I am shopping for a used car. I am looking locally but the online auto sites will show me cars everywhere in the country. Dealers in other cities will arrange shipping. But I have never bought a car sight-unseen and I especially hate to do that with a used car. We just looked at one this week and had a mechanic check it out, and it turns out it will need about $1000 of work just to pass state safety inspection (why would a dealer sell a car with a horn that doesn’t work?). That’s a little harder to check on a car that’s 500 miles away.
I assumed it comes with a guarantee or you could refuse delivery if it wasn’t what you expected, but unless you want to drive to see it, or pay someone to check it out before you buy it, I think it’s mostly caveat emptor.
No. I once saw one and made inquiries. I insisted payments could only be made through an escrow service. The seller did not want this. However, it is strongly recommended to avoid problems.
Well, I did it once but it was a new car so that story is a little different. Biggest challenge there was that since it came from out of state, it didn’t have temporary plates, and the paperwork it did have came via Fedex two days after I got the car. The truck driver was only willing to drop the car at his regular unload point about 20 minutes away, so I got to drive home with no plates or any other kind of proof of ownership, which was modestly nerve-racking.
I’ve never bought a car sight-unseen (and doubt I ever will). I’ve known a couple of people who have, both of whom encountered problems in the “inconvenient but fortunately not shockingly expensive” category.
I’ve also seen many cases that involved people traveling to inspect vehicles that were represented as being much better than they proved to actually be.
I think the chance of problems is too high to make this a sensible plan.
My friends bought a car from out of state that had to be transported but in their case, it was a brand-new Audi that was shipped from a distant dealer to their local one, so not exactly the same thing.
A couple years ago I bought a used car from the Carmax store in Las Vegas and had it shipped to me here in Miami. Buying from one of the national used car chains like CarMax or AutoNation you’re fairly safe that the car will pass all inspections, won’t be a total POS, need a new transmission next week, etc. I certainly would not have done such a thing with a car from a private party or from Honest Bob’s Used Cars in Clusterf***, PA. Though yes, you will pay more for a car from CarMax, etc., than you would for the very same car from Honest Bob. Assuming Bob ever actually has cars in that good of condition.
I also cheated by flying out to Vegas to see & drive the car before I signed the deal. Maybe not practical for most folks.
While I was investigating the transaction I recall they said I could buy the car in Vegas then pay them to ship it home or I could pay to have it shipped to Miami first, then buy it locally here. Which latter arrangement would have afforded me the ability to test the car before buying it without flying cross-country. But if I did ship it to Miami then decide not to buy it, they were not refunding my shipping; that would be a sunk cost.
IIRC it cost about $1,500 to ship it that far. Which wasn’t much different than it’d have cost me to drive it, stay in motels, eat meals, burn gas, put miles on the tires, brakes, and odometer, etc., for that many hours and miles. It also saved me one for sure, and probably several, speeding tickets.
We did something similar for my wife’s new used car, but it was only coming 300 miles. We decided to have it shipped sight unseen and run the slight risk it would turn out to be unsatisfactory & we’d waste ~$300 in shipping when we passed on the purchase. Turns out the car was fine & the extra $300 got lost in the overall sauce of the transaction.
I bought a car from Carvana about a year ago. It just happened that the car was only about an hour and a half away, so I went to go get it instead of waiting a couple days for it to show up here. Technically, I had already bought the car when I headed down, but their system allows you to unwind the deal easily if you see it and feel like it’s not as advertised, either if they bring it to you or you go get it.
I know Carvana gets a lot of hate in the media right now, but I found it to be a flawless experience. The fact that you can give the car back within a week and that it comes with a pretty comprehensive three month warranty made me feel pretty good about buying a used car on the web.
'Zactly. You pay more for the car, but you get something of at least some value in return.
On a more expensive car prone to expensive repairs, their deal on warranties is unbeatable. They sell quality warrantees you can actually collect on, not just scams. And at a relatively good price.
One of the car bloggers (maybe Doug DeMuro?) tested the CarMax extended warranty by purchasing a Range Rover from them and logging all the things that broke and got fixed during his ownership. The numbers were eye-watering.
In the end, that payout, combined with all the others, means that CarMax paid $21,276 in warranty claims on my Range Rover. I purchased the Range Rover for $26,998, and I paid $3,699 for the warranty, so the overall cost of the warranty claims nearly exceeded the value of the vehicle. It’s truly impressive that we got this far.
The CarMax guys he dealt with never blinked when it came time to pay. And this was well before he was the (relatively) well known name he is now.
With a CarMax warrantee you don’t have to deal with CarMax at all. You take the car wherever, including a new car dealership for that make, and your chosen service shop deals with whoever is the real warrantee company whose product CarMax sells. I forget that outfit’s name and can’t be arsed to dig through my filing cabinet just now.
Of course you can also take the car to Carmax’s shop. I’d do that for a generic Ford or Toyota, but not for a specialty machine like an e.g. Range Rover.
I’ve had 4 CarMax warrantees and on both that are now obsolete (cars since sold) they paid out 2x & 3x what the warrantee cost me. I have two in effect now and we’re just getting close to break-even on the more expensive car. I have no doubt we’ll do very nicely on that one too.
I bought a car through Enterprise car sales. The car that had the features that I wanted was in another state. It was shipped to a location near me, I went and drove it, and then bought it. Other than the fact that the car was shipped to my location, it was a fairly normal car buying experience.
One thing to be aware of is that after a major hurricane or flooding event, the used car market gets flooded with unscrupulous sellers of cars that are suspiciously cheap but aren’t titleable as anything but salvage due to hidden flood damage. Apart from checking the VIN history, a lot of the ways to determine a flood damaged car require fairly detailed in person inspection which is obviously more difficult if you want the car shipped.
In June of 2020, I bought a car from a dealer in Virgina. I live in Michigan. I did the transaction completely over the phone. I had found the car by using cargurus.com. It is a lovely 2014 Volvo S60 T6 Platinum with < 60k miles.
I googled some Volvo mechanics nearby and looked at their ratings, and the dealer agreed to drop the car there for an inspection. It passed, I had the check fedexed to the dealer, and it was shipped to my house.
It’s a very nice car, and I don’t regret my decision. I had also looked at some less expensive ones located in Chicago. In the process of arranging inspections, the mechanics I talked to told me that the dealers I was looking at were typically known for selling very worn-out cars with problems, so I passed on buying those.
Notably, the cars in Chicago were being sold by used car dealers unafilliated with a major brand, while the one in Virginia was affiliated with a Mercedes dealership. I had been watching the one at the Merc dealer for a while and the price dropped by $1800 so I bought it. It was ~ 15k, so not a super-expensive vehicle purchase.
The only issue I had with the car was that the paint --which was black-- was heavily swirled. It had been photographed in favorable lighting so you couldn’t tell. I bought a couple hundred bucks worth of paint polishing equipment and spent a day working on it and now it shines like crazy and I still do not regret my purchase.
Perhaps one of the biggest financial mistakes I have made in my life was buying a Porsche 944 Turbo from a private party on eBay. I don’t recall why I got so fixated on this car, but I got caught up in auction frenzy and won it, paying more than I should have without ever having driven another of its type or looking carefully at the local market. Those were my mistakes.
But that said, I did everything necessary to protect myself from being ripped off in the transaction, and that wasn’t the problem. We used an escrow service, so I was able to take delivery and have my local mechanic look over the car before my payment was released to the seller. (I don’t recall what the arrangement was in the case I didn’t accept the car, whether the seller or I would have had to pay for the shipping.) There was a cosmetic blemish that the seller had disclosed, and provided pictures of, and my mechanic said it was in good condition. The biggest issue with the transporting was that it was on the lower level of the car carrier, and the car above dropped a bunch of oil on the roof of my car. But that was fairly easily cleaned off.
The mechanic – whom I trusted – okayed the car, but because it was a 17-year-old car and I had bought it to drive on the track, things started breaking pretty quickly, and it ended up costing me a lot of money and trouble over the next year. I ended up selling it for less than half what I paid for it.
But as bad as all that sounds, the process of buying a car remotely, transporting it, having it checked out, and releasing the funds went exactly as it should have. All the problems arose from mistakes I made: not being more diligent about local sales, overpaying in the auction, expecting an older car to hold up under heavy track use, etc. But I was young and callow (45).
At least now I can wear my Porsche jackets without being a phony.
I bought a car by looking at one photo on Craigslist, a few texts and a phone call. Mailed the guy a check, he mailed me the key and told me where it was parked. He was in San Diego, I was way up north and the car was half-way between us. Assured me it ran.
Loaded up fluids, battery, all kinda stuff I might need to get it home and set off a couple hundred miles down the road…
It was sitting right were he said it would be. My first reaction was, “What the Fuck did I just do???” Checked stuff out, made sure that it was okay to attempt to start. Cleared the snow off it, and it fired right up. Drove it to a gas station, filled it up, me and my kid who was driving the other car home ate lunch, then drove it home. Highways, mountains, snow, curvy spots. No problems. Love this little car!
Been my primary run-around car for near 3 years now. 1987 Dodge Colt Vista Wagon. 48000 original miles! All-Wheel Drive Adventure Wagon!
Looks kinda like this but I fabricated custom rally lights and roof/ski rack. And better looking wheels. God, those are horrible!
Maybe not practical for most folks.