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Page 4 of 5
Buying a vehicle
Once you have your intermediate or full licence, you will be ready to
start hunting for a good vehicle. Your choices are pretty
straightforward: you can buy new, lease, or go in for a used vehicle.
It all comes down to your budget and personal preference.
Whatever you choose, it pays to do some research about the vehicle
models you are interested in.
There are some excellent resources that
can help you with this. One book that is highly recommended is the LemonAid Car Guide.
There are also many first-rate websites that allow you to search for
specific vehicles and provide you with the pros and cons associated
with each of them.
When buying new, a good - if slightly unscientific - way to hone in on
a vehicle is to look at what is currently making the best-seller lists
in Canada (see panel). If these cars are popular, there must be a good
reason!
To buy new, you will have to visit a dealership. (Some manufacturers
have experimented with direct sales over the Internet, with rather
limited success). Prices for a particular model are pretty much
standard across the province, though you can try and extract deals on
financing and non-standard features. The best time to buy new is toward
the end of the model year (around October), just ahead of the next
year's rollout.
Most Canadians prefer to buy rather than lease vehicles, but dealers do
offer it to you as an option nevertheless. The big advantage of leasing
of course is that you always have a late model car, the down side being
that you never really own the vehicle and it works out a lot costlier
in the long run.
Which brings us to the third, and often frustrating, option of buying a
used vehicle ("pre-owned" or "previously-enjoyed" vehicle, in
dealerspeak). There are several ways to source out a good second-hand
car. The most popular is to visit some of the hundreds of used car
dealers, but we'll take a look at other sources a little further down.
The sheer size of the used car market will surprise many immigrants. It
is not uncommon to find hundreds of cars on display at these ‘auto
marts'. Many of these dealerships are located at walking distance from
each other, which makes it a little easier for those of you relying on
public transit to get around.
It is important that you do a little bit of homework before you visit a
dealer. Get a feel for the kind of vehicle you would like to buy (car,
minivan, SUV), the age of the vehicle, the country of origin (German
and Japanese are more expensive than North American), and the maximum
you are willing to spend.
Here's a great tip on deciding the approximate price you should be
paying for a used vehicle - find its Black Book value. Now normally
this Black Book is not available to the general public, but there is a
novel (and free) way to access it.
Visit the Canadian websites for either Toyota or Chrysler
and choose a model under "Build A Car". Click on the box that says
"Appraise Your Trade-In". A new window will pop up, allowing you to
access the online version of the Canadian Black Book.
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