I'm here for some car buying advice...
I'm in the middle of a car search to act as a daily driver/HPDE car. I've been running across a couple of enthusiast focused car dealerships here in North Carolina. They seem to always have a larger selection of enthusiast style cars but their prices are always well into the high side. My question is what kind of experiences have people had with these enthusiast focused dealer as a whole? I always run across them across the country (on ebay and autotrader) and am on the fence with dealing with them. I know that the experience can change from dealer to dealer but I'd like some first hand stories; mainly to see what I would be getting into. I'm skeptical that they seem to be too good to be true in their focus, if that makes sense.
Advice from the hive would be greatly appreciated!
My experience is the more focused the dealer the less likely you will get a deal. All of my best deals were from places where they really didn't know anything about the car. Something that was completely out of their normal inventory.
Dealers get most of their inventory from auctions with some trade ins sprinkled in. Usually the specialty dealer is just like the non specialty dealer next door except somebody knows that an STI is worth more than a WRX. You're not getting anything special or better than the same car at another dealer. They just know an enthusiast buyer will likely pay more and that's what they're counting on.
bmw88rider wrote:
My experience is the more focused the dealer the less likely you will get a deal. All of my best deals were from places where they really didn't know anything about the car. Something that was completely out of their normal inventory.
This. I've bought more cars than I can count. Performance focused dealers tend to upcharge big time, because they can. They often have customers with wallets much bigger than mine, so they charge more. When I'm searching for a car, I literally search across the entire country. I don't care where it comes from...a FoST is North Carolina is the same car as a FoST in Wyoming. If you can get it for $2k less in Wyoming (just as an example) and spend $600 to ship it in, you pocket $1400.
This is true with used cars...which is what I typically buy. I just bought an '06 Miata. I live in Atlanta, and any '06-'07 Miata in decent shape here is a $6500+ car. I found one in Illinois for $4850...essentially one owner, regular oil changes, new clutch. Even the dealer doc fees were less...$150 there vs $500 her. $550 shipping to get the car here and I got my car for roughly $1400 less.
In reply to Klayfish:
But Illinois rust versus Atlanta rust ;)
Seems like it'd be similar to buying an antique from a rural spring-time yard sale versus buying that same antique from "Ye Ol' Antique Shoppe".
I'd look to buy X from someone who's not in the business of selling that specific item.
In reply to ebonyandivory:
Love the avatar man, classic.
Sometimes a dealer like that will have the resources to locate something you are looking for and having trouble finding on your own. So, if you are looking for a rare sub-model of something... maybe it's worth having them find, fetch, guarantee and upcharge for the service because it's not about the cheapest way to go - but the surest.
You are always financially better off finding, vetting and fetching it yourself from a private party if you have the time and ability.
codrus
SuperDork
2/4/17 11:33 a.m.
Huckleberry wrote:
Sometimes a dealer like that will have the resources to locate something you are looking for and having trouble finding on your own. So, if you are looking for a rare sub-model of something... maybe it's worth having them find, fetch, guarantee and upcharge for the service because it's not about the cheapest way to go - but the surest.
You are always financially better off finding, vetting and fetching it yourself from a private party if you have the time and ability.
The specialty dealer is also a lot more likely to be able to properly assess a specialty car's condition, and because they're selling a premium product at a premium price, they have a reputation that they care more about than your average used car dealer, so they're less likely to try to screw you.
Historically most of the time when I've been buying used cars I've been looking for something pretty rare, so I was much less concerned with who was selling it than the fact that it existed at all.
captdownshift wrote:
In reply to Klayfish:
But Illinois rust versus Atlanta rust ;)
Yes, definitely a factor. But newer cars are fairly well rust proofed. The Miata is quite solid...a bit of surface rust underneath, but nothing bad at all...don't think it was driven year round.
If my pockets were miles deep, I would certainly pay the premium to get a car from a place like CNC Exotics in SoCal. From my tire kicker visit, they seemed to have top-notch examples of any supercar anyone could possibly want, that's not current generation.
Klayfish wrote:
captdownshift wrote:
In reply to Klayfish:
But Illinois rust versus Atlanta rust ;)
Yes, definitely a factor. But newer cars are fairly well rust proofed. The Miata is quite solid...a bit of surface rust underneath, but nothing bad at all...don't think it was driven year round.
For a Miata like car from the Midwest,a good number of them are not driven in the winter. So many of them are a sunny day second car and not a daily driver.Help to slow down the decay.Then you can find a rust free example, daily drive it for 4 or 5 years before it rusts on you.
Mitchell wrote:
If my pockets were miles deep, I would certainly pay the premium to get a car from a place like CNC Exotics in SoCal. From my tire kicker visit, they seemed to have top-notch examples of any supercar anyone could possibly want, that's not current generation.
Man they have a lot of pricey 
inventory. Maybe consignment based or deep deep pockets.
I have zero experience with any of this, but will happily offer my two-cents anyway. It seems that if I were trying to purchase a very rare example of a sub-model of something 20 years old (maybe like an NSX or TT Supra or Viper), I might be willing to pay a premium that specialty dealers charge simply for the added assurance. But for something as pedestrian as Miata, or WRX, or even e46 ZHP, I think I'd spend that time searching and vetting myself.
