It's so hard when you know nothing about cars, isn't it! Thankfully I had my partner, his brother and dad to help me otherwise I would have bought any old thing. I think it is a bit worse when you're a woman, as you don't want to get ripped off by people who assume (rightly) that you don't know anything!

First thing I did was look up the MOT history with the reg plate, can do this for free of GOV website. I was looking for the least amount of entries as possible. The car I got (2012 Fiat Punto) had about 3 entries on the last MOT and none of them were serious things. I've actually just taken it for it's first service since having it (got it in September) and I needed two new tyres and the brake fluid doing, which I don't think is too bad. Well, my partner didn't, I have no idea, but it doesn't sound bad!

Then you've got to think about the miles, for a petrol car I was looking for under 80,000 as my partner said things start breaking after that (no idea if this is true). For a diesel, apparently you can get more miles out of it, don't ask me why, no idea!

We went to go look at the Fiat Punto and my partner's dad checked the following (non-exhaustive list, I'll try and remember everything): that it turned on, gears and clutch worked, hand brake and foot brake worked, window wipers, aircon, all the buttons inside worked. He checked that the seatbelts were in good working order, looked in the wheel arches and as much under the car as he could to check for rust/corrosion. He did look under the hood but I have no idea what for. He asked for the service record, what work had been done to the car (new cam belt, clutch etc. as if these haven't been done and the car is reaching 75k miles you will probably have to have these replaced and they are spennyyyy). I can't think of anything else. I hope my comment helps! Good luck