and that would indicate a rich air fuel mixture or incomplete combustion so if their flooring it and you see a little bit of black smoke or gray smoke that's probably fine that's normal because it's gonna have a richer air fuel mixture when you give it full throttle but if it's just sitting there idling and you see black smoke from it or at a lower throttle and you see black smoke or gray smoke coming from it you do have incomplete combustion occurring and it's just running a bit rich and a lot of things could be causing this it could be as simple as a clogged air filter you may have you know the combustion chamber isn't fully sealing you may have some problems with your intake valves it could be a result of a spark plug not properly firing so there's a host of reasons why you may see black or gray smoke and ultimately this is indicating that you have incomplete combustion ideally you don't really want to see much of a colour at all coming from the exhaust again if you see some steam when it's cold no big deal and another thing that you can do just to see if the engine is perhaps burning oil is just wipe the back bumper and see if you get any black on your glove and so that would show you you know some of the oil that would be burning out it'll get caught in the turbulence as the cars driving and stick to this bumper and so if they've recently washed it then you know you're not gonna be able to see this so take it on a nice long test drive and once you're back from the test drive wipe that back bumper and see if you get any oil on your glove and that would indicate you know that this thing is burning a bit of oil now the number two sign that perhaps you shouldn't buy a used vehicle is if you see oil leaks in the engine bay or other fluid leaks in the engine bay as well as the overall condition of the engine bay now if you pop the hood and everything is just sparkling clean well then that indicates that the user just cleaned it which is nice but you may not be able to learn certain things about the engine when it's just freshly cleaned so what I would recommend is taking it on a nice long test drive and then park it then pop the hood and see what you see after that long test drive see if any leaks have appeared so the things we're going to be looking for you're going to want to look around all over the engine block and see you know our other engine leaks are there oil leaks around it are there is there coolant pooling anywhere underneath on the belly pan for the engine anything like that look to see if there's any smoke coming from the exhaust manifold that could tell you that some oil is landing on top of it which could be leaking out from somewhere and then again overall you just want to look at the condition of the engine bay so check the hoses check all the connectors check the electrical connections make sure that everything seems to be in good condition you don't want to see hoses cracking you don't want to see belts cracking so check the tension in the belts make sure that you know they've been maintained that they've held their position correctly so that you know no timing issues could have arrived from a belt slipping or something like that another thing that can be helpful is looking up on the hood of the car so sometimes fluids will spray up onto the hood and that can indicate where a problem might be so look on the hood of the car and if you see any dark spots on it or certain areas that look like maybe something is spraying on it check underneath that and see you know is there anything going on in that location but again after that long test drive just make sure that everything looks like it did before the test drive and also you know check underneath the car just make sure that nothing is dripping from it you don't want to see oil dripping from the engine or coolant dripping from somewhere so just make sure that all the fluids are well contained within the vehicle sign number three is milky or cloudy engine oil and so you want to take a look at the engine oil and make sure that it doesn't kind of look like coffee with cream in it this would indicate that some coolant has leaked into the engine oil now again if the engine oil has just been changed this is going to make it a bit more difficult for you so that's why it's important to go on 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 doesn't have any coolant in it because if you've got coolant in it if you notice that it has that milky appearance then there's likely either you know a head gasket failure or a crack in the block both of which are not good situations and if you do have coolant in it you don't know how long that coolant has been circulating through the engine and so that engines not getting proper protection and as a result there could be additional engine wear and it's likely something that's a good idea to stay away from you also certainly don't want to check the engine oil dipstick and then see thick sludgy oil you know that'll indicate that they haven't been keeping up with their oil changes and another way you may notice this is looking through the oil fill cap so remove that oil fill cap and have a peek inside take a flashlight and look around in there and make sure you know that the oil looks clean that you don't see sludge and deposits built up all in the valvetrain that'll let you know that they've been keeping up with their regular oil change intervals and that's super important to know that the engine is in good health sign number four is excessive rust you certainly don't want to purchase a vehicle that is rusting away so you can look underneath the vehicle and you absolutely do not need a lift to do this I've just lifted up this car so that you can see with video better underneath but you know you can simply crawl under the car and look at it you can peek your head under another simple trick is just taking your cell phone you know start recording a video with the light on and then hold it under the locations the suspension under the frame looking at different areas and then review the video you know frame by frame and look for rust underneath the vehicle so a simple trick just stick your phone under there but you want to look for rust you know near the suspension the suspension components the frame itself underneath the vehicle often you will start to see some exhaust rust you know that's not too uncommon to see a little bit of rust on 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 great time to start looking for body damage so you don't want to see any frame damage or body damage and you can look around while you're under the car looking underneath for that kind of thing also looking at the panel gaps on the exterior of the vehicle that can help indicate whether or not this car has been in an accident if the accident history doesn't show anything starting to look at you know do the panel's match in paint do the gaps on all the different panels around the vehicle - those tend to match up and align to indicate whether or not this vehicle has been in a bad accident perhaps someone bumped into the side of the garage when they were parking didn't quite judge it right but really you're looking for you know some major frame damage here and looking for excessive rust around the suspension underneath the vehicle making sure it's not going to fall apart on you the second you drive it away now the fifth and final sign that you shouldn't buy a vehicle is if the engine is full of codes so I use this wireless connector this is an obd2 plug plug it right into the vehicle and then I can scan and see if there are any codes so you start up the engine plug in the tool and see what it says and for my car you can see right here that there are zero codes so that's a good sign now if there aren't any codes that doesn't mean that the engine is in great shape but it's certainly a good warning to know if there is something that this does pick up and you can also go to pretty much any auto parts store and they will scan any car for free so that's a nice way if you don't have a scanning tool free easy way to do it just go to a parts store and they will let you know what codes there are and what those codes may indicate could be wrong with the vehicle so a huge thank you to progressive for partnering on this video I've actually created several other videos with them so I'll include links to check out those talking about the science of winter driving talking about the differences in different tire types and also talking about simple things that you can check on your car every six months to make sure everything's in good running order so again I'll include links to those and thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below

Channel: Engineering Explained

Views: 1,682,737

Rating: 4.9305239 out of 5

Keywords: used car, buy a used car, how to buy a used car, exhaust, blue smoke exhaust, white smoke exhaust, black smoke exhaust, engine oil leak, oil leak, how to fix oil leak, spark plugs, engine oil, rust repair, car rust, obd2 car check, scan tool, scan your car for codes, body panel, best used car, safe used car, good gas used car, engine rattle, engineering explained, progressive insurance

Id: z9lgvgaacAg

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 28 2018