Buying A Used Car In The Philippines

[MikeB]

I just spent about 3 months looking for a used car before buying a small 2004 SUV. I almost gave up in frustration a few times. My biggest challenge is that I live quite a ways from Cebu City where almost all the vehicles advertised were. I'll offer a couple of things I learned in the process to anyone buying a used car here:

Unless you are very knowledgeable about all aspects of cars (not just engines) have a trusted mechanic (preferably paid by you) inspect and evaluate the car. The level of routine maintenance that we take for granted, like somewhat regular oil changes, is generally low. Why spend money changing oil or transmission fluid when the car runs fine? Makes perfect sense. The cars that advertised "freshly changed oil" or similar verbiage I avoided. The relatively small amount paid to the mechanic will probably save a lot of expense and hassles. I took the owner of the main garage in my town with me to Cebu City almost every time I looked at a car. One lowlife offered to cut the mechanic in on his profit (in Visayan) if he told me the car was ok. It wasn't and he told me in no uncertain terms. The mechanic can also advise of parts availability (important).

Negotiate with and buy only from the registered owner. There is a cottage industry of middlemen (and women) here selling used cars for the owners. The more of them between you and the owner, the more you will pay. Make sure all paperwork is in order or you will not be able to transfer it in your name. You can check the current registration by texting LTO VEHICLE <LICENSE PLATE#> to 2600. This will tell you if the vehicle is properly registered, if the plates and car match, and if there are any outstanding violations. It also verifies the year of the car, at least as registered to LTO. I had a few people shaving a year off eg, selling a 2001 vehicle as 2002. I guess they thought I wouldn't notice or care.

There are many more things and perhaps others can add but above all, take your time do not rush. Trust your instincts, if something doesn't seem right it probably isn't. If you can't afford to maintain it to basic, common sense safety standards (regardless of what others do) don't buy it.

[i am bob]

Thankfully, for my first couple years, I should be living in Cebu and will instead be taking advantage of the public transit... Unless the weekend trips to Lutopan and Toledo get to be too much....!

:mocking:

Thanks for the great post! I'm sure a lot of people just learned something very important!

[Geoff Thomas]

Good advice MikeB

Having bought a few lemons in my time and Finding out the hard way that when it says 50,000 km on the clock the dealers forgot to mention the 100,000 km that miraculously vanished one day by one means or another I decided to try the main dealers here as a bit of a test. When I called their service centers ( mitsubishi & Toyota ) and asked the simple question " I am thinking about buying this car, do you have any details of the service history on it? they were very helpful in giving me the details. As an example one Toyota Grandia with 74,000 km had actually on its last service been registered at 200,000 km. There were more but you get my gist I am sure.

This is just another good way to find out the true deal!

Direct off the owner is the right way to go for sure!!!!!!

[joeatmanila]

LOL!!!!! I have had and keep on having my good share of experiences with second hand cars!!! After that i can tell to everyone a simple rule of thumb, BUY A BRAND NEW ONE. even if it is a lower quality of what you could get with the same money as a second hand...buy new. Prefer a suzuki alto brand new over a honda city of 20010 model, they both cost the same. Now easily one will wonder, come on a 2 years old car, what can it be so wrong...everything!!! This is Philippines!!! Maintenance of cars is either non existing or just to the bare minimum that it keeps on running. if one has a good car and sells it, his brother-cousin-neighbor-unlce...will buy it. He will not have to even advertise it. Now imagine how much more for one to sell a good car to a dealer (that they buy them way much cheaper than they sell them, my honda city they were giving me 240k and they would sell it 360k) and go through the loss if it is a good car. Now you know the chances you have to buy a good second hand car.

Last year i wanted to buy a toy car for me, an offroad. My budget limited, it was just a toy car. I found a pink suzuki vitara on the net, i liked it because it was pink and a low price for the car. I was abroad, i send my wife to check the car and instructed her to take a good engineer with her. She did took two of them, the ones who kept on maintaining my honda city the last year. It was actually 3 different vitaras they went to see on similar prices with my preference on the pink one. They told her for the other two no good condition, most likely flooded from ondoy. The pink they told her great car, just need to fix a small leak at the power steering system. So she told me and i said ok go ahead. I come back, i ride it. First the automatic transimission was the funniest ever, you had no idea if you have neutral, drive or reverse not before you step the accelerator. as soon as i drove it to a wet asphalt it was not slippery but rather an ice skating beauty....changed 5 tires with mud offroad tires as i planned it to be. A week after burns the engine on a light trail i took it. Changed engine (i got extremely lucky finding a better engine for only 24k), now i fixed all the electricals which were not working (the only electrical working actually was the lights, turn signal, and horn. Not even the temperature indicator, thus engine burned, not the fuel indicator or anything else). Now i wanted to make it more steady on the asphalt and took it to a vitara-offroad specialist here in manila after recomendations from the offroad club i am member. i take it there i see inside only vitaras and some other old junk for restoration, i felt better that they know what they do, and yes they do. they stripped my car down to bare irons. Rust everywhere, the flooring was almost gone, the frame was affected too, they did (still do at the time i write this) all the repairs.

I have spend by now about 100k pesos all fixed and in order to become an offroad monster i need another 100k to put on it. i bought it 170k. That was the GOOD SECOND HAND car checked by TWO engineers!!!!

I love it though and will keep it for my mud :) but for my family's needs i had a honda city which i bought brand new on 2006, sold it 3 months ago and now i have a strada brand new again. The honda for the 6 years i kept it and used all the time, never gave me a problem, all problems started on the 6th year, electrical mulfunctions, shock absorbers need change, funny engine sounds on high revolutions which i prefered to sell it than trouble shoot.

I would buy though a suzuki multicab without much thought. These things are Cebu's pride!!! If you do not drive distances longer than 10-20kms they are ideal. basic bare transportation without any comforts but you pay peanuts on maintenance and gas.

[MikeB]

LOL!!!!! I have had and keep on having my good share of experiences with second hand cars!!! After that i can tell to everyone a simple rule of thumb, BUY A BRAND NEW ONE

I'm glad my post amused you. I almost gave up myself but I wouldn't have bought a new car here, not with the road and driving conditions, and definitely not a multicab, but to each his own. A new car will probably cost at least a million and for that you are getting a base unit with the smallest engine which is ok for gas consumption but, living in the province, I needed something with some power for passing all the tricycles, pedicabs, etc (lots of Ceres buses and dump trucks going in the opposite direction). Safety was, and is, my main concern so I wouldn't have bought anything w/o dual air bags at least. Somewhere in my search, I was offered a Suzuki Vitara. I looked at the ratings, they were abysmal compared to the others so I passed.

My point in posting this topic is that it is possible to buy a good used car, if you are patient and do your homework. I met the owners (finally), they provided the maintenance booklet and original owner's manual (unusual here in my experience) and I was able to verify that the vehicle had all the recommended and required maintenance at the Nissan dealership in Cebu City. I did a lot of research on the vehicle (Nissan X Trail) and could not find any major reported problems. Anytime you don't have a warranty you are taking a risk but I believe it can be mitigated to a large degree. Time will tell.

[joeatmanila]

LOL!!!!! I have had and keep on having my good share of experiences with second hand cars!!! After that i can tell to everyone a simple rule of thumb, BUY A BRAND NEW ONE

I'm glad my post amused you. I almost gave up myself but I wouldn't have bought a new car here, not with the road and driving conditions, and definitely not a multicab, but to each his own. A new car will probably cost at least a million and for that you are getting a base unit with the smallest engine which is ok for gas consumption but, living in the province, I needed something with some power for passing all the tricycles, pedicabs, etc (lots of Ceres buses and dump trucks going in the opposite direction). Safety was, and is, my main concern so I wouldn't have bought anything w/o dual air bags at least. Somewhere in my search, I was offered a Suzuki Vitara. I looked at the ratings, they were abysmal compared to the others so I passed.

My point in posting this topic is that it is possible to buy a good used car, if you are patient and do your homework. I met the owners (finally), they provided the maintenance booklet and original owner's manual (unusual here in my experience) and I was able to verify that the vehicle had all the recommended and required maintenance at the Nissan dealership in Cebu City. I did a lot of research on the vehicle (Nissan X Trail) and could not find any major reported problems. Anytime you don't have a warranty you are taking a risk but I believe it can be mitigated to a large degree. Time will tell.

Mike, Nissan Xtrail is a good car. When i had to decide what to buy of new car i was balancing between my mitsubishi strada and the xtrail. the only reason i did not go for the xtrail was because it was a brand new car but for 5 years the same model more or less, that depriciates the price a lot when i will want to sell it.

I said for these bloody multicabs since on a low budget are perfect. Yes i was amused on your post since it brought up all the adventures i had and have with second hand cars. Did not meant to offend you or similar, i am sorry if you felt like that, never meant to.

I provided maintenance booklet for my honda city too when i sold it, they checked the records of it at casa as well. I never told them that small and some big problems which appeared i temporarily fixed them to the local workshop so just to have it running until sold. I told them though that they should expect some maintenance issues since it was a 6 years old car...

I live at north of QC here at Manila and the roads require a 4x4 at least, so now you can tell the condition...still i prefer a new car. I put inside my wife and kid, their safety and comfort are well calculated in my budget. When i go abroad to work, if my wife gets a stop with an old car (as she did quite a few times with our second hand civic when we started living here) she gets panic. if i was driving every day of the year, most likely i would have bought your xtrail or similar.

Out of quriocity, how much did you bought it and what model was it?

[MikeB]

Out of quriocity, how much did you bought it and what model was it?

It's a 250X, 2.5L engine and 4x4, odometer says 58km. Most of the ones I saw advertised were 2.0L which, imo, is too small for that size vehicle, especially with A/T. I bought it for p370k but immediately put on 4 Goodyear tires which were 19k because the ones on the car were in bad shape, mostly due to poor wheel alignment. Right off the bat I had to replace the alternator because the charging light was coming on but I knew about that before I bought it. I chose to go with genuine Nissan, cost was 22k which floored me. I also had the dents hammered out and touch up painting done by off-the-clock Nissan techs. With all that and new brake pads, 1 wheel bearing, fluids change, and 3M window tinting I've put more then p60k in it but, hopefully, it will last a long time. I looked at so many cars and this was the only one the mechanic approved. As you say, safety first.

[Mike S]

Interesting posts guys .... thanks for all the info .... especially yours Mike on the LTO info ..... I've already added that to my cell ..... that is going to help a heap when I start looking ...... unfortunately for me I'm not in a real good position to buy a car either used or new at those prices so I'm gonna have to stick to a custom built multicab van probably a rear engine (so they can relocate the front seat to accommodate my ample size) 12 valve ... 5 speed ... 2 wheel drive and although I don't really like it .... aircon ..... that is the only thing my asawa asked for so what the heck .... I don't have to use it all the time .... still researching the 5 speed because they have several models to choose from some with dual range ..... according to one who knows that is the heart of these little darlings ,,,, the tranny .... not going for the fancy rims painted steel is fine for me but do want a bit taller tires for better ground clearance ...... I do wish they offered a 4 cylinder for these but they don't ..... oh yea almost forgot ..... I am going to try and have a heavy duty bumper added to the front and rear ..... something along the line of a 3" steel pipe and welded to the frame .... if they have one ..... see ya can't take the red-neck outta the boy .... :hystery: :hystery: ...... just won't have a winch attached to the pipe .... :mocking:

OK now that I know what I want ..... go find one .... :dance: :tiphat:

Edited August 1, 2012 by Mike S

[joeatmanila]

@ Mike B, ouch!!! 22K for an original alternator...ouch!!! I bought for my vitara a bigger and generic one alternator, new one, for 2400 including the installation work...the original one i did not even bother asking how much since suzuki spare parts are expensive, i guess would be around your price...

my city needed starter too...i only hoped it would not brake down the day i sell it, many times wouldn't start until i kick it on the side a bit so to take the worn out carbon from the wiring...

nissans though in general are tough cars and last longer.

@mike S, you are at Cebu, the heart of these multicabs, for sure many people will guide you accordingly for buying a good one.

[alien1]

Well... I didn't see this info yet but can we buy a car, register it, get a plate and have a drivers licence if we have a 21 days tourist visa?