How to buy a car online when its so far away?

[Triumph]

Came across a guy selling a VW Gti for a good price. Only problem is, he is in Phili and I am in Northern Virginia. How does one go about doing this? I mean I can't go test drive the car, I can't have a trusted mechanic check it out (don't know any up there, plus I'd only be able to go up there on the weekend when no mechanic is working) It seems almost foolish to buy a car site unseen, but many people are doing it these days on Ebay and whatnot.

I'm leaning towards trusting the seller, because he has a good reputation in the VW community. But again, buying a car site unseen....Seems like a huge gamble no matter what the seller can promise over the phone. People are obviously out there doing exactly what I'm considering, are all of them taking these huge risks?

 

[rpc64]

There's no way I would buy a car if I couldn't personally drive it and check it out.

 

[Maharaja]

I'm guessing this is a used GTI otherwise you probably wouldn't be so hesitant. Are you buying from a private individual or a dealership?

 

[huey1124]

i would like to know this also. i came across a seller who is selling a 2002 Honda S2000 for 24k (and only has 8500 miles), and it seems like an awful good price to pass up on. but i wouldn't be able to test drive it until next weekend, and i don't know if there are any places i can have diagnostics done on it on a saturday nearby.

 

[Maharaja]

If it was a dealership, I would take the chance of buying a used car from another state. However, some stranger is a different matter. At the very least I would buy a CarFax report on the car and see if anything major has happened to it.
Huey, you're not in too bad a spot. At least you can take a look at the car. Plus, it's a 2002. That's a pretty short period of time. I don't think he ran that car into the ground yet. You have any car-buff friends who could look at the car for you? If not, then I guess all you can do is start calling some shops nearby and see if they can take a look at it on Saturday.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: rpc64
There's no way I would buy a car if I couldn't personally drive it and check it out.

Same here, it's such a huge purchase it's not worth the risk.

 

[KokomoGST]

I recall reading a thread long ago about people buying cars offa eBey. They said they usually flew over to said place to pick up the car after they put down the deposit and if the car wasn't in the condition advertised (it was for all of the people that posted) they would demand deposit back and leave.

I personally wouldn't though, unless it was a local seller that I could check out. You can just read up on the car and it's typical faults and be prepared to put some money into the car for standard tuneup stuff.

 

[Triumph]

Well I am fairly knowledgeable about these cars in particular, and I tend to trust the seller since he is well respected at the VWVortex forums. But again, people are buying these cars off of ebay, right? This must be a viable industry, but I'm not quite sure how.

 

[StageLeft]

You could find a VW dealership locally and then contact them and him and make him bring it into them. Make sure that you deal through them and he merely brings it in, then you can talk to them and that is probably a pretty safe thing to do. As long as you have lots of pics and a good contract saying things like if the car shows up missing an engine the deal is void and he agrees to pay shipping, then you'll probably be ok.