Whether you buy a new or a used vehicle, the one trait you want your vehicle to have more than anything else is reliability. You can work through other issues, but if your vehicle isn’t reliable, it’s going to be a long and likely costly relationship between you and your vehicle.
Therefore, it’s helpful to know what to look for to determine if a vehicle you’re interested in is likely to be reliable. To help save some money at the car lot, here are four positive traits that all reliable cars share.
Plenty Still Around
Vehicle design has changed significantly since the 1990s and early 2000s. During that period, most vehicles looked quite similar, meaning that even if you’re not a car expert, you can typically pick out vehicles that have some age to them.
Take some time, then, to do some vehicle spotting on a busy road near your home. You’ll begin to notice that there are larger amounts of some older vehicles than others, meaning the more common vehicles are among the most reliable.
Top Sellers
Though there are a few reasons why vehicles may become exceedingly popular, one common trait that popular vehicles share is reliability. Therefore, when you head to a Hyundai dealer in your area, it’s a good idea to ask what the most popular models are. Especially when you consider online consumer review sites that help weed out the bad apples, you can be fairly sure that the advice you’re given on popularity will have a strong correlation to reliability.
Surprising Value
Like other consumer products, cars tend to benefit from economies of scale. This means that more popular models tend to offer more value for the price than you would expect.
As more of a particular model is sold, efficiencies in the supply chain can be realized, helping to bring down the price. If a car is popular enough that it has had a chance to realize these cost efficiencies, you can be fairly sure that reliability is among its selling points.
Long History
Just like you should avoid buying the full albums of one-hit-wonder bands, you should avoid buying vehicles whose models have only been around for a few years. If a vehicle model has withstood the test of time, it means it has passed repeated reliability tests from the buying public. Plus, the longer the model has been around, the longer the engineers behind the model have had a chance to refine it, leading to enhanced reliability.
As mentioned previously in this article, a great way to weed out unreliable vehicles is to do some research online. Consumer-facing vehicle review sites allow you to get a great picture of the reliability of certain car models through reviews from people who have actually owned them. By completing this research in advance, you will have the knowledge you need to make a great purchase.
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