Tips for buying a used car from a private seller?

I'm about to purchase a used car from a private seller I met through eBay. I have done this before and had great success but typically they are eBay sales run by a dealership. Many car dealers use eBay to advertise and then complete the sale off eBay. This is just a private seller who mentioned he sells a few cars a year.

I live in Maine where between the snow, salt and pot holes cars tend to degrade quick. I have had a lot of success buying cars (done this two times, family members as well) in New York and NJ where they get less use and the roads are typically better maintained.

I need to get a replacement car for my girlfriend and my back is up against the wall as I am thinking her car won't make it through the Spring (or will cost more money then it's worth to repair).

I found a seller who has a 2007 Lincoln MKZ with about 106K miles and many features with the most important being AWD. This particular model scores and reviews really well from what I can tell.

KBB for this particular car/model in "Very Good" condition (which by all accounts this appears to be from the pictures I have seen) is ~ $8,500

http://www.kbb.com/lincoln/mkz/2007-lincoln-mkz/sedan-4d/?vehicleid=348836&intent=buy-used&pricetype=private-party&condition=very-good&options=4126702%7ctrue%7c4126749%7ctrue%7c4126770%7ctrue%7c4126801%7ctrue%7c6488469%7ctrue&mileage=107172&p=3&perpage=10

The seller was willing to take $5,500 with the catch being he wants to be paid in cash. I have done as much vetting as I possibly can and he and the car appear to be real (I have phone numbers, e-mail addresses, eBay accounts with his house in the back ground and it matches the google map images of the address he provided).

I would of course be paying for this outright and the price is fair enough where I don't feel the need to haggle it lower but of course with anything that requires such a large cash payment I am a little hesitant and nervous even more so because I'm not a car guy.

He lives outside Worcester, MA (technically in Rhode Island) which is close to being on our way to the Casino's where we are going this weekend after a brief stop in Hartford, CT.

I have everything ready to go to make the purchase (insurance, temporary plates for return trip home) and the seller said he'd be able to draft up a bill of sale and has the title although it's not in his name (he mentioned he recently bought the car with the intention of selling it, never registered it to avoid paying sales tax and registration fees). He is the third owner and has only drove it a few hundred miles so it really only has two owners.

Car is advertised as being in great cosmetic and running condition. I will of course be able to confirm/deny the cosmetic appearance and will certainly ask to drive it up and down the street where he lives but doubt I'd be able to take it much further if it isn't registered to be driven so it'll be tough to really get an idea of engine condition short of listening to it.

So far I only have $213 invested; $13 for the temporary plate and a $200 deposit I made through PayPal which I'm pretty sure I could get refunded if I was okay with opening a dispute (sent the deposit as a non-shipping required payment).

He hasn't been that easy to communicate with but their is a minor language barrier (he sounds middle eastern). By all accounts he seems nice enough but again, he's trying to make a sale. He has reassured me multiple times that the car is what he says it is and he wouldn't have me drive all this way (which really isn't out of my way considering I'm driving thru anyways) just to make a sale and he knows I'll be happy with the condition.

So..... What should I be looking for? There are going to be four of us in the car and I'm really not worried about getting robbed it's that I'm just trying to come up with a checklist of things to mentally go over when I see the car in person and trying to reassure myself I'm getting a good deal on the car itself.

I appreciate any input about this transaction. 

I don't like the fact that the title isn't in his name.
He says he's been drving it just a few hundred miles....but if the title isn't in his name, who is it registered too?
Its just that it can be a pain in the ass registering an out of state car when everything is normal, but this could really throw a monkey wrench into things.
Plus it wouldn't hurt to have a pre purchase inspection done by a local shop. Prettymuch any of them will do itfor you for under $200.

I know he bought the car with the intention of reselling it. Because of that it makes sense to me that the title isn't in his name and that it's not registered to him. If he were to do either of those he'd have to A) pay sales tax on whatever he purchased it for B) pay title fees C) pay registration fees. Those alone could be several hundred dollars of unnecessary expenses if he didn't even plan on driving it more then the 10 days a temp plate usually grants you (In Maine it's called a temporary 1-way plate; it's good for 10 days but you're only supposed to drive from point of sale to your home address).

Carfax shows two previous honors (prior to him) and the mileage according to carfax is a few hundred less then what he  claims which again makes sense since he never registered it.

I know worse case scenario the car could be stolen or owned by a bank and he may not have the actually authority to sell it. He mentioned something about being registered to sell cars in RI privately but I don't know what that means.

Edit: DMV is a pain everywhere but it'll be pretty simple for me to register it here. I just need proof of insurance (have), to pay excise tax on purchase amount (will do) a bill of sale (will get) and title (will get) if the car is less then ten years old.

I guess I could run into a road block when I go to get a new title which is separate process but I feel confident that I know enough about this person that he wouldn't just be able to disappear.

Edit 2: Locally I have access to a mechanic that is cheap and fair. I along with my family have been using him for a long time. He has a small shop on his property and the only downside is he can be a little slow. I've had him rebuild/replace an engine for less then $900 and that included the cost of buying the actual replacement engine (used). I've bought an "iffy" car before because the price was sweet enough where I knew even if I had to fix or replace things (bearings, brakes, etc.) I'd be able to do so cheap enough to still come out ahead.

Sounds shady as to me.  Cash only.  Car not registered in his name.  No title transfer took place at the time of sale?  Have you done what you can to see if the car was stolen?  I'd look elsewhere for a car.  

^^^ Red flags everywhere. I would stay away!

Riddle me this...If he bought the car with the intention of reselling it, how did he get such a great deal that he's able to offer it to you for $3000 under the KBB value?

There would be no benefit to sell it to you for that price unless he paid less than that (or stole the car)....OR the car isn't in the condition you think it's in.

n8rockerasu said:

Riddle me this...If he bought the car with the intention of reselling it, how did he get such a great deal that he's able to offer it to you for $3000 under the KBB value?

There would be no benefit to sell it to you for that price unless he paid less than that (or stole the car)....OR the car isn't in the condition you think it's in.

Click to expand...

^ Pretty much this.

I didn't end up buying the car for multiple reasons I'll explain below but in the sellers defense what he did is common with private sellers who buy and sell cars and are trying to avoid fees and taxes. I get him not wanting to register the car because he would have had to pay excise taxes on whatever the purchase price was (or value; varies by state), fees to register it and fees for the new title. If you're planning on reselling it's kind of silly to go through that. I don't know what he paid, and he wouldn't disclose that, or the reason why the lady sold it to him (other then being sarcastic and giving me multiple possibilities as to why she could have wanted to sell but he didn't know because he never asked)

In regards to the title he purchased the car from a woman desperate to sell, she signed the title but left it blank for him to fill out when he found a seller for the car. I had access to the VIN so it either wasn't stolen or reported (yet) and he had the car for a few months. He also drove the car for about 600 miles since acquiring it, all with the previous owners plates and registration. The car had Mass. plates (seller lived in RI). Why risk that? It's like a half dozen motor vehicle violations. He also refused to do a bill of sill using his name to me stating that he didn't want to be associated with the sale in case my state (Maine) reported it to Rhode Island (his state) and flagged him for trying to avoid taxes on the sale amount. He was of course okay with faking a bill of sale in the previous owners name.

I ended up backing out because the car wasn't as clean as I was led to believe. There were some minor cosmetic issues that weren't disclosed that bothered me and he tried to upsell me into buying struts he said the car would need sooner rather then later and he never got around to installing them (this was the first time he mentioned).

Car was still probably a good buy at $5,500 but wasn't worth dealing with a potential headache down the road. Like he had literally been driving the car since winter (mentioned how well it did in the snow getting in and out of his driveway) which means it had been in his possession for awhile and he had been illegally driving it for months.

He was also a pet owner (nothing against them, I have dogs too) and didn't bother cleaning up the animal hair. I'm not a smoker and the car smelled of smoke. He tried to make a a big deal out of not cleaning the car or the engine because he wanted me to see the car with its flaws versus trying to hide them but it just seemed lazy to me (also why not disclose this stuff in the eBay listing or over the phone?).

I went in optimistic with the attitude that I was going to buy it as long as it was what was described and was still intending on buying it even after my girlfriend test drove it but after thinking about everything and seeing the title with the previous owners signature (not this sellers) and not dated, even though I knew it was going to be like that I just got really cautious and started asking questions that were making him angry like "How did you get the car to your property? Why were you driving it around?" and he started to get really defensive and angry to the point where I asked him for a minute alone with my girlfriend so we could talk it over and he said something along the lines of "That's fine I need to walk away for a minute because I'm starting to get really frustrated".

I showed up with my cousin and brother also in tow (we're all fairly big; 6'3+) and glad because he lived in a pretty remote location so I suppose it could have gone a lot worse.

Would you guys try and get your deposit back? It was only $200 and I paid via PayPal as "services" so I think I can open a dispute on that. We never discussed if it was something he would refund if I didn't buy the car (he obviously hasn't proactively issued the refund) but he did ask his teenage son if the money was in there and if not to put it in there (meaning his account) as my girlfriend and I were leaving.

He claimed to be not very good with electronics but he had an eBay account (or his son did). I just don't want to get harassed through my eBay account (which would have been tied to my paypal account when I sent the payment, or at least very easy for him to find out).

Glad you didn't go through with it. There's just too much shady stuff going on there to have much confidence in it. Honestly, if it were me (and it was recently, as my wife's car died and we had to get a "new" one just a few weeks ago), I'd pay a little more at a used car dealer just to know that I'm not dealing with some sketch person who has no real reputation to uphold.

Even if there was nothing wrong with the car, the fact that nobody was willing to go through the proper channels or follow standard used car sales practices should speak volumes.

I honestly don't know how automotive deals on eBay work, but I think I would at least give the guy an opportunity first. Just because the sale didn't go through doesn't mean everybody has to hate each other and be pissed off about it. I'd just send him an email or something, thank him for meeting with you, and apologize for not being the right fit for the car. Then just kindly ask if he could refund your deposit since the transaction wasn't completed.

Maybe he'll be decent and just do it. Or maybe he'll give you some bullshit about how it was "non-refundable" or something stupid. Then I would go through with the Paypal claim, letting them know what the money was for and that you ended up not buying the car. It's at least worth a shot.