Certified Pre-Owned Cars Coming into their Own

Two of the biggest objections for buying a used or pre-owned car have been repairs and financing. We all heard the story of the poor unsuspecting customer who bought a lemon and discovered a few months later that their vehicle needed a new engine or transmission. We're also aware that financing used cars is a challenge because rates are much higher. Well both of those objections have been addressed with the emergence of Certified Pre-Owned cars or CPO.

More and more manufacturers are getting into this business which explains the decline of new car sales. For 2008, projected new car sales are at 15.5 Million, but pre-owned car sales are expected to hit 43 Million. That's almost a three to one ratio and CPO cars are a big reason why.

The following chart illustrates the key points of each manufacturer's Certified Pre-Owned Program.  As you can see, there are key differences and clearly the luxury brands have more to offer than the non-luxury brands.