Hi Mattieu ,

                    My friend had the same problem before .. so I think its better to contact a garage person rather than publishing on the net (thats what he did) .because here on the net people want to sell their things always for a high asking price , from my experience through internet I have paid more price than the actual market price for the second hand goods . may be you won't get the car worth for your money that you are paying ,unless you know someone who can sell their car for an agreable price eg. like in glocals etc . .. ..so in some garages ,sometime the people who buys a new car will leave and their old car or inform them about their old cars .and offcourse for 5000 chf you will get  nice small car which is expertised ..

http://www.autowog.ch/GaragePublicFMS_Profil.asp?RefIDG=bernard

or here you can visit the second hand cars with on of your friends who knows about the cars , or there are many second hand showroms like this in geneva .

Cheers 

Suhas

Hi Mattieu,

some good information like checklists can be found at the comparis website (in english and french, good to compare).

For prices you can get a good idea there of what you can get for your budget, too. 

Btw, if you are living in Geneva/CH, I am not sure if it is a good idea to buy in France, as you would need to go through a lot of bureaucracy and additional costs to register the car, so you could end up paying the same or more than if you would have bought in Switzerland. 

Cheers, 

Carsten

If you are looking for a second hand car in France try:

www.leboncoin.fr/

I bought a car there and had it over a year and was very happy with it.  Unfortunately I had to sell it due to my move to Switzerland.  You should make sure to have an "inspection technique" completed before you buy.

Check www.autoscout24.ch and www.cars4you.ch, you will definitely find a car which corrsponds to your budget inside switzerland. It is better to buy it here

Hi guys, thanks for all of your answers. My friend brings a new idea -- to buy the cheapest new car. 

Given the fact that I (and any of my friends in geneva) have zero knowledge about car so I can't detect/fix even a small issue with the car, do you think a new car would be better? 

The cheapest car in the market is Dacia sandero, only 8900 Frs with 3-y warranty. any suggestion?

If you really want the safety of a reliable car from a dealer you would be better off buying something between 2 and 3 years old, which is generally considered to be the optimal point of balance between age and depreciation.  You'll still get a long warranty and most modern cars have little wear at that age.

Mr Bodin Motors in Gex, 

I have bought two cars from him, he and his team all speak English, they will do all the registeration and all paperwork etc. Prices are fair, and he will give guarantee for decent periods of time. 

http://pros.lacentrale.fr/C019532/

Also all cars have to be tested in France before sale, and Bodin always fixes everything before sale. 

Good Luck.

And Gex is reachable by the F bus I think from Geneva.