Think "Green" When You Buy a Used Car

By Terry Bolton

Are there something called green used cars? You might think that terms like "automobile" and "environmentalism" are naturally opposing. You may be right, but most of us need cars in order to subsist in our society and a suitable environment within which we can subsist. So how do we find a way to go subsist in both? Probably that old term "moderation" or in Western society terms, we go green and work together for solutions.

Cars emit things that attack the suitability of our environment for our subsistence. We know this because people hit us over the head with this fact daily. The cars have such harmful gases to emit as carbon dioxide and ozone. One car does little harm, but a billion or so cars has proven to be quite devastating. Then, just imagine what happens to landfills when those billion cars obsolesce or get in accidents.

Thanks to consumer demand for green cars, manufacturers are trying to find less toxic emission solutions. In some places, cars use fuels other than gasoline and diesel. Smaller car models have also helped cut down on how much fuel must be burned and how many materials are used. Just making the cars more durable can help on the materials front.

Go Green Car Tips

1. Don't be lame unless you've got a good excuse. Some people actually drive their car distances of only a block or two. Walking a couple of extra blocks a day could do wonders for the people of nations struggling with obesity issues. Besides, the human body burns fuel much more efficiently than cars do. Take a walk. Ride a bike. Skate. And, please don't sit in your car idling waiting for the parking spot right in front of the door when there is a perfectly good parking spot a couple hundred feet away.

2. Buy only used cars. There are plenty of used cars available that are well-built and have a lot of life left. Buying them new not only creates more use of materials that will at least in part take up landfill space at some point, but it is most often a really bad fiscal move. New cars lose 80% of their value in the first few years. Used cars hardly change in value at all if they're well-maintained. Best of all, there always seems to be a greater number of people trying to sell used cars than the number of people trying to buy used cars.

3. Buy cars that operate efficiently. You would think with skyrocketing oil prices this would be a no-brainer even for those who despise green. Go for cars that have good gas mileage. Go with a hybrid. Retrofit your old car with more efficient systems and recycle the current parts on eBay.
4. Don't buy a car that has more space and/or bulk than you need. SUVs can be great for a family of eight, achieving nice per-person energy consumption and emission rates. For a single man or woman driving around in the city, big cars and trucks rarely make any sense at all.

To learn more about how to find green or traditional cheap used cars online as well as finding used car loans with decent interest rates, in more depth and step-by-step, why not check out these links?.