Buying a car in NC
May 21st 2011, 11:24 am
#16
Forum Regular
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 58
Re: Buying a car in NC
Hi
My husband and 2 children will be moving to NC at the end of June 2011 and having visited in March, having 2 cars will be a necessity!! My questions are do you need to have insurance b4 you buy a car, can you get insurance on a UK licence or will I need to get a NC license and finally (phew) will a car company give me finance or will we have to make a cash purchase.
Thanks muchly
My husband and 2 children will be moving to NC at the end of June 2011 and having visited in March, having 2 cars will be a necessity!! My questions are do you need to have insurance b4 you buy a car, can you get insurance on a UK licence or will I need to get a NC license and finally (phew) will a car company give me finance or will we have to make a cash purchase.
Thanks muchly
Ps when It comes to the driving test you need to get insurance for that and Charlotte DVLA Office would'nt allow me to do it in a hire car... I found the best way around it was to book a driving lesson, and use there car for the test.. It cost about $40 but was well worth not going through all the hassle, and the instructor took me on the test route before hand and gave me a few tips on what they prefer to see!
May 21st 2011, 1:05 pm
#17
Account Closed
Joined: Aug 2002
Location: Kentucky
Posts: 38,865
Re: Buying a car in NC
Ian
Oct 9th 2011, 12:07 am
#19
Just Joined
Joined: Aug 2011
Location: Oxfordshire
Posts: 20
Re: Buying a car in NC
Having arrived in NC in March - only last week did we end up actually buying a car, although truth be told we could have bought one a couple of weeks sooner.
Here is what we did...
Go to readydrive.com - they provide decent "mini-lease" service which gives you a rental car for minimum 1 month for about 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of normally renting a car - fully insured.
Use this time to get the following ASAP for your drives license:
SSN (although you should already know to wait 2 weeks before even bothering going to the SSA office - we went on exactly 2 weeks and we still weren't in the system, thankfully the guy at the desk said he'd try the next day before holding our application for two more weeks!!)
Clear and unambiguous proof of residence - there are plenty of guidelines on what is acceptable on the NC DOT website.
Proof of insurance - the form DL-123 or something, it can be faxed/emailed to you by your auto insurance firm - you'll need what is called a "Non-Owners policy" which is still bloody expensive - Geico appeared to be the cheapest for me.
You should have the rest - i.e. passport with I-94 etc.
Once you go through the ridiculously easy driving test (I passed with no answers wrong with 2 skims through their NC DOT handbook) you'll get your driving license. BTW, I used the rental car to do my driving test, they don't bother checking who owns the vehicle (at least not at the test centre I went to) all they care is that you have that insurance policy above.
I could NOT get a car without having a NC ID (I choose to get the NC Driving License because you need one anyway).
Finance was VERY easy, but horrible APR because I have no credit history in the US. (Well easy because both myself and wife are on quite nice salaries). All I needed was my NC Driving License, SSN, my last payslip, and a handsome down payment. It was through CarMax. Because there are no overpayment penalties, or early pay off penalties our plan is to get the credit paid off in half the time or earlier, so it builds our credit history AND we don't end up paying a boat load of interest.
Oh, and the finance company put the following conditions on our loan:
Car must be 2006 or older (so don't go looking at new cars for HP)
Provide 3 references (people who the finance company can call if we go missing)
So we ended up getting a fully loaded 2006 Lincoln Navigator - DVD entertainment for the kids and thankfully the previous owner updated their Sat Nav so its not stuck back in 2006.
Cars in NC at least seem to get cheaper at 5 years old and with more than 60,000 miles - so our 2006 Navigator with 60,500 miles was about as good a deal as you could get.
Since I've just gone through the whole car buying thing in NC last week, I'll be glad to answer any questions - but don't worry about finance, it is possible but be prepared to overpay and get it paid off quickly because the terms will be awful.
I'll qualify all of the above with "well it was like that for me, I can't guarantee you'll get the same treatment or be able to do what I did..."
Here is what we did...
Go to readydrive.com - they provide decent "mini-lease" service which gives you a rental car for minimum 1 month for about 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of normally renting a car - fully insured.
Use this time to get the following ASAP for your drives license:
SSN (although you should already know to wait 2 weeks before even bothering going to the SSA office - we went on exactly 2 weeks and we still weren't in the system, thankfully the guy at the desk said he'd try the next day before holding our application for two more weeks!!)
Clear and unambiguous proof of residence - there are plenty of guidelines on what is acceptable on the NC DOT website.
Proof of insurance - the form DL-123 or something, it can be faxed/emailed to you by your auto insurance firm - you'll need what is called a "Non-Owners policy" which is still bloody expensive - Geico appeared to be the cheapest for me.
You should have the rest - i.e. passport with I-94 etc.
Once you go through the ridiculously easy driving test (I passed with no answers wrong with 2 skims through their NC DOT handbook) you'll get your driving license. BTW, I used the rental car to do my driving test, they don't bother checking who owns the vehicle (at least not at the test centre I went to) all they care is that you have that insurance policy above.
I could NOT get a car without having a NC ID (I choose to get the NC Driving License because you need one anyway).
Finance was VERY easy, but horrible APR because I have no credit history in the US. (Well easy because both myself and wife are on quite nice salaries). All I needed was my NC Driving License, SSN, my last payslip, and a handsome down payment. It was through CarMax. Because there are no overpayment penalties, or early pay off penalties our plan is to get the credit paid off in half the time or earlier, so it builds our credit history AND we don't end up paying a boat load of interest.
Oh, and the finance company put the following conditions on our loan:
Car must be 2006 or older (so don't go looking at new cars for HP)
Provide 3 references (people who the finance company can call if we go missing)
So we ended up getting a fully loaded 2006 Lincoln Navigator - DVD entertainment for the kids and thankfully the previous owner updated their Sat Nav so its not stuck back in 2006.
Cars in NC at least seem to get cheaper at 5 years old and with more than 60,000 miles - so our 2006 Navigator with 60,500 miles was about as good a deal as you could get.
Since I've just gone through the whole car buying thing in NC last week, I'll be glad to answer any questions - but don't worry about finance, it is possible but be prepared to overpay and get it paid off quickly because the terms will be awful.
I'll qualify all of the above with "well it was like that for me, I can't guarantee you'll get the same treatment or be able to do what I did..."
