I have bought used cars privately sight unseen before, the only time I slight got screwed was from a dealership. Privately never have. And when I mean never seen them I mean I have them picked up by a transportation company and brought to an address a thousand miles away for an ez drive home across the border. If you feel comfortable I say go for it life is about adventures not fearing the boogyman!

 

Total Rubbish, you are viewing the world through your fear/misinformation and dont realize it.
If your logic was remotely, I means even 1% accurate- PPI would be a bigger industry than auto auctions, ebay, and a gazillion other outlets where cars are sold sight unseen. Heck I dont even know of any PPI company. I.e. its not even a service remotely in demand.
Do you know what percentage of used cars are sold sight unseen and all sales final at an auction. It will blow your mind.
Do you know how many cars are sold through ebay, sight unseen, again it will blow your mind. Let me put it another way, ebay sells more corvettes than GM.

If you realize this flaw in thinking, you will become a better buyer.
Would you buy an Ftype for $1000? hell yeah, regardless of condition. That equation scales.

This is what separates the winners from the losers.
Think about this, and you will get the secret, there are people tripping over themselves to assume liability for anything that goes wrong with your car without doing a PPI.

 

The reason that no one trusts a PPI- is because it will tell you nothing worthwhile or more than the obvious.
That's why CarFax is a bigger business than PPI.
(and I am of the school of thought that even carfax will tell you very little)

Knowing what to look for tells you everything.
Last week I posted a link to an XK on ebay, never posted any other recommendations. And would you know it, that is one of the few cars that sold and sold for way more money than market value.

 

Unfortunately my wife is getting cold feet about the whole thing because the seller doesn't have clear title (credit union lien) so he can't provide immediate title.
I guess I'm too trusting, and I have been burned before because of it (that guy went to jail but I was out of pocket big time - long story).

I think I'd still trust a private seller over a small dealer for the most part. <humor>I think Sam must have jinxed his XKR deal by posting a pic before it was all said and done./<humor>

We'll see if the seller has any suggestions my wife will be ok with for overcoming the clear title issue, otherwise it looks like this one is off the table.

 

Have your bank call his confirm the lien. See what they require to release lien. Shouldn't be that hard, if the car proves to be the right one for you this is something you should be able to get over. Easy for me to say as my wife works at a bank.

 

I've sold a few cars to people who needed to finance, and I drove the car to their bank for the bankers to check and receive the title.
Conversely, I've bought cars from people who've still carried a note, and I got the car from them at the bank where the note was carried, got the title released right there.

 

This is doable if were here. If it's a local brick and mortar credit union you could just go there with the seller. If it is out of town or they don't deal directly you could send them the funds, take possession of car, and when the seller gets the title go back for it. I would not recommend sending a stranger money based on trust.

 

Winners and Losers. Exactly. Because you are gambling when you ought to be focusing on buying a decent sorted-out car.

 

Contact the bank / credit union that has the loan and work with them. As long as your payment will cover the load amount they will release the lien to you and have the seller sign it before they do. That's pretty much what I needed to do to get mine.

 

You know how trade ins are done?

Often not by the dealer.

The dealer puts out for people willing to buy the trade in, sight unseen.

Sometimes a dealer will decide they want your trade in to go to their inventory, but this isn't always the case.

There are starting to be some dogs out there, but overall these cars are fairly robust.

 

Do not listen to Sinf , u can miss out. This might be opportunity knocking

 

Sin the only way you will see your fears is to look around you.
There is an eager buyer for every car that gets flooded, burnt to ground, pulled out of the Atlantic.
You know why? they have made some good calculations.

You cant get perfection even in a brand new car- you just have to factor for all eventualities. Just like the insurance companies do.

 

No kidding. I'd love to find a decent paint straight bodied flood chassis to swap with my beat and ugly one...

 

To some extent though, his comment about gambling is correct.

It also applies to PPI's.

They might miss something, something might develop right after.

Something could go wrong at any time.

I looked at the risk of a new car with warranty, and the risks of a used jaguar.

I considered the Jaguar would have had its problems taken care of under warranty, I could own it trouble free.

The new car might have problems that would be taken care of under warranty.

My priority was my own time. Waiting for a repair under warranty cost me time.

With my priorities in the balance, the used Jaguar seems the better set of probabilities over a new Ford or Mazda.

I have bought one car wrong in my life, I have learned from it. With what I know now, I could have spotted it.

That, is the important factor. With good pictures, good description, you can be fairly smart about buying.

Businesses can rely on probabilities to be in their favor, individuals may have more difficulty if it is all eggs in one basket.

 

This does make it more difficult long distance.

Interest rates were so low unless you were ultra conservative, having some form of loan made a lot of sense.

It does limit when it comes to finding buyers.

I'm a bit like your wife with this issue.

Plus, I really just would not want the hassle.

It would cost more, but a possibility could involve a Jaguar dealer buying it into their inventory, then selling it to you.

The credit union will likely have some options. No matter what, it is extra complication. I like simple.

 

My 07 XKR was bought in a weird circumstance. The car was 3 miles from my house, but was listed on eBay in South Florida. The guy had my area code cell phone. I called, looked, bought. The car had a loan out of a Florida credit union and the seller lived in Florida. The cars owners friend lived up here and my dad's friend lived down there. My dad's friend went to the credit union, got my wire transfer, and got two cashiers checks. One check for the seller and one to the loan balance to the credit union. I had the car in my possession as well while this went down.

All smooth sailing. If I hadn't had a person down there to do the bank dance, I'd have flown down and suffered a weekend in South Florida to do it. I'd buy another car with a loan on it if the price is right and everything felt good about the deal. I'd not budge in the in person though; but I've heard some escrow companies are just fine though to take the place of that. Most out of state purchases don't have the car in walking distance of your house though and a trip down is smart to check out or pick up the car.

 

The trick is to realize many have made the science of gambling work for them every single time.
Bookies, casinos, insurance companies, extended warranty companies, and notably car dealers.

You could be trading in a Jaguar that has chain slap on cold start. They would never know it because the car is warm when they start it.
What the have cleverly figured out is what the car is worth in worst case scenario an the odds of such happening.

 

Well it looks like we got it all sorted out. My brother-in-law looked over the car Saturday and gave it a relatively great review (off the line performance lacking - but then again he drives an S5). I've wired a significant deposit and the seller will clear the lien and do up a bill of sale. He should have the clear title by the end of the week or so. Once that's done I wire the remaining balance and my brother-in-law picks up the car and all the paperwork before we fly in. On 5/24 the adventure begins. Now I can post a pic...

 

That's a lot of car for the money. Keep us posted.

 

Sweet!