As winter approaches, it’s time to put away your scooters, store your bicycles and get ready for the cold, snowy months that lie ahead. This year in preparation for what is to come, I decided it was time to get myself a car. Writing for The Daily Herald will require that I travel to neighboring towns during the winter months and my trusted scooter, Buddy, won’t be of much use once the snowy flakes begin falling. With the help of my parents in Texas, I set out to find a car.

Since I’m a poor college student, we decided to go the route of buying a used car. I by no means am an expert but thought I might share a few pointers I had while shopping for a car.

To begin our search, my dad and I narrowed our search to a car no older than a 2004 with a price range of about $5,000. We searched Craigslist and KSL each day, seeing what cars were being posted. On each of those sites, you can limit what exactly it is you’re looking for. We actually found that KSL wasn’t the best site, with people posting the same car over and over and over. It wasn’t very easy to work with. Craigslist was a little easier to use, but I found that most of the cars on there were older that I was looking for.

I also regularly checked the board in the Wilkinson Center to see if there were any posts. One day I saw a note card advertising a 2005 Chevy Aveo. I had my dad call the number and it turned out it was the number of a used car lot, Mountain High Motors, near Smiths in Provo. My dad drilled the guy and asked him probably a million questions. Everything seemed to check out.

I went to the lot and looked at the car. I checked the tires, looked for dents and looked inside. After a test drive and making sure the air conditioner and heater worked and asking a lot of questions, I decided to take the car. The only thing that seemed to not be working was the radio, which he said would be fixed by the time I picked up the car.

After getting everything squared away, I went to pick up the car a few days later. The radio had been fixed. The car runs great. I did learn that the CD player doesn’t work, that there is a leak in container you put the window washer fluid in and power locks aren’t an option on the car, but other than that the car works great and I am very pleased with it!

Like my parents said, we bought a used car so we can’t expect everything to work perfectly.

So if you’re thinking about getting a used car to survive the winter, I would recommend checking online classified sites, keeping your eyes open and talking to people. Also look at reviews of a particular car you may be interested in, such as on Consumer Reports. When you find something you may like, make sure you ask questions and make sure you have a good feeling about what you are doing. Also try going to CarFax, which will tell you the history of the specific car you’re looking at. I think used cars are sometimes a gamble, but in this case I happened to luck out and found a great car. Good luck!