Hey all,
I’m looking for a used car at the moment, but some of my searches have been turning up cars up to 40-50 miles away from my mechanic. How long a distance is reasonable before I should be looking up mechanics closer to the dealer, or passing all together?
Speaking personally, were I selling a car, I would be and am always happy to go with the buyer to a mechanic for an inspection. But I’m not willing to go on a 100 mile round trip to do it. Maybe if I were selling an exotic, but not for a normal car.
I’d tell you to find a mechanic close to the sale location were you buying from me.
Are you looking for a “New” car or a new to you car?
If a “New” car IMHO, it is best to use the dealership service department, at least for the duration of the warranty. Just like ant auto service shop, there are good dealerships and and bad, same with independent shops.
New car means just that to me ( Brand new ) . I guess this post is about used because why would you need an inspection on a new vehicle. Actually I don’t see the purpose of the question. Only you know how far and how much time you want to spend checking a vehicle out. Also just how far is the seller going to let you drive it and how much time will they let you have it.
The only sure answer is to ask the seller, Do you mind if I take it to my mechanic in my home city x amount of miles away. You will get a yes or a no, if you get a yes it will be the ultimate test drive. Even offer to pay for gas used. If the seller is worried about a 100 mile road trip, you probably don’t want the car anyway.
So I totally forgot one word in my initial post. I’m looking for a used car, so new to me.
Not too hard to figure out.
If I was selling a vehicle and someone wanted to take to a mechanic 50 miles away plus the time to have it looked at that person is going to be told either buy it or go away. Now if they can schedule a place close where we can meet and have it looked that I might do.
It’s your responsibility to get the car looked at, but if I’m the seller I want to be there.
And I absolutely will not go 40-50 miles away to get it checked. If you wanted to do that, I’d tell you to go elsewhere for your car.
Hopefully you have a trusted local shop. Shop closer to home and use them.
I’m not saying for one second that the OP would be guilty of this but a seller might be nervous about someone taking off that far and for that long a period because they may think the car will end up stolen.
Test driving and never coming back has been known to happen.
I may have inadvertently one time aided a guy in stealing a Harley. I was on I-40 in eastern OK on my BMW when I saw a guy headed east on the side of the road with a Harley. Figuring to help a brother out I turned around to see if I could help. He said he was out of gas.
I thought I’d give him some out of my bike when I noticed the shut off valve was not on Reserve. I pointed this out and the bike started up when switched. He acted very nervous and said he had to be in Fort Smith, AR before sundown.
I tound out later that a vehicle could not legally be reported stolen until after official sunset. Since this was early afternoon he had a pretty good head start on getting out of Dodge… ;-(