I’m looking at a car that I found on autotrader that’s in Texas. It looks really nice and according to the guy that I contacted about it, it is very clean and nice. I’m still planning on having one of those “pre-buy inspection services” take a look at the car for me. If all goes well, and i fly down to buy the car, whats the best way to go about doing that. I’m not comfortable carrying almost $6,000 cash on me alone on a plane, but I also want to try to talk him down on the price a little. What needs to be taken care of while I’m there so I can drive the car back up, will they supply some sort of insurance coverage or something. Somebody that has done this before chime in please and let me know how to go about doing this. Thanks!
my father has done this before… if no one chimes in by 5pm tonight i’ll call him and ask him
cool thanks man
You can get a Transport registration for a car. If I remember correctly, you need to insure the car prior to getting this kind of Registration. Call you insurance company and see if they have any kind of provisional insurance that they can apply on the VIN, and if you don’t buy the car for whatever reason, you will only be charged for that one day. I’m not sure if they can do that. I bought the car I was going to see so canceling never came up.
As far as the cash thing goes, if you have an ATM card, deposit the asking price in your account. If you can talk him down, great, then go to an ATM and retrieve the correct amount. You will have to pay a fee obviously, but a couple bucks fee is better than getting rolled for $6000.
Or if you can bargain on the phone, grab a cashier’s check or money order for the exact amount.
Well whats the price you want to buy it for? Take a bank check down with you instead…little safer that way. Then you can carry the diff in cash in case he doesnt accept. Just be like I didnt want to carry THAT much cash with me…So i got a check for $____.
You will want to contact their DMV about what is needed to get temp tags to drive it back and just contact your insurance company about what exactly to do there
edit: as far as the ATM thing…most only allow a max per day usually in the ballpark of $500
Call your agent, you will need to put insurance on the vehicle before you buy it, and thats how you get a temp tag.
I got a temp ohio tag for like 25 bucks, it was good for something like 30 days if i recall correctly, and I used all 30 days.
As for the money, be a baller and just carry cash.
k what i did since im going to wny to get my car… and i live in texas… this is a little backwards for ya… but maybe it will help…
1 get carfax
2 have service look at it
3 tell him the price your looking to spend… try to talk him down from here… you don’t wanna waste your time flying down somewhere then getting nowhere…
4 do like i did… after you get everything all set… send him a bank check so he can either pay of the lein. or whatever. if it does have a lein get the title lein release and receipt all sent to you.
5 take it to the dmv register and insure it. get plates same day. pay your taxes at the dmv and NOT! a currency exchange… its cheaper thru the dmv.
6 fly down there pick up drive home happy.
maybe ny works different with that… here is not required to have you vehicle inspected.
FYI : Most banks only allow a certain amount of money to be taken out of an ATM every day.
6K is definately about 6x the average limit.
You could get a cashiers check for what you want to talk him down to, and then do cash for the rest, withdraw via personal check at local branch or ATM.
What I was going to do when I got the STi was, get temporary insurance. I have state farm, but I’m sure other insurances will do the same. The car was located in virginia, I dunno if Texas is the same but I would have had to go down to the Virginia DMV and get temporary plates. I believe the plates were good for 5 days. The cost for the plates would have been like 5 bucks.
Your best bet is just to call the Texas DMV and see if they offer something like that.
so in new york… you cannot register a vehicle and insure it after you bought / recieved all the documents IE Title with transfered owners receipt and lein release if applicable?
:word: Don’t send a ton of money to a stranger.
this is a dealer…i believe there is nop lein
edit…bikerfry beat me to it …fuck sending some guy 6k of my money
i guess in my case i knew the person i was sending the money to so i knew i wouldn’t get screwed… i guess the honor system is dead huh.
like i said though. bank check all the way… unless you want to carry the cash. just don’t pull it out to show anyone and you should be fine.
i would find out all you can then. give him a call back find out what is exactly what with the car.
if there is no lein you can send the bank check to the dealer. just ask them who the check should be made out to… in this case it should be to the dealership.
and if they take your money you CAN get it back. the bank gives you a receipt that is attached to the bank check. so if they take your money and you get nothing. court will say you get your money back. not sure which court it would go to tho.
the car is priced at 5500…hopefully i can talk him down a few hundred. I guess my best bet would be to bring a money order/casheirs check for like 5k and do the rest of the deal in cash…that takes care of that part of it at least.
anyone shed light on this?
No one has brought up sales tax yet. If you’re buying from a dealer they are going to charge you TX sales tax. Then when you get to NY you have to pay NY sales tax when you register it. Texas sales tax is 6.25% + any local county/city sales tax. Then you get here to good old Erie County and have to pay 8.75% when you register it.
And guess what, TX is on the list of “no sales tax credit allowed” states:
http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/forms/dtf804.pdf
Now, there is a little “*” there, about requesting a refund from the other state once you pay NY’s sales tax. I’m guessing that can be anywhere from super easy to damn near impossible depending on the state.
When I bought my truck out of state it was from MI, a state where you can get full credit for the sales tax paid when you come back to NY. So I paid 5% sales tax in MI, and when I registered it in NY I only had to pay 3.75% (MI 5% subtracted from NY 8.75%).
Also, not all states offer transit permits to private citizens. Make sure Texas does before you get down there and realize you have no way of getting the car home. They will require that the car be insured. I talked to my agent first and we agreed that if I decided to buy the truck when I got there he would add it to my policy and fax me the temp insurance tag. But that meant I had to go on a Friday since his office isn’t open Sat/Sun. All things to think about.
I talked to the dealer this afternoon. they do offer temporary tags/transit permits, so that shouldn’t be a problem. What I didn’t realize was that i had to pay tax in BOTH states, which flat out fucking blows. I’ll have to look into how hard it is to get that refund from Texas.
EDIT: dealer said i DONT pay tax there…only when I get back to my state :shrug:
Wow, lucky. I’ve been looking into this a lot lately before buying my next car, and most states will not allow that anymore. They’re moving toward the “give us your money and if we aren’t supposed to have it, fill out all this paperwork to make us give it back” method.