Car buying experiences, good or bad, in San Jose and SF Bay area CA
 

Hi

Does anyone have any recommended used auto dealers In San Jose or San Francisco?

Indeed perhaps more importantly, any dealers to avoid like the plague!

Thanks
:thumbup:

Re: Car buying experiences, good or bad, in San Jose and SF Bay area CA
 

As a rule that needs to be adhered to in the strictest possible sense, avoid *any* dealer that advertises "buy here, pay here". Calling their business model pond scum would be an insult to pond scum - essentially their idea of business is that the downpayment on the car covers what they have in the car, any payments are profit and they're set up to repo the car and resell it at the first possible opportunity. A bunch of them have been investigated in CA for fun stuff like structuring the car payments in such a way that the customer is guaranteed to fall behind and other shenanigans.

Other than that I don't really have any positive recommendations - have a look at yelp for the dealers that you're considering.

A negative recommendation would be the Audi dealer in Oakland - tried to buy a car there last year, they messed me about a ton, told me I had to take their financing as my pre-arranged financing wasn't any good in CA (which was a load of male bovine excrement) and generally left me with a complete lack of desire to ever go back there again.

Another option would be to find a good mechanic (ask at work, go look for AAA-approved garages, they're usually half decent), look for cars privately on autotrader and craigslist, then have them inspected by said mechanic before plonking down the cash. Actually, even when buying from a dealer, have the thing inspected.

Re: Car buying experiences, good or bad, in San Jose and SF Bay area CA
 

What a load of male bovine excrement. Some, maybe many, but certainly not all. And what if you bought the car *without* financing, had it checked over, and found independently to be a reasonable price?

Re: Car buying experiences, good or bad, in San Jose and SF Bay area CA
 

I think the serious answer is avoid all car dealers like the plague. No matter how savy you may think you are they have probably seen it all before and are just waiting for you to step over that showroom floor. If it was me I would use any car dealership to shop for my car e.g., my test drives etc and then buy via Costco or some similar type of corporate club. The saving in the end is fair and you don't have to feel beat up or overly cautious during the entire process.

Thinking you are going to get a deal from a car dealer is the best way to get ripped off, and the San Jose to SF corridor probably contains some of the most savy car dealers known to man/woman.

As the poker saying goes if you are sat at a poker game and cannot see the fool it is more than likely you!;)

Re: Car buying experiences, good or bad, in San Jose and SF Bay area CA
 

The BHPH lots aren't exactly known for their competitive cash prices, they have a very well focused target audience, namely people who desperately need a cheap car and have to take financing. They're probably not interested in making a cash sale because that's not how they'd make money.

Please note that a "buy here, pay here" lot is different from a car dealer that also offers financing (usually via a/multiple third party lenders).

That doesn't mean that you can't find a decent used car dealer (they are rumoured to exist) but if you go to a BHPH lot you're asking for it, sorry. Have a look here: http://consumerist.com/2012/08/inves...-vehicles.html

Forgot to mention, Carmax might be worth having a look at, their prices might be a little on the high side compared to what you can get when you're searching wide and far, but they have a different sales model with their "no haggle pricing" and IIRC you can return the car within 5 days if you don't like it. Unless you show up with a bag of cash you're probably looking at arranging financing though as they won't hold a car for you to arrange a loan on it.

Re: Car buying experiences, good or bad, in San Jose and SF Bay area CA
 

I'm well aware of the difference - from pleasant experience.

Only if you sign on the dotted line without checking facts first.

So this report says that people are daft enough to sign up to deals they cannot afford to repay, and then - under the terms of the contract that they fully signed up to - their car gets repossessed. The dealer, having got their car back exactly as the customer agreed to, then sells it to somebody else. Since it's theirs again, I don't see the problem. So is this even newsworthy? You might as well say that those payday loan places are thieves for preying on the low income. I don't agree with them but that doesn't mean they're doing anything particularly underhand, just taking advantage of the gullible and desperate.