I hate shopping. And even more than shopping, I hate car shopping. I buy my cars when they are 2-3 years old and with about 50,000 miles. I drive them until the odometer shows somewhere between 150,000 miles and 200,000 miles, and then pass them down to Jay or one of the kids, and then buy myself another Certified Pre-Owned vehicle. Pictured above is my 2016 vehicle that’s been giving me some grief lately.
I think I’ve only ever owned one brand new car in my life, and it was a 1999 Dodge Caravan (eggplant in color) full to the brim with Shenks. I don’t need brand new–with all of my real estate signs and staging furniture, tools, ladders, etc. that I traipse around, any car I buy is going to look used pretty quick.
So when it’s time for me to get a new vehicle, Jay does the research based on my current requirements and then gives me a few options. In 2020, when Erin got her license and we passed my 160,000 mile Subaru Outback down to her, it was time for me to get a new car, new to me.
My list of criteria at the time, which is pretty much still the same now, included 1) Large enough to fit my biggest signs. 2) An excellent safety rating and fast off the line, because of how many miles I drive and the need to make sure I’m able to get out of the way of danger quickly in highway driving. 3) It’s got to have the best stereo/speaker system for those rare times that I’m not deep in thought or on the phone. And 4) very important to me, a modest color that blends in. Why is that? Let’s say you call me to come talk with you because you’re getting divorced. Do you really want my name on the side of my vehicle in your driveway?
Most vehicle manufacturers have certain criteria for being able to qualify vehicles as Certified Pre-Owned. They have gone through a huge list of rigorous inspections and have certain requirements identified by the manufacturer.
One of those requirements is that the vehicle must have a clean record of all oil changes within the vehicle manufacturer’s recommended time frame. You pay a little more for a certified, preowned, but I’m OK with that because it gives me the security of knowing they wouldn’t certify it if it doesn’t meet the rigorous criteria. Here’s a U.S. News & World Report 2024 article about CPO Vehicles: What Does Certified Pre-Owned Mean?
Here’s one example of the BMW 4 page checklist for a vehicle to be considered for BMW’s CPO designation.
Since I try to minimize the time consuming and painful process of vehicle shopping, rather than go to a dealership, we start online.
Each manufacturer has a dashboard for buyers to filter on what they’re looking for in a vehicle. This is a tool to help consumers see all of the manufacturer’s CPO vehicles in one spot. You identify color, mileage, price range, how far you’ll have to drive to see it, tons of options by which to filter. We ended up buying my current vehicle in New Hampshire, and the one before in Rhode Island.
It’s that time again–we need to shop for my next vehicle. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, other than the known criteria. My last two cars were exactly the same as each other, just one shade of gray different, so I will probably mix it up for my next Certified Pre-Owned vehicle. I’ve made a list below of CPO search tools, in ABC order by vehicle manufacturer.
Acura
Audi
BMW
Bentley
Buick
Cadillac
Chevrolet
Chrysler
Dodge
Ferrari
Ford
GMC
Honda
Hummer
Hyundai
Infiniti
Jaguar
Jeep
Kia
Lamborghini
Land Rover
Lexus
Lincoln
Maserati
Mazda
Mercedes-AMG
Mercedes-Benz
Mercury
Mitsubishi
Nissan
Oldsmobile
Pontiac
Porsche
Ram
Rolls-Royce
Saturn
Scion
Subaru
Tesla
Toyota
Volkswagen
Volvo