What factors should one take into account when buying a used car?

Buying a used car is all about carefully choosing who you are buying from. As long as the company is reliable and follows good practices in checking their vehicles and reconditioning them thoroughly, then your purchase should be comfortable. Check the details of any warranty. A used car business that is confident enough to underwrite its own warranties rather than sub-contract this to a third party insurance company is more likely to have thoroughly checked and reconditioned its vehicles before sale.

How can one ensure that the car one is buying hasn't been involved in an accident?

The pre-purchase checks carried out by Automall's trained buyers are second to none in this market, so that customers can relax in the knowledge that any cars offered for retail sale are to a very high standard. It should also be noted that not all accident damaged cars should be dismissed from consideration when choosing a good used car. What is important is the extent of an accident combined with the quality of any subsequent repair. Al-Futtaim Automall, however, will not offer any vehicle for re-sale that it does not have 100 per cent confidence in, we trust that this confidence can also be shared by our customers.

* What do you look for when buying a secondhand car? Vote in our poll.

How many kilometres per year of vehicle age is considered ideal?

Modern cars are built to a very high standard across all manufacturers and provided that the manufacturer's recommended service schedules are complied with, then all can adequately cope with quite extreme usage.

The average usage here in the UAE is around 20-30 thousand kilometres per annum, which is comfortably within the capabilities of all cars if they are cared for appropriately. While the vehicles may cope with higher usage than this average, owners should be aware that the future value of the vehicle is affected by higher mileages as future owners would put less value on a high mileage car.