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There is always a certain amount of luck involved in car purchase, yes you get a bit more cover from a dealer of honour and repute, and you are less likely to get turned over by the usual scammer suspects by going to a dealer.
Its easier to judge a car and its owner by going private buying, but if you keep an open mind it's possible to judge what sort of previous ownership a car had when you inspect it at a dealership to help you avoid buying a polished turd.
Make sure you take something to lie on and don't wear your Sunday best, because the first place you are going to look at is the tyres, the wheels and the visible brakes behind them, and then you're going to slide underneath and see what the car looks like from the really important view that the dealer valeters won't have made shiny.
Tyres, are they a decent set in good condition, preferably same make all round but not essential, but if you want a 4x4 then all 4 tyres want to have similar tread depth for transmission long life, are the sidewalls still readable or has the previous driver worn half the sidewall off against kerbs, ignore the black shiny slop dealers put on to make them look new, get under and look at the treads properly including the inside shoulders (take a depth gauge with you), a set of nearly new good make tyres is a clue to a caring previous owner, however if a brand new set of cheaper tyres is fitted well up to a point you can't blame the previous owner wanting to spend £250 instead of £450 for the next owner's benefit, do make sure they are all the same size.
Wheels, if you are looking at a 50k Civic, the wheels should not have needed refurb, if original finish like the tyres you can tell if the previous owner cared or not by the state of the rim edges, if they've needed refurb look carefully underneath for signs of other damage where mr clumsy habitually drove up kerbs etc, but more worrying is that the wheels needed refurb for salt corrosion, so check really carefully underside for rust damage, cos corroded wheels might point to a car that never got washed properly and ingrained salt does a lot of damage if no one bothers to wash it off, couldn't be bothered to clean the wheels means they certainly didn't wash the underside ever.
I can't overstate this underbody check, i've seen 12 month old fleet cars come off the road in March and sit for 6 or more months with all that winter salt baking itself into the brakes and underbelly nooks and cranies, it will kill cars if left in place.
Discs and Calipers, discs should look decent with no really deep wear ridge at the outer lip, feel them for excessive scoring, check the calipers for deep corrosion, very few people paint their calipers (i do, and i believe madf does also) so the state of the OE finish will tell you how much salt the potential buy has seen, don't be surprised if you find at least one new rear caliper fitted (shinier), Honda don't strip clean and lube brakes on the service schedule so calipers seizing up will be a problem unless the previous owner took steps...if you buy one get a proper mechanic on the case to service the brakes correctly and the hardware will last the life of the vehicle.
Underbody, get under and check all over, exhaust suspension subframes, check how much ingrained muck there is in the wheel arches (most cars it the rears fill up with crud inside the lip), check for obvious underbody damage and sign of leaks.
I do this before i even open the doors or look under the bonnet, because if these parts of the car have been neglected its a fair bet that the previous owners were the type to use the oil light to let them know it needed oil, and if they didn;t care about looking after the most important parts of the car, what hope they bothered getting the unseen underbonnet bits looked after...theory being Japanese innit no need to look after it, these people do exist.
You can hedge your bets of buying a decent motor by getting down and dirty, it shocks the dealer a little when you don your boiler suit get your torch out and slide under on a large sheet of cardboard, i've walked away from cars without even holding the keys or looking inside by the aforementioned checks.
If all looks ok then proceed with the rest of the car buying and good luck.
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