I intend to buy a small pickup sometime before Christmas. The internet sure makes snooping a lot easier. One idea is to print off the best price I can find and take it or email it to the local dealers. Ask them if they can match it. Carvana delivers, although there is a $600 delivery fee. Anything with under 10,000 miles is as good as new as far as I'm concerned. Any thoughts?
Scotty Kilmer's opinion of Carvana:
Sounds fine.
You know what make and model you want, I gather? If you don't know both of those, I have a possible complaint about carvana**. IIRC Their computer chat had no idea what my question meant and I could never get a human to chat with me. **The obvious method of excluding a make instead includes it and only it, there are no instructions about how to search. It tried again and it's no better.
Don't forget ebay motors. The car I bought through them had about 40 pictures and was only 100 miles away. (I found ebay a little confusing, with a section for auto parts and accessories and another section for autos. I almost bought a bumper when I wanted a whole car. ) Carvana is sort of new and I'm not sure their supply will be as good as ebay motors. OTOH, maybe they just list anything any cooperating used car lot has and provide the delivery. I don't know.
Don't forget Carfax. I thought I'd have to pay for each car I looked up. Instead, I only tried to look up one car but it was free and included loads of details, including the maintenance the previous owner had done (because she took it to cooperating shops. I take my to Raoul in the alley behind the donut shop and I'm not sure he reports what he does to Carfax. Even very good shops might not. I don't know how that works, but for my car, it showed she had already replaced the timing belt and water pump.
Also, car I'm looking at now
For this car it will show the original window sticker. I don't know that ebay motors or anyone else does that but otoh, this might work
OTOH, this one says nothing about makes,
Hmmm. So do all the maker's provide window stickers now?
The Monroney sticker or window sticker is a label required in the United States to be displayed in all new automobiles and includes the listing of certain official information about the car. The window sticker was named after Almer Stillwell "Mike" Monroney, United States Senator from Oklahoma.
Yes you can. I found out the hard way, lots of stuff will never pop on a carfax. My 97 Honda came with a clean carfax and I figured out later, the speedometer had been tricked up and there was a wreck that never got reported.
I tried -make since that works in google. It was no better. And there were still no FAQ about how to search.
I tried to chat and again it didn't understand the question and pushed on me the very brand I didn't want, and started to run me in circles.
The keyword seems to be human. I want to talk to a human.
So they send me a text with aoncrirmation code I have to enter to prove I'm really here and they said wait time is over an hower but I let an Advocate know and they reach out to me as soonn as possible.
I dont' want them to reach out. I want them to reply, or to write me, or text me. I'm sick of the ridiculous overuse of "reach out".
And it will be an Advocate. I wonder who he will be advocating for: me, them, trump, ??.
I'll let you all know if there's a way to exclude makes.
Wanted to also mention that someone I know bought a used car off a private owner for $2,400. It had a couple of minor problems but he was very happy with it. Unfortunately someone ran into him and then a week later he had an accident that totaled it. Now he has bought the same car, one year model later, from Carvana for over $9,000. Of interest is the first accident brought him $2,000 and the second $4,000. Had he got a similar deal from a private owner for the 2nd car he would have made money.
I would negociate the price before showing the price you found. The dealer may be less expensive than the price you found. If not, then show the dealer the price you found and ask if he can match it.
There are so very many variables ! Every buyer is different .. Two of my grown kids buy their vehicles based on good financing ; good trade-in of their "old" vehicle ; and luxury options. I have always avoided luxury options ; paid cash ; and drove my cars almost into the ground - as well as kicking a lot of tires and driving a lot of test-drives. If you have narrowed-down the vehicle make & model - your job is half-done ! It's a good way to shop. On my most recent purchase - I didn't take their trade-in offer for the old Jetta - I regretted it soon after when tasked with selling it privately - just the PITA factor not the money. Good luck. John T.
I looked through the comments. A lot of the people disagreed with Scotty.
Excellent. I only hope, if I were the OP, I would have thought of that when the time came.
And I'm different yet. Buy cars that are about 7 years old, try to find luxury models because after 7 years options don't add much to the price (but I usually only have 2 or 3 cars to choose from), pay cash, all but twice from a private party, 3 of the old cars went straight to the junk**, sold one in 1970 for $150, one 3 years ago for $1000
**one donated to charity but he wouldn't give me a receipt! I didn't expect one and was happy he towed it away.My last car was iirc advertised on craigslist and I met the guy in a parking lot. He woudln't tell me where he lived. Woudln't show me his drivers license. I thought it was a con but I wanted the car. I'll give him credit that we went to a tag and title store and he didn't make me pay until after the car was registered to me. For the next 6 months, I still expected the real owner would be pursuing me.
Most people - myself included - wouldn't even consider meeting such a seller - let alone do business with him ! Don't just walk away - Run !
Two of my first questions when buying anything private-sale : 1. how long have you owned it ? 2. why are you selling it ? Any sketchy answers or stammering to answer are a warning flag. John T.
But I liked the car.
Oh, he lied about that. He said his daughter had been driving it to college over the summer, but I knew from Carfax that it was sill owned by the woman who owned it for years (since it was new?) who lives about
50 miles north of here.I read to the end so I'll add that I didnt' ask him how long he'd owned it. He volunteered the story about his daughter to make the point the car was safe or something. I had the carfax already but I didn't point out the contradiction, let alone make an issue of it.
That came up. He goes to auctions and resells what he buys.
I don't ask many questions. None, sometimes. I don't want to make liars out of the sellers, and I don't want to get angry later when I learn they were lying to me.
Like you said, every buyer is different.
BTW, I also couldn't take it for a test drive because it had no plates, only on the street where it was parked, 0.2 mile long. It seemed to run well. LOL
I didn't think to get the VIN when I first saw it. Stupid of me. But the parking lot was only 1/4 mile from my home and when I wanted to see it again it was only a couple blocks farther. I got the vin and noticed he had another nice car parked behind "mine", both in part of the street that had no houses. No garages or driveways on this street but he said the police let him park his un-plated cars there. So I figured he lived on that block. If I really had to find him, I could ask neighbors or stake out the street until I saw where he lived. Plus this is how he makes his living I think, and I could find other ads on craigslist that he was running, and find him that way.
Anyhow, all cars have be inspected after they are bought in Md. and all it needed brake pads and the shop sold me disks, but that's all and that's all it's it's had to have done in 3 years. I don't drive much but I did drive to Florida and back. When I sold my old car, I bumped into the seller at the tag and title store, and he said he was surprised I'd have the nerve to drive to Florida. I guess because the car is 2005.
I drive down that block once in a while just to see what he's selling. They are always very nice looking, but the last time there were no cars there.
But there are 3 cars there in satellite view from 2020 and 3 different cars in street view from August 2019.
But what kind of car is this: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3540148,-76.7613677,3a,50.8y,105.29h,58.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEDUZGHXEsBPr1_QZM-9z0g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=enIt has 2.3 doors on the left side.
I've never seen such a thing. I don't even know what make it is.
Chrysler Pacifica, their latest "mini van". The extra half door makes it easier to acces the third row of seats.
Sometimes the streetview cameras chop things up and patch them back poorly. John T.
On second thought, I might be wrong. The car is, indeed, a Chrysler Pacifica, but that extra half door looks wrong.
And none of the Pacifica photos I found show that type of framing.
So... either this is one of their cars that just isn't showing up in my search, or it might be a photo artifact.
Good point. I should have thought of that.
But in this case, there is evidence in both directions
The little door has a trianguular window and the window in front of it might be triangular if its rear frame is at an angle, but it's very hard to see.
Then there is the reflection. There is a white area under the front end of the third handle that's not present under the front end of the second handle. And there is a white line just to the right of the 3rd door handle that is not present to the right of the second door handle.
And the shape of the trailing edge of the two doors seems different.
OTOH there are two lines near the bottom of the door, that don't match up right beteen the 2nd and 3rd doors.
And googling Chrysler Pacifica doors gives nothing about this.
It probably is an artifact, but it's the most realitic one I've seen.
This is less than a half mile from me, but I doubt the car is still there after 15 months. Somewhere I have the phone number for the guy who sold me the car. If he still lives there, he would know.
I'm sure they do but he does make a lot of sense that they would be a high priced provider. It does take a lot more effort to shop around and have a mechanic fully check it out. You will note my other response of price difference between a guy doing it himself and using Carvana. I would also not want to buy a vehicle that I had not test driven.
And there is nothing on the pavement in front of the car, or the grass and the sign on the building, or its roof, or the AC on the roof, or the roof of the car, that shows any sign of repetition.
No, that has to be the way the car looks.
OTOH, when I looked at the car behind it, using the same url above, it has 2 front wheels, yet almost nothing else is wrong with the photo.
That really does settle it. It's not the car.
I understand the camera is a still camera that is moving, but I still don't understand how it can distort part but not the part above or below.
Why is the sign on the side of the building perfect?
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