When buying a car, it's best to look beyond initial cost

Have you been to a car dealer's showroom lately looking for a vehicle, or scanned the classifieds for a previously owned vehicle?

You might even be looking for a car being sold by the owner.

While cost has a great deal to do with your decision, so should safety ratings, miles per gallon in town and highway, the type of fuel the vehicle uses and how much the vehicle will affect your auto insurance payments.

In tight economic times, vehicle operating costs and safety factors should be as important as how clean the car looks or how fast it will go.

Here is a brief look at how you can help yourself make a better decision and how interconnected these items really are:

When you add a vehicle to your insurance policy, your new Vehicle Identification Number is one item you will provide to your insurer. While the VIN let's the insurer know about the year, make, model, it also allows the insurer to consider the safety rating of the vehicle, since protection against risk is what insurance is about.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (www.iihs.org) crashes vehicles and rates them to evaluate the risk to both the passengers and the vehicle itself. That information is just one factor in developing the cost of auto insurance for the vehicle.

IIHS has just released the top safety pick awards for 2009 vehicles for all categories from large cars, minivans and SUVs to the minicar category.

The VIN also provides information you can use even before you purchase a used vehicle. In many metro areas, a company called Car Checkers will provide an inspection to let you know the general condition of the vehicle.

Similarly, an on-line service called Car Facts (www.carfacts.

com) uses information from insurance companies and other sources will give you a history of the VIN as to accidents in which it was involved and other useful data.

Another method for understanding the current value for used vehicles is to view the Web sites of the National Automobile Dealers Association (www.nada.com) and/or Edmunds (www.edmunds.com), which gives a good comparison to the NADA information.

Additionally, the classified section of the newspaper, in print or on-line, provides another way to check on the value of the type of vehicle you are considering for purchase.

There's one more area of concern you should consider. The National Insurance Crime Bureau (www.nicb.org) allows you to check the VIN of a vehicle to determine whether it has been declared an unrecovered stolen or a total-loss vehicle.

Flooded vehicles became an issue of concern after recent hurricanes and other severe weather. If a vehicle has been declared a total loss from a traffic crash, fire or flood, some of these vehicles can find their way back into circulation through less than honorable means. It's very important to find out if the vehicle you are considering has been rebuilt and retitled.

The NICB provides one more data report that can influence your purchasing decision. It's the Hot Wheels report that lists the most stolen vehicles on an annual state-by-state basis. If you purchase a new or used car, knowing how popular the vehicle is with car thieves can save both time and money.

Keep in mind that services such as Car Checkers and CarFacts charge a fee whereas the NADA, Edmunds, the IIHS and the NICB do not.

And don't forget another excellent source for background information -- your insurance agent. With the day-to-day experience agents have, they can provide insight into particular makes and models of vehicles from a claims perspective.

Take the time to do the research before purchasing a new or used vehicle. The importance of an informed decision cannot be overstated when it comes to the hundreds or thousands of dollars involved in such a transaction. Neither can the safety factor be overlooked, since the vehicle is supposed to not only provide transportation but passenger safety in case of a traffic accident.

To know as much as possible about maintenance and repair costs for a specific vehicle as well as the mileage you should expect is also important since the initial cost is only the start. Overall costs for fuel, regular maintenance, the cost of auto insurance, the annual cost of tags and taxes all add up.

source