Last year, OLX Autos carried out 13,000 used unit sales transactions. Of the total, 64% of the vehicles marketed are obtained through a credit, by means of a down payment equivalent to 35% of the value of the unitaccording to Oscar Andrade, director of financing of OLX Autos.
“Before, the market forced you to buy a pre-owned car blindly. You had to trust what your compadre or friend told you, that he was in good condition, even if he had crashed before. So how were you going to go for a three year credit If you didn’t know if the vehicle would last you more than three months?”, he said at a press conference.
What should you look for when buying a used car?
Alejandro Santiago, marketing director of OLX Autos, points out that the acquisition of a unit not a minor investment, since “it is the second most important asset, after a house”. Therefore, the specialist gave five recommendations that can help you make the best purchase choice.
1.- Mileage
A car is a machine, therefore, even if it is given the best maintenance, at some point it will stop working. A careful vehicle can achieve up to 350,000 kilometers of travel with its proper maintenance, so it is important not to purchase a unit that is close to or close to that figure.
In the case of OLX, which focuses on the purchase and sale of pre-owned vehicles, to acquire a unit, it pays attention to the fact that the maximum route of this goes between 1,000 and 60,000 kilometers. Alberto Martínez, head of operations of the firm, locates the average in 40,000 kilometers.
“Although we look at 47 inspection points to acquire a unit at first, there are up to 200 points that we evaluate later. In it, the mileage covers one of the first places”, he points out.
2.- Model Year
The consulting firm Jato Dynamics estimates that, when leaving a distributor or dealership, the value of a vehicle depreciates 30%a figure that from that moment begins to decrease depending on the use and care that is given to it.
On the other hand, the brands in the sector launch a new model year for their vehicles between one and two years, as part of the renewal within their portfolios, which, usually, goes hand in hand with a greater incorporation of technology or equipmentsuch as ABS brakes.
For all of the above, when facing the purchase of a pre-owned vehicle, it is important to consider its model year, since the further away it is from today, it can go losing appeal due to its obsolescence or also, make it more complicated to obtain spare parts if you need them. In the case of OLX Autos, the firm only accepts those that They date from 2017.
3.- Use of the vehicle
cars today They are not for private use only., in which people use them to move from their home to their office and back, as it usually was. At present, vehicles are also a form of self-employment, by entering platforms such as Uber or Didi or also, for the last-mile transport of goods.
The suspension of a vehicle, in charge of connecting the chassis with the wheels, is usually the part in which the greatest use falls for a vehicle, so it is of the utmost importance emphasize it before any acquisition.
“When you have a family vehicle, a truck, an SUV, heavy, you have to stop a lot to look at the suspension, because it is very likely that it has been overloaded”, adds Martínez at the request of Expansion in a meeting with the media.
4.- Popularity of the model
At the end of last year, the KIA Rio ranked as the best-selling new vehicle, followed by the nissan versa and the Nissan Marchaccording to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
In the pre-owned segment, the most popular vehicles appear in a different order. According to OLX Autos, the Mazda 3 It is the unit that sells the most, followed by Versa and Rio. Santiago highlights that the vehicles that sell the most are where the firm has decided to undertake greater efforts to have higher inventory levels, since their sale is safe.
Therefore, before buying a pre-owned car, it is not a bad idea to ask yourself the popularity or acceptance in the market of a vehicle, which you could increase your price in the face of increased demand. In other words, it would be a good option to opt for those vehicles that are not so soldsince they could represent a lower acquisition price.
5.- That it is not a stolen vehicle!
During 2022 they were stolen in Mexico 60,523 vehicleswhich represented a daily average of 166 units, according to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions. In this, the most popular vehicles on the market also become the most stolen.
According to figures from the agency, the Nissan Versa was placed as the model with the most thefts, followed by the NP300, the Honda CRV and the Chevrolet Aveo.
Both Santiago and Martínez emphasize that, before acquiring any unit, the company places special emphasis on ensuring that it does not have any kind of record of theft, a search that constantly performs, since many times the data usually takes weeks to update.
To verify that a used car is legal, it is necessary to access the Vehicle Public Registry and enter, among other data, the number of license plates.