Well I've found a car that I'm really interested in but the problem is that it's 800 miles away. Has anyone bought a used car in another location and if so how did it go? Any tips for trying to buy a car out of state?

Better yet, if anyone is in the Walnutport, Pennsylvania area and would like to look at a car for me that'd be great. Of course there'd be compensation on my end.

 

Are you making a private purchase or a dealer purchase? I would tell you to see if the seller can send the car to the dealer and have them go over the car at your expense to make sure that it's mechanically sound. You could also hire a 3rd party inspection company to go over the entire car (but not mechanically) and have them assess the condition so you know what to expect should you buy the car.

Fortunately Walnutport, PA is closer to me than you, but unfortunately I've never even heard of that town, let alone knowing where it's located, so , I can't help you with that. Good luck!

[edit] It's about 120 miles away from me, but I doubt I would have time to do this for you...sorry!

 

The car is at a dealer so it makes me feel a little bit more comfortable. Do you know any names of the companies that will go and look it over?

Also, the car has been in the north for all its life and we've heard stories about northern cars being rust buckets. For the northerners here, is rust really even an issue for newer cars?

 

What kind of car? Rust probably isn't an issue. I haven't seen rust on a 2000+ car in ever.

 

I had bought my car last year from an Acura dealership in NYC based off of their online posting. Like yours, it was a northern car most of its 34K miles life. Mine was CPO so everything had checked out. The only rust I had noticed on it so far were the hangers for the exhaust, which will be replaced when my new exhaust arrive.

 

do some quick research on motor vehicle reciprocal taxation. there is a certain tax code specific to motor vehicles. basically, certain states have reciprocal MV taxes with other states.

when i leased my car in NYS, i paid the taxes upfront. then moved to Florida. Lexus Financial asked me to pay taxes all over again one month later. they made the assumption that the two states did not have reciprocal MV taxes. in this instance, they were wrong, and i had to do the research to prove it.

this MAY only apply if your car is registered in one state, then registered in another. so may not be an issue for the OP. still something you may want to look into.

 

From a dealer this likely should not be an issue. They'll give him a temp tag and a check made out to the state motor vehicles and the title work and he'll likely have to submit it himself.

He should not have to pay taxes to the state he's buying from ... Unless PA has some sort of weird BS law on that. When I bought my S4 in PA in 2008 I filed the title work myself and the dealer had given me a check for the MD MVA because I had financed the car and rolled the taxes in to it and then gave a down payment.

 

I live in NC and have purchased vehicles from a Pa dealer. They put a temp. 30 day in-transit cardboard plate on the car. When I registered it in NC I turned in the certificate of origin, showed them the sales invoice. I paid nc sales tsx and they honored the trade-in so made the tsx lower. I did not have to pay Pa taxes.

 

Hey Ross, I bought my 911 from a San Francisco dealership. The car was 5 months old but I still had them perform a PPI and get a DME scan showing no overrevs. Then I got them to pay the grand for closed container shipping out to HI. The original owner had a lien through Porsche Financial Services and I had to have my local dealership here call PFS national to get the San Fran dealership to mail me the title. It was kind of a PITA since the title was held by PFS and not the SF dealership. Once I had the title, I had to go to the local DMV to get the registration, then go to the state municipal building to pay the in-state sales tax. I did not have to pay CA excise tax, only local.

 

Thanks for all the responses and pieces of advice. Called again today and the car was sold, guess it wasn't meant to be. haha

 

I was going to say that i used to live 30 minutes away but live 90 away now. I would have checked it out if i was in the area.

 

Oh well, better luck next time!