Buying a second hand car in Switzerland

[racletteforall]

Hello all,

I'm planning to buy a second hand car in Switzerland but I'm quite lost as I don't know much about cars and I don't have any trustworthy mechanic in Switzerland.

Just for reference I'm looking for asian brands like Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, etc. as my biggest priority is reliability, safety and low consumption.

Is there any recommendation you can share? Or maybe someone who could give me a hand around Zug? I'm a bit afraid of being scammed or making bad decision.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Is there any recommendation you can share?

I am far from an expert myself. I don't know much about cars.

If you don't know that much about cars, I would see two options:
* Only buy from a large garage and especially not from a private person.
* Try to go to the garage with a friend.

 

[danb]

Hello all,

I'm planning to buy a second hand car in Switzerland but I'm quite lost as I don't know much about cars and I don't have any trustworthy mechanic in Switzerland.

Just for reference I'm looking for asian brands like Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, etc. as my biggest priority is reliability, safety and low consumption.

Is there any recommendation you can share? Or maybe someone who could give me a hand around Zug? I'm a bit afraid of being scammed or making bad decision.

Thank you in advance.

Hello,
As Baptiste said, a garage (car dealer) is probably the safest option.
You can look and filter on Autoscout24 to see the car dealers around you like in the screenshot that I made. You can also read reviews about them on maps and probably other websites.
Good luck!

 

[Manneke]

If you are not a car specialist, it is probably worth it to perform a second hand car check by the TCS before buying it. Costs for such checks are around 200-300 chf

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

If you are not a car specialist, it is probably worth it to perform a second hand car check by the TCS before buying it. Costs for such checks are around 200-300 chf

Out of curiosity, do they come with you to the garage? How does it work?

 

[Manneke]

Out of curiosity, do they come with you to the garage? How does it work?

To be fair, no idea, I never did it before. But if I were to buy a second hand car I would probably ask the garage to perform a TCS check before buying it. If the car is still relatively new and comes with a comprehensive warranty, maybe I would skip the TCS check.

Edit: an anecdote just came back to my mind. I have been doing yearly service of my parents car last 2 years in an independant garage and had a good contact with the car mechanic and always had long discussions about cars with him. He told me he also does checks of second hand cars and recommends that the seller also is present for the inspection so that everything is fair and neutral and that there is some bilateral discussion about the state of the car.