USED CAR CAUTION

NZ Truth, Issue 1263, 13 February 1930, Page 18

USED CAR CAUTION

Handy Points To Remember

BUYING -HINTS

LIOW many' purchasers of secondhand cars have considered their purchase of prospective purchase m the terms of unused mileage? When a motor vehicle is bought, one if. not m fact, buying the car itself m the sense that a piece of jewellery or a picture is purchased, but is paying for the service that is going to be obtained from the vehicle. To put it differently, one is buying potential mileage. It is difficult, if not impossible, to say what is the useful life of a motor-car; obviously it will vary with the Quality and the treatment it has received at the hands of its owner or owners. While the same make of car and approximate mileage, that after a year m one man'sVnands, will look and perform almost as new, a sister car m \he hands of a careless and less well informed owner will look a wreck, and require extensive mechanical repairs as well. So it is well to remember that potential mileage can be dissipated more rapidly by carelessness and neglect than by legitimate use, as shown by the speedometer. Suppose one is contemplating the purchase of a two-j'ears-old car of average price; it is reasonable to think that the total potential mileage of an average oar of this type when new is 100,000 miles before it is scrapped. It is found that it lias done between twenty and thirty thousand miles. A careful examination o.f the car shows that it has probably been fairly well cared for, and reasonably carefully driven; still various minor faults may cause one to debit it with another 5000 to 10,000 miles, m his mind as deductable from its prospective life. Then we know, that given average care and usage, we are buying, say, 60,000 potential miles of service, and it is the service that • we expect to get, that m reality we are buying. The majority of reasonably modern cars that come on the second-hand market do so because their late own-, ers 'wanted a change, were tired of the old car, needed more seating capacity, more horse-power, a closed car instead of. an open, or some othei* reason of the kind, not because they are worn out or have not still many thousands of unused miles to their credit. So it may well happen that it will pay the prospective purchaser to ignore the dictates of fashion and obtain for the money he has to spend a two or three-years-old car that has a big: potential mileage life before it, rather than to get a year-old car that, by reason' of use or ill-treatment, has reached middle age and has most of -its trouble-free mileage behind it.

Spinning Motor TT requires about twenty ' times as long to replace current of the battery which is used for starting, and for this reason It is a bad .practice to allow the engine to spin with starting motor if it does not ritart after the first few turns. If the engine does not start after a few turns tfyere is something wrong, either m the ignition or. carburettor; look for it and overcome It. .