Beware of car dealers

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So I went car shopping the past week and a half in Jordan. In my opinion, the two best cars to buy here in terms of reliability, safety, resell value, and repair dealers are Mercedes and BMWs.

I’d like to point out two very big and serious means of theft and deception the car dealers here make in order to get more money..

Kilometers.

When they say the car is relatively new, and the engine is healthy and only has been driven for X amount of kilometers in its lifetime, they are LYING.

Usually one avoids cars that have been driven for ~80,000km to ~100,000km. The engine isn’t that healthy, especially if the car has been driven here. The cars I’ve been looking at I was told by the dealers that they were driven around ~40,000km. And they insist that the number is accurate and legit since the counters on the cars are digital, and are nearly impossible to change.

Well first of all, nearly impossible… My dad once bought a used 1993 BMW where the digital counter said 40,000km, and the dealer insisted so. After he bought it, he took it to a repair center because he was experiencing some problems. When he read the service manual, he noticed the car has been serviced TWICE before, once at around ~80,000 and another time at ~160,000km.

So what’s the deal? I’ll tell you… Certain “people” here look for totaled cars (cars that were in a terrible crash and cannot be repaired, so are just thrown away), take out their counter chips, look for extremely worn out or used cars to buy very cheaply (sometimes imported too) and replace the chips in the used cars with them. Hence, instead of the car showing that it’s traveled ~150,000km, they can lie their way down to ~30,000 – 60,000km, and sell it at a higher price.

Importing

Second of all, it’s known that in Germany, taxies and transport servicing companies use German cars that to us would be too expensive to use for such services, like BMW, Volks Wagen, Mercedes, etc… We tend to use Japanese or Korean cars here because they’re cheaper, more durable, and their parts can be replaced and fixed very cheaply.

So anyway, when the cars go past their life expectancy or are too used and abused, the German companies tend to sell them at a very low price. In combination with the above trick, dealers here tend to buy these German cars and import them over, paying way less than usual. Combine this trick with the first one and you’ll have the illusion of “a car bought from Germany!! And it’s only been driven this little – say, 40,000km! And you know how them Germans are protective and careful with their cars, unlike other cars imported from the gulf!”

What a bunch of BS if you ask me.

Last year I tried to look for a 1991 – 1997 Mercedes C200 because I like that model. Eventually I found a few. One deal was really good, and the dealer was all smiley and happy.. The moment we told him we’re taking the car to the center to get it tested, he became angry, and nearly kicked us out.. Immediately we realized that something’s wrong, and we’ll find it out if we searched..

Another C200 we found was perfect, and in a good price range.. That’s until we got it tested, paid a little, and found out it had what we call a “termite incident”, which is a very little rusty section deep inside which you cannot fix, and will eventually grow and render the car useless in time.

So take care when you buy second hand cars.. ALWAYS take the car to the repair center (Wikaleh) to get it thoroughly tested, no matter what the dealer says. It’s your right to do so, and if they hesitate or try to talk you out of it, then it’s obvious something’s wrong.

Alternatively, just stick to new cars… You’ll pay a bit more, but that money is spent well on extra safety. Anyway, the resell value of such cars is very high, and you wont lose much.