Post by Lucas Silva, Peer Mentor 2022
If you are moving to Irvine with your family (like I did) or just want more convenience in moving around, buying a car is probably your best option. Irvine and South California (SoCal) are full of great places to visit, such as parks, beaches, museums, restaurants, mountains, and much more. Although you might be able to get to some places by biking or uber, public transportation sadly isn’t as convenient as in other cities and regions. Also, even though there are some grocery places within walking distance from campus, some more affordable places are a bit far (e.g., Costco). In this blog post, I’ll give you a brief overview of car buying options and the requirement of car insurance.
There are several ways and places you can go to buy your car, but it all comes down to what is your available budget and preferences for the type of car. One common tool used is the Kelley Blue Book (https://www.kbb.com/car-prices/) where you can search cars by model and see the range of prices it is typically being sold for. You can also search by price range to see what types of cars you might afford.
After you have a feel for what you want and can pay, you can start looking at the options for buying your car. Buying new is probably the easiest and safest, but also the more expensive. If this is what you decide, then going to authorized dealerships of new cars is your way to go. There are several around Irvine, and there are typically several close to each other (e.g., Toyota, Hyundai, and Nissan dealerships all by each other in Tustin).
As for used cars, there is a broad range of options, some riskier than others. There is always the risk of a used car having mechanical problems down the line, and it also depends on the age and history of the car. There are some online used car dealerships that can bring the car to you for a test drive close to your home. These services make the effort of maintaining a good reputation and typically inspect the car well and are upfront about any issues it might have had or still have. A few examples are Shift (https://shift.com where I bought my car), Carvana (https://www.carvana.com/), and Vroom (https://www.vroom.com/). There is also this interesting system that you can check a car’s history called www.carfax.com. It will tell you things like how many owners the car has had and any reported accidents.
Here are some other options for buying used cars: at authorized dealerships, small used-car dealerships, and person-to-person. Typically, big brand dealerships sell used cars in addition to new cars because people might give their old car as a part of the payment when trading for a new car. These are typically not that old and the dealerships do a good inspection on them as well. They are also eager to get rid of the used cars because they focus on selling new ones, but maybe not as cheap as the other options. One example is Toyota’s used inventory. Smaller dealerships are riskier and some have a bad reputations but are cheaper than the options I already mentioned. I would search on Google maps and Yelp to find them and see other reviews, but definitely be more suspicious when dealing with them. Lastly, you can try to buy directly from car owners, such as those that put ads on Facebook’s marketplace or craigslist, but here you really need to be careful with scams and cars with problems. The car’s document will have explicit information about it being salvaged (i.e., had a previous big accident), but there might be many other hidden problems. These are significantly cheaper cars, but I would only go with this option if you are knowledgeable about cars and still take it to a mechanic for inspection before finishing the deal (they might charge between $50 and $100 for the inspection). Also, my advice is to typically try to negotiate the price in most of the buying options I have mentioned.
On Car Insurance
All cars must have car insurance in order to be used here in the US. Insurance costs vary from person to person and car to car, even for the same insurance provider. That is because they use your personal information (e.g., age, driving experience) and car (e.g., model and year) to calculate prices. Some popular options are Geico, Progressive, Statefarm, and Allstate, but there are quite a few more (some cheaper but with less coverage). Definitely make a quote with each and compare coverages and prices. The good news is that some give student discounts and accept a driver’s license from a different country as proof of you being an experienced driver. Another positive is that they typically have apps and you can use them to do the quote and even contract (or over the phone). In practice, that means you can buy the car and then get the insurance within minutes after that!
I know this has turned out to be really long blog post but buying a car can be expensive and involves a lot of work. You will be using it for at least a while, so you want to make the right choice that will be useful for you and save you from headaches later on.
Good luck!
Lucas M. Silva