Question for Rick

[lurkyberk]

What do you think about buying a vehicle out of state? (I'm in
NY.) They seem to always be cheaper when you look online.

[Mad Dawg Wiccan]

I would say "be careful". Here in CA, if you buy a car out of state it still needs to pass CA smog requirements. Also, the State can charge you CA sales tax if you are a CA resident and buy a car in say OR which has no sales tax.

[lurkyberk]

Sept 6, 2011 19:51:02 GMT -5 Mad Dawg Wiccan said:

I would say "be careful". Here in CA, if you buy a car out of state it still needs to pass CA smog requirements. Also, the State can charge you CA sales tax if you are a CA resident and buy a car in say OR which has no sales tax.

Good point mad dawg. Thanks

[tskeeter]

lurky, I've purchased three cars outside the state where I was living.

The issues you may face include:

The hassle of registering the car yourself. Check your DMV web site to make sure you have all of the paperwork and everything else you will need and that you understand how the process will work. At our NV DMV, the last time I did this I was in and out of the DMV in less than 30 minutes. Would take longer today, as some DMV offices have been closed, so those that remain are busier.

You may have to pay more sales tax than you would on an in-state purchase. On the last two cars, even though I had the sales contract that showed the actual purchase price of the car, the DMV collected sales tax on the full sticker price of the car (new car). Guess that is one of the ways they protect the in-state dealers from competition.

The up side is that you may be able to save quite a bit of money. Our local dealers think they have the market cornered, so they get kind of greedy about what they want for a car. The last time I bought two cars from a very high volume dealer located in the northwest, about 1,000 miles from home. Even after making two trips to pick up the cars, buying four plane tickets (co-driver), paying for meals and a night in a motel each trip, paying for fuel to drive the 1,000 miles home, and considering that I paid more in sales tax than I think I should have, I figure I saved $3K -$4K on the two cars compared to buying them in town. A pretty good return for some time on the road. Might explain why I see an unusual number of vehicles in town from the dealer I used, even though we are so far away.

[lurkyberk]

Thanks guys!

tskeeter, very informative! I kinda knew that dmv would be a mini nightmare anyway but, at least
we have 2 local dmv buildings. And you're right, they are always very busy! DH was looking at a
2007 Ram 1500 with a six speed manual trans. He found it online located in Texas for $15,000. (below 30,000 miles on it.) It seems to be very hard to find a manual transmission in NY these days.
It's a good deal I think but, we never dealt with any out of state dealers before.

I will go to the dmv website and find out all of the stuff I'll need before I do anything.

Thanks again guys!

[tskeeter]

It seems to be very hard to find a manual transmission in NY these days.

I took a quick peek at edmund's web site to see what a new 2011 RAM 1500 would sell for (about $20,500 for the base model). Looks like an automatic transmission is standard, these days. There wasn't even an option for a standard transmission, so I bet these will be impossible to find in the future.

It looks like you might be considering a private party purchase. In order to prove the purchase price to the DMV, you're going to want to get a signed bill of sale from the seller. If you can get them to provide a phone number so the DMV can verify the information if they want, it would be even better.

You might want to take the time to research used vehicle prices on kbb.com or edmunds.com. Edmund's indicates that the private party purchase price for a clean 2007 base RAM 1500 4X2 should be about $10,500. That makes your $15K price sound a bit high. Once you enter correct specifications for the truck, you would get a value that is more accurate.

[lurkyberk]

Good idea. We checked KBB and it told us $16,480. Then we checked Edmund's and it said
$14,841.

The only problem is that we can't seem to find a manual transmission in NY. That's why DH
was looking out of state.