How to Buy a Car Online in Canada: Car Buying Made Easy
It’s never been easier to buy a car online in Canada with online storefronts and auction houses, however that doesn’t mean that you can’t mess it up and end up with a car that looks great online but is a total dud when you have it on your driveway. With these tips you’ll be an expert on buying cars online.
Longer Listings are Better
When you buy a car online in Canada, especially if you’re buying from private sellers, you’ll need to get good at reading online listings. You can tell a lot about a car and the seller by the information they chose to include, and more crucially not include in an online listing.
As a general rule of thumb, the more information that’s on a listing the better, even if it’s negative information like mentioning things that need to be fixed because if that’s included in the listing then you know the buyer has nothing to hide.
A sparse listing with very few details can mean two things, either the seller is an amateur who hasn’t sold many cars before, which will mean a lot of questions and time spent on your end. Or it means they have something to hide. Either of these scenarios isn’t ideal, so if you can it’s better to stick to the longer listings.
Become A Spy
Saying “become a spy” sounds much cooler than “look on their Facebook page” but that’s what you should do. It’s important to do your research on the car by doing things like checking the history report or running the plates to see if they were reported stolen. But with the internet you also have the power to research the seller.
Primarily what you’re looking for is proof that they’re a regular person and nor a con artist. If their facebook profile is private or they don’t have one that’s a false start, but a surprisingly large amount of people don’t private their social media presence, if they’re just posting pictures of their pets then you’re probably safe, if their location marks them as being in another country then they’re probably just trying to scam you.
Never Buy A Car Online in Canada Without Seeing It
Even if the listing is long and extremely detailed, even if the seller is clearly a real person with a lovely dog, never buy a car without going to see it in person first. Pictures can be faked, facebook profiles can be forged, your own eyes cannot be so easily deceived.
Included in that is also a test drive, if a seller doesn’t allow you to test drive a car, that’s an immediate red flag that they have something to hide.
Most online sales are perfectly safe, and most people just genuinely want to sell their car, but you don’t want to be the unlucky one that gets caught in a scam.