Where to buy a used car for $10k?

[NewSc2]

Sorry for the very n00b question, but this is going to be my first big purchase of a car or anything and I'm a bit confused on where to look.

So far I've looked up some dealer stocks online and I've been looking at Classifieds, but on eBay i've found some very nice deals as well on some 60k-70k miles, 1999-2000 Audi A4's for about $10k-12k that I'm considering.

Thing is, however, all of those cars are in Texas or the East Coast, and I'd like to at least look at them before I consider it. The dealers around here and the classifieds, however, ask quite a bit more for that car (seen $14-16k mostly).

Am I not looking hard enough or is eBay cheaper than most dealers? Should I trust eBay?

Also from carbuyingguide.com they recommend letting a mechanic look at the car first. Is it pretty commonplace for people to bring a mechanic friend along when buying used cars or how is a mechanic supposed to inspect it before a purchase goes through...

Lastly, anybody else have any other car recommendations at that price range?

 

[NewSc2]

nobody?

 

[Kelvrick]

All I know is that cars in snowy/icy regions have lower price points because they salt up the roads, and that salt gets up into the underbody and helps rust.

That, and since people in Cali have higher incomes (relatively with cost of living), everything costs more, including cars.

 

[slikmunks]

if you're just looking around not for a specific car, just cruise dealerships (you can always try to bargain...) or you can go to autotrader.com (you'll still have to bargain here and there, kbbis useless).... then there's the recycler, and car specific forums (which is where i bought my car from, a guy on the rx7 forums)