With the move earlier this year, we have been in the market for a new truck. We have been waiting until the old house was sold to commit though so we don't have to take out a loan.

As of today we are past that burden so the search is back on, I have been giving serious consideration to Ram in the tradesman trim level but want to stick to the 2024 model year as I know Ram has made some drivetrain changes with the 25 model year and I'm not really wanting to be a guinea pig.

Since we are over halfway through 2025, the supply of 2024's had dwindled obviously, especially locally so I have pushed my search more nationwide. This way of buying is all new territory for me and am looking for advice on how to deal with dealers out of state, not get jerked around and get the best price possible.

Many thanks in advance.

If you find a dealer that has one, call and ask to speak to the fleet manager. Tell him or her what you want and you will be paying cash. My guess is they are going to be eager to get rid of a 24.

Ask about delivery costs or inform the dealer you will arrange transportation.

You will not pay taxes in the state where you purchase it, but in the state where you live.

Why Ram, just curious. Lots of horror stories.
1/2 ton 4wd? crew cab?

My experience was Ford was heavily discounting their 24' Superduty's.

Not much different than negotiating locally. Flight and drive it back. Or have it shipped ($1k). It’s the way to shop for a vehicle these days. Our local dealers of everything don’t want to budge and other parts of the country do.

We purchased a car from a neighboring state a few years ago. All done via email to lock in the final bottom line price. We flew into the nearest city, and the dealer picked us up.

Be sure to figure in the cost per mile of driving the vehicle home. The official IRS mileage rate may be too low, as it is an average. I figure on $1 per mile to make the math simple.

We had a bit of snafu on the sales tax. The dealer figured it incorrectly and we had a little bit of paperwork to get it corrected. Not a big problem, but it would have been better had I double checked everything ahead of arriving at the dealer.

They did try to get us to use factory financing, which turned out to save us some on a factory rebate. We paid it off after 90 days or whatever the minimum was. Be sure you know what all the rebates are ahead of time.

I'm no expert at buying cars, but I have bought 21 new cars since 1984. 7 of the last 11 (starting in 2001) were bought outside of the state I was living at the time. You may ask why so many from out of state and I will just say manual transmission. 5 of those 7 had/have manual transmissions.

Usually I will find a car by searching nationally on autotrader.com and then go to the actual dealer website to confirm the car is available if I find one I am interested in.

The last out of state car I bought was a 2023 Mazda 3 with manual and I was able to negotiate the price online and over the phone with the sales manager. This was in Dec 2022. I wired the money to the dealer and flew up to pick it up and drove it home.

Other times I have gone to the dealer and negotiated in person while on a trip. One thing I have learned is that a salesman will say almost anything to get you to actually visit the dealer as they feel they can hook you once you are onsite and have seen the car. I make sure they have the exact car I'm looking for on the lot before I make a trip to buy. I have traveled afar and not bought after negotiating, something you need to be prepared to do.

Sometimes I trade, some times I don't. Once with a trade I couldn't reach a deal so I drove back home. Cost me one night in a hotel. Another the dealer wouldn't come to terms so I left to go get dinner and drive home and they called me before I had ordered my meal to accept my offer.

The biggest issue on my last one, the Mazda 3, was that the dealer refused to provide me with the paperwork I needed to properly register the vehicle in my home state. To register the vehicle, you will need at a minimum the Certificate of Origin (or sometimes called the manufacturer title), a Bill of Sale and an Odometer Statement. With these documents you should be able to go to your county clerk and register the vehicle, pay the sales tax, and apply for a title in your name.

In this case the dealer simply would not give me the paperwork and insisted that they mail it to my county clerk, even though they had the wire transfer for the full amount (with estimated taxes paid) 2 weeks before I picked up the car. Their excuses were lame something about people taking cars to Mexico and skipping out on the loan and the taxes - none of which applied to me as the car was fully paid for.

My county clerk was under heavy scrutiny during this time frame for outrageous incompetence and a huge backlog in transactions due to continued reduced staffing and covid related excuses. I knew it would be a cluster if I didn't have the paperwork in hand to go directly to the clerk and get the paperwork done. They would only give me copies and I headed home, and it was a massive cluster indeed.

In all it took me 6 months (plus a ticket for expired temp tag and trip to court to have it thrown out due to above mentioned issues with the county backlog) and 3 trips to the county clerk office to finally get the car registered. I'll save you the boring details.

None of the other six out of state purchases had any issue and were easy to register in person because I had the required Certificate of Origin, ODO statement and Bill of Sale in hand when I left the dealership.

In 2000 I was stationed in Alabama while a legal resident of Connecticut (had been my entire time in the Coast Guard). CT would exempt the sales tax on a vehicle for a service member stationed out of state back then. I bought a Harley in Florida and the dealer would not sell the bike to me unless I paid FL sales tax. I showed them the CT statutes that verified my registering it in CT would exempt the sales tax but they refused to sell it to me. I ended up paying the FL sales tax in order to get the bike (they were in high demand back then) and applied to the state to get the tax back. I don't think I ever did get it back.

Overall I've had pretty good luck picking up vehicles in different states and don't mind the effort in order to find the exact vehicle I'm looking for.

Anyway, good luck in your search - I hope you get a good deal on the truck you really want.

I'm in Ohio. I found a car in PA that I wanted. It was a 2 hour drive. I called the dealership and said I want to come look at this car, do you have someone setup to do Ohio taxes and transfer paperwork?

They told me yes. I drove out there the next day, looked the car over, took it for a test drive and bought it. They gave me the paperwork I needed to take to an Ohio bureau of motor vehicles to get my car registered in my state. Easy peasy.

NJ was a little different, they wouldn't even talk to me without me sending a downpayment. I told them I was going to fly in without seeing the car and buying it to drive home and if that wasn't serious enough for them for a car that's been sitting, then I won't bother.

quote:

Originally posted by Frenchy1004:
...Since we are over halfway through 2025, the supply of 2024's had dwindled obviously, especially locally so I have pushed my search more nationwide...

Your challenge is available inventory? That's easier to fix than cost or choosing the right one (I'll leave those alone). $0.02:

- If you have the baseline model picked but just need the right color or options, internet search should be easy to sort and filter. (Auto Trader is pretty good and includes lots of dealer stock to include new and CPO)

- Do you have a local guy? Show him the one you like and ask, maybe he can get it to you for the same or lower price and save you the trip

- He near DC, surrounding states make it easy i.e. you can buy a car in WV and get it titled and tagged for VA. However, years ago I looked at a car 3 states over; I would have had to pay NJ sales tax, then when back in VA pay VA sales tax, then I could get the NJ tax back. Seemed like a risky PITA. Now that was at least 10-15 years ago, so maybe technology is better now, IDK.

Another thing to consider is that if the car is in the same region, you may get a local dealer to trade for it.

I did that with a car I bought, which the dealer did not have in stock, but another dealer had one

They tried to tell me that there was no inventory of that color/model available.

Pulled it up on the internet, said, Thanks, I am going to this dealer and talk to them.

The sales manager said hold on.

Called the dealer, and it was delivered to the local dealer in two days.

I think most dealers are used to out of state buyers and welcome the thought of selling a vehicle online. Have heard good things about buying from Laura Auto Group they seem to be highly recommended for out of state deals. They have a CDJR dealer.
Have not used them myself though.

Before you buy elsewhere, figure out the tax/fee situation ahead of time. Understand a) what your state is going to want in fees/taxes when you go in there later to register it; and b) what the state where your car is will do to you via the dealer during the transaction. Any surprises in that connection will be unpleasant.

quote:

Originally posted by maxwayne:
If you find a dealer that has one, call and ask to speak to the fleet manager. Tell him or her what you want and you will be paying cash. My guess is they are going to be eager to get rid of a 24.

Ask about delivery costs or inform the dealer you will arrange transportation.

You will not pay taxes in the state where you purchase it, but in the state where you live.

Cash is not king anymore in the car dealership world.
Do not tell them you are paying cash! Dealers get huge kickbacks from the lending institutions. You’ll get a better deal financing through the dealer’s lender.
Then pay it off immediately or refinance (because you are already pre-approved through your local lender).
My local credit union usually offers 2% cash back and .5-1% rate reduction on refinancing from other lenders and it only cost a $12 filing fee.

One caution if they ship the vehicle to your local dealer. Be sure it is being trucked over, not driven. If they drive it, those miles reduce it's value which you eat. Plus it may pick up some chips in the paint or windshield.

A more unusual but possible other factor is if there is a local tax on cars delivered in a particular area.

For example, when living in TX we bought a car in Scottsdale, AZ. Our plan was to pick it up there and road trip our way back to TX. The additional city tax for any car delivered there was 2% as I recall, and this was a relatively expensive car.

Rather than pay that, we spent about 33% of what tax would have been and had it delivered to our driveway in TX. THEN the roadtrips started!

When you buy a car out of state you shouldn't have to do anything, the dealer does althea paperwork and forwards it yo your home state and after a few weeks you should get your registration in the mail. You can also do the paperwork yourself which is what I did when I bought a motorcycle out of state. Paid cash, took the bill of sale to the DMV, proof of insurance and just like that I received registration for the new bike and in a few weeks I received the title. With that said each state has different laws regarding registering vehicles so you need to research the laws in your state.

Back to the OP wanting to buy a Ram…

I believe that starting with the 2026 model which will be out in a few months Ram will be offering a 5 year, 100k powertrain warranty ( pls check the numbers, this is off the top of my head). So if it’s interesting to you it might be worth it. I believe they will also be offering the 5.7L V8 motor instead of the Hurricane option.

As far as buying out of state it is really very simple. If it’s new the dealer will give you 30 day tags and you don’t pay taxes until you register it in your home state. I’ve bought 2 Porsches, one in TX and one in FL and they both were straight forward cash transaction. I took the cars for a test drive then called my bank and had the funds wired. Took all of 20 minutes to show up in their account.

A related logistical question. When you pick up the car at the out of state dealer to drive it home, are you driving on temporary license plates of the dealer’s state? Or do you time it such that you get home state plates?

Depends on the states involved, but my experience has been that the selling dealer will offer a temp tag for the trip back to your home state.

I just bought a vehicle in Nevada, easy transaction. They gave me temporary registration and forwarded the paperwork to my local DMV. Tomorrow I go there and pay the tax, register and get a plate. Second time I've done this, was easy!

I had found a vehicle in NJ and talked to the salesman, they wouldn't meet the "advertised price". I may be wrong but I believe NJ collects the sales tax and then you have to pay your states, too!

Last time we did this, wife bought a Honda in Colorado to be titled and registered in Florida.

Paid for the vehicle, did not pay sales tax. Colorado dealer gave us a CO* and 30-day temporary cardboard plates. Drove to Florida, went to DMV with the CO, paid Florida tax, received Florida title, registration, and license plate. Easy-peasy.

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*CO: Manufacturer's Certificate of Origin.