I have always prided myself on being an informed consumer. My parents taught me the wisdom of using my money wisely, and I have tried to take this wisdom into my everyday life. Even with minor purchases such as household goods, I try to make the right decisions whenever I can. So naturally, when I was shopping for a new automobile, I made sure to consult a buying car guide. Unfortunately, that turned out to be not nearly enough. I didn’t know anything about lemon cars, and I certainly never looked at a lemon car guide.
The problem is that there is no such thing as a really reliable lemon car guide. There is no completely dependable way to tell when a car will go bad within the first few months. The best lemon car guides can only help you to spot what might be a fraud. If, for example, the owner of the car is too quick to try to unload it on you, or is charging less than it should be worth, you might be face to face with a lemon. Nevertheless, without the skills of a good mechanic, you probably won’t be able to spot it. You can read every consumer car guide that you get your hands on, but none of them will educate you in the ways of human deception.
In my case, my car went bad almost right away. Apparently, they had done just enough repairs to keep it running for a month or so. After that, one thing after another started going wrong. Within a couple weeks of my first equipment failure, I knew that I had been had. I cursed myself for being so trusting of them and for not taking it to a mechanic. Nonetheless, it was definitely a learning experience.
Nowadays, there are a few lemon card guides out there that can help you somewhat. By far, the best lemon car guide is Carfax. Carfax, and other services like it, tell you the history of any particular automotive title. They will tell you if the car has ever been totaled and rebuilt, if it has been sold before and to whom, and what accidents it has been in. None of these title searches, however, are exactly a complete lemon car guide. Sadly, people wash titles all the time, erasing previous records of problems with the car. Ultimately, the only thing you can do is to have a good mechanic look at your car and to hope for the best.
