Autosavings

If you are like me, you are actually very clueless about the auto parts in your car. When something breaks or needs replacing, you need help deciding what you need to buy in order to fix it. If you are lucky, you have someone you can ask for advice about the auto parts you need. However, if you dont have someone like that, there are some steps you can take to make your auto parts purchases as painless as possible.

If you are planning to purchase any kind of auto parts for your vehicle, it is helpful to know a little bit about your auto parts dealer. There are several ways to check out an auto parts retail store before you buy anything from them. Most local auto parts retailers you can check out yourself by visiting their store. Intuition is a great tool to use and you can normally tell if a business is legitimate. If you dont trust yourself, take along a friend who is an auto enthusiast or works as a mechanic professionally, having a lot of experience with various types and brands of auto parts. They will have a better idea if the auto parts dealer is giving you a good product for a fair price.

It is a little more difficult to find out about the auto parts dealers that work exclusively over the internet. While most are legitimate, just like the local dealers, some can be scams trying to sell you inferior products that may not work. There are also some online store auto parts dealers who creatively enhance products with features they dont have meaning they lie! Most online stores have email or ask a professional services. Make sure to ask a lot of questions and get straight answers about any auto parts you plan to purchase online. If they vague with their answers or if they describe a product that seems too good to be true, they are not who you want to be buying from.

Respectable online auto parts dealers may be contacted via telephone and e-mail. Questions you have about the parts you plan to purchase can be asked prior to the purchase. Avoid the dealer if you receive an uncertain reply or if something is too good to be true.

One of the most tried and true ways of checking out any business, including auto parts dealers both local and online, is to check with the Better Business Bureau. To be safe, only buy from dealers who are registered with them and have a good overall rating. That way, if trouble arises, you can always file a complaint with an organization that can get you results and possibly your money back if you have a problem with your purchased auto parts.

You’ve probably either seen people advertising them or you may have even looked into buying cars through auto auctions. But my bet is that is about as far as you have gotten. I only say that because if you are like me and 95% of America you were pretty quickly turned off by either hearing or reading the words “MUST HAVE A DEALER LICENSE TO PARTICIPATE.” Let me tell you I was turned off in a major way.

I mean who wants to pay the government for the right to do yet another thing under their complete control? And who has the money to pay for things like dealer licenses when all you want is a good deal on an automobile? After all you aren’t going to actually profit from it. There’s another thing too! Who wants to go through all of the rigmarole of the licensing process required for the auto auctions with credit checks and background checks and the new numbers you have to memorize and the new tax documents you have to fill out? I surely don’t have the time or the energy for adding another huge pain in the ass to my already long list. Do you?

Well thankfully, for the both of us, there are people who aren’t as willing to be discouraged in the face of a little bit of adversity–especially when the potential for huge money savings is on the line! Probably one of the best and probably the luckiest things that I ever did was to marry my wife. She is one of these people!

We were both sitting in front of the TV late one night flipping through a lot of crap when an ad came on for buying “police seized cars at pennies on the pound!” This ad for government auto auctions caught our attention because I had just been laid off and we had just smashed our only car into a deer a couple of days before. We were in bad shape financially and my wife needed a car pronto in order to keep her job. Well like I said, I went and got on line to check this auction company out and as soon as I saw that a dealer license was required I gave up. My wife on the other hand decided that it wouldn’t hurt to make a few calls and see what was all involved.

I’ll say it again, boy am I glad I married her because by making that call she got us out of a tough spot. You see what she learned was that the dealer license was no big deal it was simply a trip down to the secretary of state, write a check, and take home your license that day. You could even get a temporary license if it was just going to be a one time purchase.

Well to make a long story short, we ended up getting a temporary license, went to an auction and came away with a beautiful vehicle for pennies on the pound and sold it 6 months later for a nice profit. When I saw how easy it was, I decided to do it for my new job and have been doing it ever
since.