Tips for Buying a Used Car Online

[CarDealerCheck]

What is this world coming to when you can buy a used car online without having to look at smiling guys with tobacco-stained teeth and bad neckties sitting on plastic chairs inside a trailer on the used car lot? Whew! Thank goodness for the Internet.

In many ways the Internet is like a huge electronic newspaper that gets updated every day. Because of the global nature of the Internet, you can find listings for nearly any make, model, and year car that was ever in production anywhere in the world, or you can just focus on late-model cars in your own community.

How to Find Used Cars Online
This is the kind of work that search engines were made for. Start with your favorite search engine and type the phrase: used cars in . Substitute the geographical area of your preference for the phrase .:


I live near a relatively large city so my search on Google returned 897,000 hits! These hits included listings from used car dealers, new car dealers with used car departments, classified ad sites, and eBay. eBay? Yes, you can buy used cars on eBay. In fact, they have their own special name. It's called "eBay Motors" and you can find it at: http://www.motors.ebay.com

Of course, I also received a lot of trash hits which had nothing to do with buying a used car online. There was plenty to keep me busy on the first five search engine result pages.
Point, Click, Ah Ha!

Unless you're looking for a rare or vintage car, the chances are your search left you up to your eyeballs in potential cars that are all whining to come home with you like puppies in a pound. So, what do you do next?

First you need the asking price. If it's not posted then you'll have to contact the seller. If you do contact the seller to get a price, get the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) while you're at it. We'll be needing that it a moment or so. If the asking price is listed, you're still going to need the VIN number before you make an offer, so contact the seller now or later. It's your choice.

Armed with the price, go to www.edmunds.com to check out the high, low, and average prices for your dream car's year, make, model, condition, mileage and accessories. While you're there you can also use their Used Car search engines to add to your list of driveway candidates.

Now that you have an idea of what the car is worth, you need a bit more information before you start the negotiating and buying process. You need to know whether your potential cream puff has ever been stolen, wrecked, repossessed, dragged from flood waters, declared to be salvage in another state, was a former rental car, police car, leased car, or taxi cab. And to get all of this insider information, all you need is the car's VIN and a trip to either www.carfax.com where you can buy a vehicle history report for just a few bucks.

Okay, NOW you're ready to negotiate. Good luck!

[occupant]

Plenty to add here...

Carfax is not the end-all of car histories. A car can be wrecked and not reported depending on what state you're in, what kind of insurance the car's owner had, and other factors. Flood damage and fire damage may not be reported to an insurance company or government agency and therefore will not show up on the CarFax. A DMV clerk could mistype a number on a title application and show an odometer discrepancy. My parents gave me an old Buick once, and when I bought the car, it showed 224,220 miles. That is what went on the title when we got it notarized. When I returned home, I had to inspect the car before it could be titled in my state. The inspection occured at 226,700 miles. That inspection was reported to CarFax. Then when I titled the car two weeks later, the 224,220 number was reported to CarFax on that day. Forevermore, that car has been branded by CarFax with an odometer discrepancy, even though it was a simple clerical error and the odometer had never been tampered with.

eBay is a fun place to buy a car, but beware of the thousands of scam artists and the shady backlot dealers that populate it. The best bet to buying a common car on eBay is to only search local auctions where you can inspect the car BEFORE you buy. Obviously, if you're looking for a 1979 Grand Prix with T-tops and red buckets and console, and the only one on eBay equipped as such is 1200 miles away, you have little choice in the matter. I've bought 11 vehicles on eBay, 9 of them operable, and none costing more than $400 or so. I'm very pleased with those purchases and will continue to search eBay for the elusive $100 cars that run and drive that I have enjoyed in the past. My last eBay purchase was a 1970 Ford pickup truck in horrible but running shape for $406. I got plenty of use out of it for most of 2004 before it was stolen from me, but since I never bothered to re-title it, I couldn't get it back when the police found it (intact, mind you). It sold at the impound auction for $900 (more than I had on hand, I ended up buying a $300 Chevy Celebrity that day to get me to work) and I still see it around occasionally.

As far as used taxicabs, I don't see anything wrong with buying them. If you need basic transportation and don't mind the color, a used Crown Vic taxi can be a great ride. In New York, they pull the cabs off after 3 years of use. So for about $2500, you can get a 2004-2005 model Crown Vic with 200-250K on it. Compare that to the $12500 you'd spend on a non-taxi or the fact that $2500 barely gets you a ten-year old Crown Vic, and it's a steal. In Chicago, think more like 5 years and 300-400K miles, but also think $1000-$1500 to buy it. I would love to start a business buying ex-Chicago cabs for $1000 each, truck them to Texas, paint them, throw on 20-22-24" rims, clean them up, and sell them for $6000-$8000 each. Who cares how many miles are on the car when it's rolling on big boy rims with a candy paint job, right?

[CarDealerCheck]

Thanks for the update and good information occupant

This is an old article back from late 2005 - Early 2006 that I transferred over to the forum from our old system and it's good to have some fresh eyes on it and bring it up to date

Thanks