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December 2025 New Car Incentives
It’s winter and you need a new car, but are you looking at the right details and checking the right parts? Here are some tips for buying a used car in the winter.
Test Driving in Different Seasons
No matter the season, it’s good to follow our Must-Have Used Car Checklist, but sometimes buying a car in a certain season makes a difference. Believe it or not, there are some advantages to buying a used car in the winter. Sometimes you’re able to get better deals if demand isn’t as high. Also, you get to really see how your vehicle handles going through the snow and over icy roads. When I last purchased my vehicle, it was in the middle of June. It had four-wheel drive, but I didn’t get to test it out in the snow until months later. Beyond some of the advantages of buying a used car during the winter, there are also a handful of specific things to keep in mind when car shopping between November and March. Here’s a quick overview in case you schedule any test drives during the winter.
Get Ready to Deal
Used car dealers have a lot of motivation to make winter sales worth your while. They’re trying to keep inventory moving during a season that doesn’t always equate to high car sales. It’s too competitive a market for them to waste the winter months and depend on an uptick in spring and summer sales. Sometimes it takes an incentive or two in order to get potential buyers out for a test drive. With less people out buying cars, there’s a good chance you can talk a dealer into a better price tag if they want to meet their sales goals.
Do Your Homework at Home
I did a lot of searching before I bought my last daily driver. I looked at specs online and narrowed my choice down to about six vehicles. Then, I visited multiple dealerships multiple times for multiple test drives. This was all done in May, so the weather was great. However, if you’re doing multiple test drives of multiple vehicles in the winter? That isn’t quite as fun and exciting. Bundling up, climbing in and out of snow-covered vehicles, and getting out on the possibly icy roads aren’t exactly the highlights of shopping for a new car in December. Many times, though, those are the realities.
That’s why it’s best to do any of the homework you can at home. Read the full reviews, especially with a used vehicle. Most vehicles from previous model years should already have in-depth reviews available. You can read the safety ratings, view photos of the interior, and look over the specs. That way you’re not wasting your time. Also, some of the photos online may show angles of the car that you won’t see unless you physically lay down and get underneath the vehicle or pop the hood.
Check the Undercarriage
If you can physically get under the car yourself or stick your phone under there to snap a few photos, do it. The snowmelt and salt that cities in snowier climates use to treat the roads also build up on the undercarriage of vehicles. That can cause rust in all kinds of areas. From the rotors and calipers to the suspension to the brake master cylinders. Rust in those areas may leave the vehicle looking worse than you’d like, but at least it won’t harm the vehicle. Body and frame rust, however? That’s a different story, so keep an eye out for that.
Newer cars shouldn’t have as much rust because they haven’t been driven, but it’s hard to say how well a used car was taken care of and how long a used car has been sitting out on a car lot. If this is just a car to get by for a while, then the rust may not matter much to you. Or, if the price is right, you can always overlook it, but if you’re in the market for a keeper, then you’ll want as little rust as possible.
Brush the Snow Off
This tip is quick and simple but sometimes overlooked: brush the snow off of the car before you buy it. Obviously, you’ll brush off a windshield and the windows before taking a vehicle out for a test drive, but in a snow-heavy climate, it’s easy to forget to brush off the entire car to check for scratches or small dents. A friend of mine purchased a home in December a few years ago and he had no idea what his backyard looked like until the snow melted. It wasn’t feasible for him to plow out his entire yard to see what kinds of imperfections were awaiting him, but it is feasible for you to brush off all the snow from the entire car before you make that purchase. That way you won’t get any unexpected surprises.
Test Everything That You Can
Be sure to test out everything. You’ll probably turn on the defrost, heated seats, and heated windshield wipers (after all, that’ll make the test drive more comfortable) during a December trip to the car lot, but you may be forgetting some things. Sometimes, when you’re buying a car, you get so caught up in making conversation with the salesperson or focusing on traffic that you forget to even test some of the features that the salesperson is selling you on. It can be just as easy to forget to try the features that don’t match the weather you’re driving in.
Just because the sun isn’t beating down on you with the intensity of the summer, doesn’t mean you can’t test a good portion of the features. Yes, open up that sunroof, even if it’s 10 degrees below zero, or if it’s raining. You can always find a gas station with some coverage in order to test that.
Crank the air conditioning on at every level to see if it works. One of my family members bought a vehicle that gets pretty noisy after the second level. That may not be a dealbreaker, but I know it’s annoying because I hear about it every time I’m riding in that car.
You may not want to get out in the freezing weather and flip or stow the seats, but, again, you probably should. If possible, even test the roof rack, or at least take a look at it. The same thing goes for the tow system. If you’re doing a lot of hauling, you’re probably going to find a place to back up and make sure the cameras and sensors are working.
Add On the Aftermarkets
This isn’t something to look for on the car itself, but things to look for in order to improve your vehicle. If the used car you settle on isn’t a top-tiered trim, you can kind of make it one. There are all kinds of aftermarket accessories, like seat warmers, that you can get for your vehicle if it doesn’t come with them already. Some of those accessories are even under $25. There are also aftermarket remote starters. If you’re buying a car in the winter and you have the funds for it, you may as well install a car starter. You can always wait until later, but those things are nice to have and a good way to make a used car feel more accommodating.
