Alcon,

I'm currently looking at buying a Super Duty. I'm striking out on inventory at the local dealerships... Does anyone have tips for searching out a new (to me) pickup out of state. Ways or places to go to save some money? I'll travel a long way to get what I want and make a road trip out of it..

Thanks,
Goat

Look over autotrader and other sites. I've bought new & used out of State. With any used vehicles, expect MOST sellers to hold back a few things.

I always factor in acquisition costs to any perceived savings. It's nice to get a vehicle away from the salt though.

http://www.commercialtrucktrader.com/

I sell a lot of trucks from all over the U.S. advertising here

Make sure all the negotiations are done before you get there. You have no leverage once you are there physically, unless there is a material issue that wasn't disclosed. Be prepared to take a cab back to the airport/bus station if it goes sour. BTDT, wasn't fun, and it cost me money and time.

A few years ago my wife was looking to buy a Ford Escape Hybrid. Could not find one in stock at a local dealer, so I emailed Ford's regional office, asking what dealers had them in stock. I then contacted the dealers that the regional office told me about, and my wife found what she wanted.

Even big reputable dealers can be thieves and scoundrels. Kings over in Ohio was terrible. It all seemed to come together until they took forever sending me a title. Notice I didn't say my title, just a title for a truck some other poor fool bought. I'm certain he had trouble too. Took about 6 more weeks to finally get it straightened out, which means about that many more trips 20 miles into Ohio because they are stupid. It wasn't their problem so they took their time. They at first even refused to issue me a second temporary tag. I was stupid for giving them back the other guys title. It would have provided leverage. Gawd how I hate them now.

Oh, and their service department was terrible too. The fool service advisor didn't even know they could set my TPMS to where I should be, not up at 37#.

My advice: don't trust anyone with anything. If they can screw it up, they will. I don't assign it to malice. Stupidity pretty much covers all their evil.

quote:

Originally posted by Bluecobra:
Be prepared to take a cab back to the airport/bus station if it goes sour.

This bears being re-emphasized. The time and money spent going back home empty-handed now will be less than the time and cost of getting undisclosed problems fixed later. Also, if possible, bring a friend to view the vehicle from another perspective and can give and objective opinion.

For my 2005 Dodge 2500 I bought used a couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to have such a friend with me to counterbalance my unbridled enthusiam for the vehicle. I heard him as he was pointing out numerous flaws and possible maintenance items, but I didn't listen to him. Had I heeded Bluecobra's and my friend's advice, I wouldn't have had to spend over $2k getting the air conditioning system fixed and another $5k for front end issues. Either I'm bullheaded or I'm meant to be the St. Jude of used cars - neither of which lends itself to smart purchases.

When you title it in your state they may collect taxes on it. I screwed up and gave a pretty accurate cost estimate instead of the cut-rate price I should have; and had to pay a lot more tax than necessary...

I bought a new Ford through Woodhouse Ford of Blair, NE (just N of Omaha) not too many years ago. My understanding is that they rank among the Nation's top sellers of Ford trucks.

We worked out a deal that included trade-in of my 2002 Ford truck. They brought the new truck to me in NW WY, and drove my trade-in back. Entirely satisfactory process. You might check them

Just go to Car Gurus and type in your parameters and location range. Great site for finding any vehicle with pictures and specs.

https://www.cargurus.com/

We have bought several new vehicles out of state. Told the selling dealership it was going to be registered in Texas and didn't have to pay NM or CO license & registration fees or the BS charge the dealer hits you with to do the registration.

We used Cars.com as a search engine pretty successfully for a couple cars now, then deal with drilling down/verifying dealer inventory locally to their site. You can select new/used and specify all sorts of other parameters.

I bought a 2017 Lexus recently. I live in Northern Virginia, and the local Lexus dealerships did not have what I wanted, and ordering from Japan would take 5 months or more.

So what I did, was simply go to the Lexus website, used the "Locate a dealer" menu option, and start typing in zip codes from nearby states. I ended up finding what I wanted in North Carolina, about 300 miles away, and was able to negotiate a good deal via email and phone. Fortunately, that dealership was close enough to the Virginia Border that they were able to have Virginia license plates shipped to me - but I received temporary North Carolina tags when I drove it home.

Since 2000 I have bought 8 new cars and 3 new motorcycles. 6 of the cars and one motorcycle were bought out of state. Seems I can't ever find exactly what I was looking for locally, despite my best efforts.

For Ford pickups its hard to beat the Houston market, they have a ton of dealers and lots of inventory down there. I bought my 2013 F150 from my local dealer, but I used an add from a Houston dealer to get a price match. I just google Ford dealers in Houston and then went to the dealers' website to check out their inventory.

I lived in Alabama and now Tennessee for these purchases, and with new vehicles the tax was based on the price minus the trade if any. I paid the tax when I registered the vehicle back in my home state. With a used vehicle I think they will use a fair market value if you come in with a bill of sale for much lower than market. Some states issued me temp tags, the last didn't, I just used my current tag to drive it home.

I agree with the be ready to walk if you don't get the deal you are looking for or have agreed to. Its hard when you've traveled some distance to do the deal, but it may be necessary. Overall I've had pretty good luck buying out of state.

Here's what I did when I bought my Super Duty a few years ago:

1. Figured out where the cheap airline, Allegiant, 10 minutes from my flew to that I could drive back from in a day.

2. Used the zip codes from those destinations in searches on autotraded.com to find possible vehicles.

3. Used a website, researchmaniacs.com, to get a copy of the window sticker for each possible vehicle to verify options.

4. Narrowed it down to 3 trucks in three different states. Called the dealers to verify prices and if they would pick me up at the airport.

5. Asked the closest dealer, which happened to be near where my brother lives, if they could beat the cheapest dealer. They did.

6. Bought 2 tickets for $100 each (took my then 5 yo son on his first airplane ride) and flew to Knoxville.

7. Brother picked us up and drove us to Johnson City.

8. Looked at the truck and bought it with no issues.

9. Drove to Target and bought a car seat (I promised my wife), then drove home.

I was nervous that when I got there, the dealer would pull something, but it didn't happen. In fact, when I looked at the truck, there were two options on it that weren't on the window sticker or in the ad for the truck, a drop in bed liner and chrome steps. I mentioned this to the sales person and he said that this was the truck we had talked about and the price was still what we had agreed on. I had planned on adding these anyway, so bonus for me.

Out of curiousity, do you live in Wisconsin? I used to tell my friends in Illinois that I lived behind the cheddar curtain.

Check out brand-specific car/truck forums. Often times, they will have discussions of where the best deals are to be had.

Make sure you understand the rules and requirements your local DMV has. I had some back and forth with them over what the odometer statement needed to look like. Dealer gave me a separate, signed "odometer statement". DMV wouldn't use it, as they required mileage to be noted on the back of the Mfr. Certificate of Origin (i.e.title). One round-trip of the MCO on FedEx fixed that. When I tried to register again, they needed someone to also sign another portion of the MCO. Another $25 to FedEx. I went back in, and they had yet more requirements. I blew a gasket, talked to the Director of DMV, and got it taken care of.

Still was worth it, saved a bunch, and had a great 3-day weekend road trip from CO to IL and back.

We bought 3 new vehicles out of state in PA. Couple of things to know, we had to have the re-inspected in NJ. Not bad, pull up to the back door of MV and show them a card that the dealer gave us and they just put the stickers on. NJ requires a front license plate so that was something we made sure the dealer provided the license plate bracket. We paid the MV taxes in NJ.

A new truck this is trivial, done it dozens of times. A used one just be prepared to walk away as no matter how many photos you get, its never the same.
The only issues to manage really are getting a plate and insurance to get it home.

Great info guys. I've been searching using some of these techniques, but there are plenty of other ideas to use.

Trapper189, I'm in NE WI.

I searched nationwide for what I wanted with online auto purchasing sites, and cargurus seemed to be what I used most. I found what I wanted this last February in Missoula, Montana so I made a great road trip out of it on my way back to Texas.

I flew up, spent the night in a cheap hotel, and walked on ice and snow about a quarter of a mile to the dealership bright and early the next day.

I went through heavy snow, ice and rain along the way back, and I saw some of the prettiest scenery. I stopped at ice rivers and lakes to fly my drone so I got some good footage. I got home after an almost 2,000 mile trip in less than 3 days, but it was worth it.

Oh yeah, i went to register it with my local tax vampires with the folder of documents I received, and they told me the dealer would send proper documentation to them in about a month. The dealer knew where I lived so they do a quick check to see which county to send everything. I got a call at about a month to come register, and everything went fine other than I would have liked that tax in my original auto note.