I live in Hawaii and want to buy a very affordable /reliable car on the mainland to drive back and forth -around the country then ship back to Hawaii. It can be a used car or new car that is relatively inexpensive Otherwise, would I just be better off renting a car and spending the thousands with nothing to take home? I expect to be on the road on the mainland for at least a month in spring/summer only (no more driving in the snow and ice in my future!). Shall I buy on east coast or west coast?
It won’t cost you thousands to rent. Contact the rental agencies and ask for their monthly rate. I would imagine your rental costs would be less than shipping costs.
Thanks! That is definitely an option but since I’ll end up needing a second car here anyway I was trying to use the rental savings towards a car purchase…
If you were to buy a second car for Hawaii, what would you pick? That’s the car for you.
I’d buy a new car since you can’t be sure what a used car problems are part of the deal. You don’t need to discover these problems on a road trip in unfamiliar surroundings.
Buy a new car on the mainland that is also commonly available at home and then you’ll know it can be serviced properly and will last you a long, long time. Buying on the east coast, west coast, or anywhere in the middle will be fine.
It will cost you about $2300 to rent a car in San Francisco and return it there for a period of 28 days. I’d rent one. It might cost that much to transport a car from San Francisco to Hawaii. Check into transportation costs first.
Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Shipping is not quite as expensive and price of cars here also includes a similar added cost of Shipping built in; so i was thinking why not use the car where it will actually be used more extensively. I could live with just about any car locally so that was not as important in the context of local driving. I’ll keep scratching my head a bit longer on this one but definitely it appears I may as well go for a new car. My first cross country trip with a brand new car was in a Maverick its first year on the market and people thought I was insane to trust a new model, first year out. Fortunately it turned out to be a great “little car.”. Hmmm, so maybe that’s why I asked…
Hawaii usually has a surplus of rental cars on the market they DO NOT want to ship back to the mainland…I found car prices on the Islands to be very reasonable, at least in the Kona area…I rented a Mustang convertible and when I turned it in, I asked if I could buy it…They made me a fantastic offer right on the spot…Matson Lines…Must be nice to have a monopoly like that…
Yes, you are right. Every. car I’ve ever bought in Hawaii has been a former rental. But I had no intention of buying a used car here and shipping it to the mainland for this trip;-)