Firstly (and most importantly) when buying a second hand car is to carry out an HPI check. These checks are available from £19.99 at www.hpicheck.com

All you have to do is go online and enter the vehicle registration number. The check will tell all the details of the car's history: if the car has had a colour change, number plate change, how many owners, whether it's been recorded or not, etc…even if it's been in an accident or whether there's any finance owed on the car.

24 out of every 100 cars checked turn out to have finance. How Scary!!!! This is one of the most important pieces of information that hpi will give you, as finance is on the vehicle not the person, therefore if you buy a vehicle which owes finance you now owe finance, as that car is legally owned by the finance company.

Vehicles are symmetrical so one of the best ways of checking for accident damage is to look at the gaps between panels. The gaps around the car should be the same - use a coin to roughly judge sizes.

Look down the side off the car: the different angle will show up any little pin dents or poor previous repairs which are you wouldn't otherwise notice.

Look for overspray or a build up of paint on or around door handles, window trims, lights, etc as these are signs or poor repairs.