How to Check a Used Car Before Buying (Checking the Engine)

hey guys chrisfix here I'm on my way to go inspect a used car that I'm interested in purchasing and I'm taking you with me after watching this video not only you're gonna be more comfortable with going to check used car but you're gonna know exactly what to look for so you don't get stuck with a bad car the most expensive part in a car is the engine so in this video I'm gonna show you how to inspect an engine in a used car so you don't buy a car with a bad engine now that being said in this video it's gonna be impossible to cover every single thing the video would be hours long so what I'm gonna ask you guys to do is if you have any cool tips and tricks make sure you comment them below because I'm sure a lot of people are gonna want to read the comments and learn new things and read the tips and tricks that you guys have to share so that's enough talking let's go and check out the car we're here waiting to see the car and there it is so let's go meet the owner and inspect the car hey you doing Chris Frank nice to meet you Frank all right here she is so as you know I'm filming I want to film this so that people could know how to buy a used car this might take a little while but I'm a serious buyer so all the time you need if I could get the keys and check stuff out that'd be great are there any other keys we says this one now unfortunately that's the only one okay that's good to know ok let's go check out this car all right we're in the car we have the key and the first thing we're gonna do and this is what I do with every vehicle I look at is we're gonna use an obd - scanner and we're gonna scan the computer of the car super-important I start off doing this because if the computer detects problems it'll let me know and it'll tell me okay well what are the problems and if there are too many problems it's not even worth taking this for test drive or spending any more time looking at this car now the obd2 scan ports are typically under the driver's side steering wheel there's the brake pedal if we look upwards over here it's gonna typically be right under here somewhere and then if you look over here on these Jaguars the scan port is right here and we'll just plug this right in well take our key and we'll start the car notice that there are no check engine abs or airbag lights that are on which is a good start and then we'll go check out the app then we'll go and read the codes and you can see here there are no confirmed codes but we have one pending code and if we look at our pending code right there it's ap1000 code that's the code you don't want to see and the reason why you don't want to see that code is because that means somebody cleared the check engine light and if you look on the dash here there are no check engine light codes there's no lights at all so you'd probably think that okay good there's no check engine lights then we're good but guess what we just found that there's a pending code because somebody cleared it I spoke with the owner about this you said he got his oxygen sensors replaced on this car and the mechanic cleared the codes and that is why I always use an OPD - scanner as the first thing to check in a car so now we could go and shut the engine and the next thing we're gonna look at is the engine compartment so let's pop the hood and you want to make sure that the hood struts could support the hood I hate when these things are weak and the hood can't stay up so the first thing I like to do is just take a look under the hood just overall what does it look like we're checking out to see the cleanliness we're looking for any obvious damage leaked anything like that one thing I like to mention is if they detail this and they overly detail it they use armor on pieces you know everything's all shiny it looks really good a lot of times that signifies that the car has a problem that they're trying to hide so they cleaned it up you know they're trying to hide an oil leak that you won't see because they cleaned it in this case the engine looks like it should look for a hundred thirty thousand mile car you know it's a little bit dirty but it's relatively well taken care of and there's nothing out of the ordinary that sends up any red flags if there's nothing that catches my eye or looks out of the ordinary the next thing I'll do is see if the frame is straight I start by looking where the fender bolts up and make sure it's straight one of the hardest things for a body shop to do is make sure this is perfectly straight after an accident bends the frame so take a look at the fender and also where the fender bolts up to the front core support and that looks nice and straight next follow the core support across and you want to make sure the front core support is not bowed or creased and this looks good and you want to go to this side and do the same thing look at the fender line and where it bolts up and this looks straight now on this car the front bumper was damaged we saw that in the initial inspection so investigate you know you see this damage in the front bumper look under the front bumper to see if there's any damage to the frame and right away I could see check this out I'm gonna pull this back this front crossmember here is bent inwards and there's rust so that's something that you really have to consider here if the front crossmember is bent inwards enough is this side or that side of the subframe bent inwards is the engine sitting right is the suspension sitting right that could affect the steering and many other things and if you're unsure if there's frame damage just walk away because it's not worth the hassle down the road if you buy the car from what I could see this doesn't look too bad and the damage is localized to this area plus the fenders look straight the engine sitting square at the frame and even the core supports straight so in this case I want to see the rest of the car and test drive it to make sure it drives straight next grab a flashlight and start inspecting for leaks but instead of spending most of your time on the top the engine let's go underneath the car and the reason why we look underneath the vehicle is because leaks drip downwards and this is the quickest way to check for any major leaks and you just want to scan underneath look for any leaks any drips the transmission looks nice and dry if we look back over by the oil pan that looks nice and dry there is a little bit of oil on this catalytic converter but it's nothing bad and I don't see any major leaks we'll check for more leaks once we get the car started the next place to inspect for leaks is the cooling system you want to open the cap to inspect but make sure the engine is cold now cars use different types of coolant but make sure it's a bright color in this case we have red coolant so it's bright red you don't want to see any oil or brown sludge in here because that could indicate there may be a head gasket leak but this looks good now not all coolant leaks are visible if you have a head gasket leak inside your engine you won't see that so make sure the coolant is filled to the proper level and this looks good and the next thing we'll look at is the brake master cylinder and you can see the fluid through the plastic in this case the minimum line is here and the brake fluid is up to here so this looks good and you can just look around for leaks most of the time you'll see any leaks right back here but this looks dry the next thing to check is the power steering reservoir and that's right over here you want to check the fluid color and you don't want to see dark fluid or specks of black this fluid looks good and it's filled to the proper level so this looks good you also want to follow the power steering lines to the pump and check for any leaks but again this looks good the next thing I like to do is check the oil take the oil fill cap off and look underneath sometimes you'll be able to tell if a car has a head gasket leak by looking at underneath the cat you'll see like a frothy white oil almost like a milkshake or something like that up on the screen is an example of a BMW that I looked at that had a head gasket leak and I found it right away just by looking underneath the oil cap besides looking at the cap you also want to look inside the engine and you don't want to see any froth or any sludge in there what sludge is gonna look like it's gonna look like chocolate syrup and in this case this looks good and finally check the oil dipstick and make sure the oil is filled all the way in this case it's right in the crosshatch area so that's perfect the other thing is make sure it's not frothy make sure there's no metallic specks and if you see any of this just walk away it's not worth it find another car because it could mean that you have a head gasket leak or your engine is worn out pretty good after checking the oil the other thing you want to do is you want to find the transmission dipstick if you have one and check the transmission fluid in this case it's a sealed system so we don't have a dipstick so you can't check it but if there is a dipstick I have a really good video all about checking transmission fluid so you can watch that and learn more so the last thing we want to inspect are the hoses and the belts we want to go around the engine compartment and make sure that the hoses aren't bulging they're not cracked and they're not brittle and the rubber looks like it's in good condition and just go around and inspect the different hoses vacuum hoses coolant hoses and check all of them then after that we want to go and check the belts a good condition belt won't look shiny it won't have frayed edges it won't have any cracks on it and when you press on it with your finger it'll be pretty tight so the engines cold right now and it's a good time to go and start the engine but make sure you watch the exhaust as it starts so let's go start her up go ahead start her up and in this case we have no smoke which is good if you see blue smoke that could mean that your valve seals are leaking into the combustion chamber as the car is sitting here and then when you go to stop the car up you get a burst of blue smoke and then it goes clear now you want to ask the owner to rub the car a little bit can you rent the car up a little bit good so what we're looking at we're looking at the smoke to make sure that there's no blue smoke a little bit of smoke came out but that's just because the car just started and that's condensation but if the car starts puffing white smoke that could mean you have a head gasket leak if it starts puffing blue smoke you could have worn out piston rings but in this case we're good here's an example of a van that's burning oil upon giving the car gas blue smoke comes out of the exhaust and here's another example of a beetle with the same problem so that gives you a good idea of what to look for make sure you do the same check when the car is warmed up as well because you might only get smoke when the car is warm now let's shut the engine and move to the front of the car and have the owner started up again at the front of the car ask the owner to start the engine again and watch the motor for movement a little movements okay but you don't want to see a lot of movement like this van engine because that means the motor mounts are worn out so ask the owner to start her up and that looks good again we're gonna check for leaks using our flashlight but this time with the engine running when we have everything under pressure we're more likely to find a leak so we have a couple things we want to look at we want to look at the cooling system we want to look at the master cylinder we want to check out the engine and he hoses the water pump look over here we got our ABS we got our power steering so just take a quick peek around and see what you can find and in this case everything is looking real good so week wise we look good the other thing you want to check is with the oil cap removed put your hand over the hole to see if there's any pulsing of air right now I don't feel any pressure or vacuum and there's no smoke coming out if you have strong puffs of air and smoke the piston rings could be worn out and causing a significant amount of blow by and in that case the engine might be worn out that being said if you do get a light positive pressure or a vacuum that's normal for some engines just make sure that pulses aren't strong and there's no smoke in this case the engine feels fine but it's amazing how much information you could get just by looking under the oil cap and then finally while the engines running you're just gonna be listening you're gonna be watching you want to make sure that the engine isn't vibrating significantly you want to show that the idle is constant it's not revving up and down and it just sounds like it's running well you don't want to hear any loud ticking there's gonna be little ticks because of the fuel injectors like but this sounds good this sounds normal so everything's checking out and then after you go for your test drive it's always good and I always suggest it again shut the engine off and start it up listen for it again do the same test check for a smoke check for that pressure because things change when the engines cold versus when the engines warm right now the engines warming up and then the last thing to do is ask the owner to shut the engine and then you're gonna watch to make sure there's no significant vibration there's no knocking noise there's none of that can you shut the car and that shuts right off so that was good to me this is one of the most important things because engine work and transmission where it could get expensive so I spend the most time here and on the test drive and everything's just checking out pretty good right now so let's move on to inspecting the interior or not and this just doesn't want to close can you pop the hood okay so before we inspect the interior this hood latch is working but this hood latch over here isn't latching and if we take a look under the hood this is why it's not catching the hood cable this looks all rusted so I feel like this might need a new hood cable so I mean that's just something that you see when you're checking things out I want to go shut the hood and this doesn't close on the Sun and that is definitely a problem so that covers most of the main things I look at when I inspect an engine in a used car hopefully the video is helpful and for the next video in the series I'm gonna go over some pretty cool tips and tricks for inspecting the interior of a used car many of the tips are things you wouldn't think about but when you hear them you're gonna be like oh why didn't I think of that to get to that video you could click on the screen or find the link in the description

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 4,276,197

Rating: 4.915638 out of 5

Keywords: How to check the engine in a used car, car engine inspection, How to Inspect a Used Car for Purchase, how to buy a used car, how to check a used car, how to check a car for sale, how to incpect a car for sale., how to buy a car, what to look for when buying a used car, what to look for when buying a car, buying a new car, buying a used car

Id: HDv5bUR_Plo

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 23 2016