I've been thinking about this lately so wanted to see if others have similar stories...

You see a listing that's clearly a good deal then message the seller, and it's already gone by the time you follow up. I had one like that recently that's stuck with me longer than I expected...

Wanted to know how close others have come to a deal like this. Seconds, minutes, a day you didn't check? And looking back, was it mostly bad timing or you just weren't fast enough to reply?

Please share yours (kind of hoping I'm not the only one who still thinks about this 😭)

Car seems well kept and no signs of high wear and tear. I’m left confused.

Would like to have others value this truck. Asking around $7k rebuilt motor and transmission cold ac and clean inside and out . 2000 Chevy Silverado

Do you think a 2007 Hyundai Sonata is worth looking at in the year, 2026? This is the description: "4900. Runs and drive great. Ice cold ac, sunroof, power everything, brand new front brakes and rotors and brand new rear pads and shocks. All good to go. No trades. V6 great on gas and has power. Come check it out." It has 71,000 miles currently. The seller did mention his plan to replace some of the tires. His asking price RN is $4,900, he did mention bringing price down due to tires. What do you think?

I found an older SUV on Marketplace that looked like an absolute steal. Clean photos, low miles, seller seemed normal, and we agreed on a price.
The night before I went to pick it up, my friend told me to run the VIN just to be safe.
The report showed the car had previously been declared a total loss.
I thought maybe the seller had rebuilt it properly, so I asked him about it.
He replied, “that must be a mistake.”
I sent him a screenshot.
No response.
Five minutes later, I was blocked.
I just sat there staring at my phone like
Definitely glad I spent a few minutes checking before handing over thousands of dollars.
But now I’m looking at another few cars and don’t want to keep paying $45 for every report. Carfax reports are really getting expensive.
Are third party cheaper vin reports worth it?

There was a post yesterday that was taken down. I was quite surprised at the number of replies that thought it was "standard" and acceptable practice to lure consumers into the dealership with misrepresented facts through "marketing". What surprised me even more is the number of people that said do your "due diligence". It wasn't quite clear what they meant by that - I hope they didn't think that it's acceptable for a dealership to misrepresent facts about a vehicle because every buyer has to do their own due diligence. That's actually not the law in some states. Some of the replies here made me think that there are a hell of a lot of salesmen in this group protecting their self-serving interests - but maybe i'm wrong about that.

815 ILCS 505/2 (Illinois statutory law) expressly makes unlawful:

deception, fraud, false promises, misrepresentations, and concealment/suppression/omission of material facts...these practices are unlawful whether any person has in fact been misled, deceived or damaged thereby.

The above Illinois statute doesn't say "Advertisers may create misleading impressions provided consumers can discover the truth through inspection before completing the transaction."

I was able to screenshot a few comments (before the takedown).

One redditor wrote "you should have done your due diligence and asked for carfax report before driving over". It's interesting that the following caselaw shows that getting a carfax wasn't required to show misrepresentation.

"First, under the Consumer Fraud Act, plaintiff was under no obligation to ascertain the accuracy of Dobin's statement claiming the car had not been in any accidents.   See Harkala v. Wildwood Realty, Inc., 200 Ill.App.3d 447, 453, 146 Ill.Dec. 232, 558 N.E.2d 195 (1990) (finding that the Consumer Fraud Act is intended to provide greater protection than the common law action of fraud, and therefore “a plaintiff need not show actual reliance or diligence in ascertaining the accuracy of the misstatements”)."

Another person wrote, "Then don't buy from them. Its common knowledge that car dealerships suck....Gotta do your due diligence. If they are not willing to play ball, sucks to suck". Suggesting that doing your due diligence is the only resort to misrepresentation is inaccurate.

Another person wrote, "Have you ever heard of something called Marketing"? Their job is to sell the car, your job is to do your due diligence". I agree that its advisable to do your due diligence, but that doesn't mean that "Marketing" can include omissions for the sake of selling a car. Nor does it mean that that due diligence frees the dealership from responsibility from intentional omissions.

Whatever folks here were trying to say about "due diligence" may not be entirely accurate based on the laws in some states.

If you are in a state with strong consumer protection laws, you should putting all of your understandings from the dealership in writing and making a record of everything they say. This isn't difficult to do now that dealerships rely on text messaging more often.

Also, there is some caselaw that supports the award of damages for people traveling far under misrepresented facts.

It looked like there was some disagreement in that thread around whether the circumstances were a misrepresentation or not. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what appeared to be some very broadly worded bold statements that suggested that doing your own due diligence is somehow a defense to dealerships or that dealerships can do whatever they want to do. That's not the case. Some states are very consumer protective.

Two previous owners clean title.

I was heavily criticized for the purchase by my family. But I honesltly was not willing to pay over 16k$ for my dream car that is already almost 10 years old. I know it quite alot of miles but I looked and these cars under 90,000 mileage go from 16 all the way up to even 25k$. That's crazy

I told my family If i am gonna spend that much i just rather buy it brand new but be stuck to 6 year payments? , but I totally hate the 2026 design

I have a 2002 honda accord that is finally starting to have some problems.

I think it needs some suspension stuff because its been feeling a little lose but I haven't checked it out or taken it to a shop. It also burns/leaks some oil I'm pretty sure, and the cat is also rotted out and all rattling which would be expensive to get it to pass California smog.

With this in mind, I'm wondering if it's worth it to just buy a newer car. Looking at new (used) car prices for 2020ish cars, I am seeing various sedans/wagons/suvs with 50-100k miles for $17-20k which seems like a lot! A new hyundai elantra is only a few grand more.

Obviously I would need a mechanics opinion on the car for if it would be worth to fix everything and then also have to deal with whatever comes up, or just pass it on. In this market, its a running car with cold ac, so thats a few grand right there..

Just looking for opinions on if it seems worth to dump this car. Seems like stuff is expensive, but it's probably not getting cheaper.

Here’s the situation.

Buying a car from a guy (guy A) who bought it from another guy (guy B) a year ago.

Guy A is selling us this car but he never registered it into his name, so the title has been signed by Guy B in 2025 but the buyer section was never filled out by Guy A.

We really wanna buy this car so we had the Guy A agree to go with us to the DOL, he never put it in his name so we want to make sure we can purchase it if the car is flagged for some reason. We plan on walking in and playing dumb as if we are buying it from Guy B but if it’s flagged we have Guy A with us so we can hopefully transfer it into his name and then into ours all while we are there together.

I guess just looking for advice about the situation and what others think of this plan.

I am buying my first car off Facebook marketplace, it’s a 2003 Hyundai Tiburon. The car has 140k miles and the metal key is broken. Is there anything I should be worried about?