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Anybody ever done this? My wife and I are looking for something pretty specific and we're having a hard time finding it in town, but if you look on cars.com it seems like there are tons of them. I would just hate to drive 150 miles to see one and be disappointed and not get it.
Purchased my Nissan Altima in Illinois - it might be a bit different for me, living in eastern Iowa and the Illinois Quad Cities dealers used to dealing with Iowa residents.
Anyway, I searched autotrader.com for months for the Nissan Altima that my wife and I eventually bought. It was fairly informative IMO.
I guess I'm having a little trouble discerning what exactly you're asking, though.
I just don't know if driving 150 miles to check something out is a really bad idea.
is it at a dealership or some random guy selling itQuote:
Originally Posted by BryceC
What I'd do before driving 150 miles is do the homework on the car - get as much info on the car online as possible, from sites like cars.com and/or autotrader.com. Get a Carfax on the car. Look for a similar car locally and give it a test drive that (my wife and I test drove several Nissan Altimas before we actually purchased the one we did - it's actually how we eliminated the Fusion, Camry, 6, and Accord (we actually both liked the Accord very much - I just liked the '08s and later and she liked the '07s and earlier - so we both struck the #1 car off our list and went after #2, which was the Altima, but I digress). Call up the dealer and ask specific questions about the particular car.
Driving 150 miles for a car can be a good idea. Doesn't mean you can't do your research locally before you drive that distance, though.
We did that. We pretty much know what kind of vehicle we want, it just depends on price and mileage now, and you can get way more car for your money in MN and IL than you can here.
Whatever you are looking for, go to the local dealership and give them the exact specifics, including price you are willing to pay, and when you want to buy it. They have all kinds of resources to get the car you want. They can get one from auction, or may know when something is coming off lease. If you are not in a hurry, just set up cars.com and Autotrader to do daily searches. This is how I found my current vehicle, just checked the daily searches and there it was.