Have you checked out everything in your area? I found 8 GTS for sale between 40 and 50 thousand within 300 miles of LA using the Autotrader.com search engine and zip 90703. Cars.com gave me 5 GTS hits within 300 milesOnce you add inspection and shipping to your brokerage fees the out of state cars aren't necessarily a better bargain.
Yeah, I saw those adds...some of them were from shady dealers (I don't trust too many "used car" dealerships unless its a certified dodge dealership)..ofcourse sponsors on this site are different. I'm just trying to broaden my chances...its too bad autotrader has a sudden jump from 300 miles to anywhere in the u.s.
Yes in order to make it work you have to figure out how far you would be prepared to travel for a look so you might do a search from LA, and then a second one from San Fran.
I share your feelings about some dealers but at the end of the day any dealer, Dodge or not, doesn't really know how most of their inventory was treated and unless the thing has a warranty they are only responsible for known defects. Even one owner cars with relatively low mileage can have the hell driven out of them and you have no way of knowing. One bad downshift or a moment's inattention.
If you find a dealer vehicle, or a private one the steps are all the same. Carfax, service history, pre-purchase mechanical inspection from a Dodge dealer or private Viper tech, and if you want one step further have the car taken to a body shop and for the price of an hour's labour they will put the thing up on a hoist and poke around looking for any signs of crash and repairs. If the carfax doesn't show anything and the bodyman and the dealer tech can't find anything then how concerned are you with who the seller is?
There are ultra low mile one owner cars out there if you have the $ but even those could have been banged around and unless you have done all the same inspection procedures you can't be really sure.
In most cases cars are either broke or they aren't. There isn't a whole bunch of hidden machanical things that can be wrong that don't show some kind of evidence on inspection.
I am shopping as well but pretty much all over the country. My starting criteria are, price, then color, mileage, and tires. If I know the car will need tires in the next few months I throw that into what I can offer.I am trying to avoid dealer cars for the simple reason they will want a few thousand more than a private seller for the same car, but if the price is close I will give them an email or a call. To bring in a car to Cali from the east coast, Florida, or Texas where most of them are, will cost $1500 to $2000 freight, $500 for your broker, and maybe anoither $200-$300 for inspection. That gives you $2000 more to spend on your California car, and I don't see your prices there being any worse than the rest of the country. Good Hunting.
Good luck!
