Used Cars

  1. Home
  2. Autos
  3. Used Cars
photo of Keith Griffin

Keith's Used Cars Blog

By Keith Griffin, About.com Guide to Used Cars

'No Deal' of the Week

Friday April 18, 2008

A VW Phaeton can be a great luxury used car, but make sure it's thoroughly inspected.
Photo © Volkswagen

The phrase “best used car luxury bargain the U.S. has ever seen” caught my eye while perusing www.thetruthaboutcars.com. It had a piece on the reintroduction of the VW Phaeton to the U.S. market in 2009.

The best used car quotation was linked to an online ad for a Phaeton, which I agree can be a great value, but not with this particular car.

It rates as my “No Deal” of the week for the following reasons:

• The dealership advertises this Phaeton as “certified pre-owned” but it’s certified by the dealership and not the manufacturer. Only a manufacturer can certify a pre-owned vehicle. Read my report on understanding certified pre-owned cars to learn why.

• The CarFax.com report shows:

  1. The transmission was replaced slightly a year after it was purchased.
  2. Six times in two-and-a-half years its engine/powertrain computer/module was checked.
  3. It was in the shop 14 times in that same time frame or roughly once every two months.

• The price just isn’t right at $23,999. Edmunds.com says it’s worth $25,212 but a car with this many potential mechanical problems needs to get at least a 10 percent discount below that price. Maybe at $22,000 it would be worth it.

Comments

No comments yet. Leave a Comment

Leave a Comment

Line and paragraph breaks are automatic. Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title="">, <b>, <i>, <strike>

Discuss

Community Forum

Explore Used Cars

More from About.com

Used Cars

  1. Home
  2. Autos
  3. Used Cars

©2008 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.