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we are buying a used car for the 1st time but due to the risks involved, we only bought new until now. our requirements for our second vehicle were: budget of rs. 2.5 L automatic certified loan or card payment without any fees / surcharges all these were met by first choice in thane: we are getting a 2004 sonata gold with under 45,000 km for rs. 2.63 L and 2.5% card fees waived off which is about rs. 6 k since we were ready to pay with cheque as backup we now get the bonus of frequent flyer miles with our purchase also and it covers a mumbai - delhi one way ticket on jet so the singular question most used car buyers have is did we overpay? - the hdfc insurance had an IDV of rs. 5 L which is a good start - the online valuation on carwale was rs. 4 L which is better - 12 of the 15 sonata golds being sold in mumbai were worse off in terms of age, price, or km - the best deal was one being offered for rs. 2.3 L so we paid about 15% more for peace of mind the nice thing is that mahindra buys the used cars and shares the risk with the customer instead of selling on pure commission basis like 99% of used car dealers who take virtually zero risk and pass it all on to the buyer 1st choice will never buy any car that's been in accidents, flood damaged, odometer rollback, rusted etc and do a 100 point check before purchase they also take care of all RTO formalities for a complete solution unfortunately they only offer warranties for cars below 7 years and ours was a month over but it was also priced lower my rule of thumb is rs. 10/km for 'breakeven' on your car purchase so we only have to drive it for 27,000 km more to get our 'paisa vasool' then we can get rid of it and upgrade to something else in comparison our current car has 106,000 km and still not reached breakeven for another 29,000 km so that sonata might get there sooner than our 2006 corolla! if all goes well, we will never need to buy a new car again and save a ton of money with certified used cars ... it was also my dream to be able to buy a used car on my cards without fees and i reached that goal this week! its our 1st car with a v6 engine and leather seats.