When A Dealer Says His Car Is Certified, Do You REALLY Believe They've Given It The Checkup They Claim?

Well of course they are profiting off of it. It takes a monkey to skim down a checklist looking at different things. If a car doesn't check out they don't fix it... they simply don't offer it at that lot or push it to the back and not charge the inspection fee. If someone buys a failed inspected car, they learn the "value" first hand and their next vehicle just might be "certified". That being said, I would recommend anyone who doesn't know a thing about cars to bring any used vehicle to a mechanic for an inspection... these go for anywhere between $50-$300, if they can't visually see any damage without taking it apart you are about as safe as you are with a "certified" car. If you don't know of a mechanic, just pay the damn fee, better safe than sorry.

I only trust small shops where I know and trust the mechanic, All they do at dealerships is just look at the obvious, ie; check the mileage and kick the tires, I don't trust dealers at all, I have had so many try to rip me off, fortunately I never let them. Every time I bring my Honda in for service almost half the time I notice that they missed something or never checked something, I usually run my tire presure one pound over factory and Honda always wright down that I have the factory 32psi when i have 33psi, why am I not surprised, half of the time they don't add the oil to the top, they do the bare min. and are not to be trusted at all! A third party like an auto club like BCAA (in B.C) do a good job, half the reason they are trustworthy is because they don't charge you to fix it...

Having worked at a dealer, i can tell you that all the checks and maintenance is certainly done to any vehicle being advertised as "Certified" and it does cost money to do it, the amount vary's by manufacturer as they all have different requirements when it comes to certifying a vehicle. And once certification is done it is registered with the OEM to adjust the warranty(s) that come with certifying a pre owned car.

If a dealer were to sell a vehicle as certified, that actually wasn't, and said vehicle broke down and needed repair, the dealer would be on the hook for the repair cost as the OEM wouldn't pay the dealer for the work, so it's in their interests to do it all by the book.

Come on 001, you're better than this. You make no mention of the most important aspect of this topic and instead start a dealer-bashing flame thread. Anyone care to comment intelligently about the differences between a truly factory Certified car (reconditioned per the manufacturers specs) and a non-factory "Certified" car (inspection per the dealer's specs)? The original article and the majority of the responses make it pretty clear that the differences, which are significant, are not familiar to many of you.

Sloppy article 001.

Enlighten us with the differences...

001

We bought an lightly pre-owned Audi A6. We were told the car had a clean bill of health, and was perfect. This wasnt the case. There were so many little things that went wrong, in the first month, Im certain any kind of proper check would have detected it. The biggest beef was the brakes were totally worn out on the front, and the car had a small leak in the transmission.

I had the same experience with a Certified Honda I bought. Obvious things were still wrong with the car. Nothing major but still. Things physically obvious during such extensive checks should have been caught

Even if the certification checks are not run as advertised, a side 'benefit' is the extended warranty that will generally cover your 'ass'ets. I experienced this myself with a certified Honda Pilot that needed over $8K in a new A/C system. Overall very pleased with the vehicle.

i'm not to worried on they 'checklist', more so impressed with the extended warranty that will benefit me.

the extra $1500 is well worth it knowing my vehicle will be taken care of without hassle for the extra 50k-odd miles

Certified??? Nothing more than a scam to sell extended insurance. Especially attractive for the fearful. Falls in line with the rest of the extended warranties sold for appliances etcetera - very poor value for the average buyer and a high profit extra add-on for the dealer. YMMV.

The wife and I looked at a CPO X5, and were close to buying it. We took it over to my BMW mechanic, and he found leaking power steering, brakes that were shot, and a few other problems. After looking on the CPO checklist from BMW, nearly every item he found that was wrong was also supposed to have been checked as part of the CPO process.

Of course they offered to take care of the issues, but if you're going to take advantage of BMWNA, would you even think twice before taking advantage of me? I suppose this is more a condemnation of the dealer than the CPO program, which I think is fantastic from a warranty standpoint.

I'd be nervous to buy a used Audi any other way. Certified means warranty.

In my own case I believe,and was a great mistake when I bought a BMW 525i/04 in 2006 and was my big mistake because was at night, next day I have to send the car to service department with a permisson of the Used Car Manager because we have a great fight, the car was there for 15 days, airbag failure,door regulators 4 have to be replaced, sun roof,ash tray ,one tired,rubber seal in all doors, check also the alarms system,etc etc and then I always have to go visit services department constanly to fix issues and problem in that car, If someone know what can I do. Where I have to write to inform this very sad experience because I feel so so so bad about this, today the car is also in the service to issue with the shift gear I rally feel sad and desperate, I talked with the Services Manager several times, I also try to explain my situation with BMW manufacture, and waste my time. If someone know where I can go or what can I do, I feel very sad to pay for something like this. I never trust in my life about what dealers said they doing in theirs cars, you have to check first before buy something. My big mistake was because I trusth them with theirs commercial about pre-owner cars bla bla bla and now see my situation.
Is horrible. I really appreciate any advice about what I can do. I almost have three years with this cars , and at the end of november the certified warranty expire too.

I had bad experiences with my 330Ci convertible that I bought new, it had problems since day 1!!! Stay away from BMW's they generally are not designed for America just to be used once in a while in Deutscheland on the autobahn once a week because everyone there takes public transportation.

I sold cars when I was a kid in college....we used to slap on the certified stickers the day after a trade came in that was clean enough to go into the used car department...they never actually certified them. The used car manager just checked the Carfax!

Shocking! ;)

001

A friend of mine bought a CPO'd 2007 335i. We bought a JB3 to make it go a little quicker and when we opened up the ECU there was a tune already installed - an older one.

So much for the 120 point check lol.

Any dealer offering a "certified" car that is not the actual make of their new cars is offering nothing. Only dealers of the new cars can certify their pre-owned cars. With that said, our dealership averages a MINIMUM of $1,500 certifying our cars, with some cars being around $2,500 to certify (tires, brakes, all services being brought up to date). Certified pre-owned, backed by the manufacturer, is a great opportunity for people to save a lot of money. And to all you saying the dealers are making mass profits on these cars, so be it, you get a nice car that is backed by the factory with extended warranty and you're paying thousands less than a new car.

V-10 NSX

I wrote before and my experience or history is above , yesterday they finally call me from the Dealership to tell me that they decide to change the transmission for a new one and this part arrive in three days so then I use the BMW loaner.If you see practically my car is almost a new car, becasuse since I bought it all parts and things have been replaced during 2006 until 2009, I practically live in the Dealer yes yes Braman BMW in Miami, Florida. There everybody know me, the good thing is that I have some people I know like friends lol lol this is a good side of this great nightmare. The more I think about the determination to buy this car the more I feel bad about thie great mistake. Before I had a 3 series 325i/04 and I never have this types of problems, and we also have another 3 series 325i/04 too in the house and I never has problem with this car this is almost perfect.
Anyway never never thrust about CPO cars just check before you buy it.

It would be wise to buy a factory certified vehicle over a vehicle that has a generic 30 day certified one. The cost of buying peace of mind is far greater than worrying about hidden fix it yourself monsters that lie under the hood. Bottom line is there is a cost to doing business and if you didnt want to pay for it....then dont.