I’m sure that you, like me, are always happy to get a great deal on anything. Dawn is 30% off? Huzzah, no Great Value Dish Soap for this guy!
But a great deal on a car – man, that’s next-level (because cars are expensive, obviously). Even a small savings percentage-wise can mean thousands of dollars staying safely tucked in your mattress. And a super-score on a car is also super-satisfying because a good car gives you so much. I mean, can you imagine not being able to just go wherever you want, whenever you want, hauling whatever and whoever you want? Maybe it’s even a fun machine to drive, and/or it swaddles you in luxury. That’s just icing on the car-cake. Other than a house, I can’t think of a purchase that delivers more utility and hopefully pleasure than a car.
So yeah – getting a great deal on a car matters. A lot. My all-time best scores were my 1980 Honda Accord, a fantastic $500 find (if you’re a Member, you can read about it here), and my 2012 Mustang GT. The GT wasn’t exactly cheap – I negotiated exactly zero dollars off – but thanks to my employer at the time, I was able to get X-Plan pricing, which is fixed and low. No haggling, no muss, no fuss, just a brand-new, Coyote-powered Mustang with a bunch more money left in my pocket – which was spent on tires and speeding tickets in short order.
Now let’s hear from the gang:
Matt Hardigree
Someone sold me a creamy Volvo 240 wagon with 15,000 miles, owned by an older couple, for $2500. It was a great car and was, in theory, a starting point for a 302 swap. I never did the swap, partially because the car was in such great shape. When my wife got accepted to grad school we decided we couldn’t take it with us so I sold it for $2,000 to a family friend with the agreement I could buy it back. That friend sort of disappeared from the radar and I have no idea where the car went. I regret letting go of it all the time and wish I could have it back.
Mercedes Streeter
I scored a 2005 Smart Fortwo Passion Coupe for free. Yes, I got it for no money at all. There was nothing wrong with the car itself but with a state government. See, the original Smart Fortwo was never officially sold in the United States, but they were one of a handful of cars some crazy companies went through the work to make legal.
Unfortunately, federally legal doesn’t mean state legal and some states have no idea how to handle a modern gray market car. One of these states was Colorado. While the state allowed my car to be registered with its previous owner for a while, it eventually stopped registering the vehicle because the car couldn’t pass the state’s OBD-II scanner emissions test. I knew these cars were kosher in Illinois, so saying yes to a free Smart was a no-brainer.
Of course I still have it.
Mark Tucker
Easy: my ’89 Chevy K1500, in forest service green. $1,200 to buy, and I’ve spent maybe $2,000 more on it over five years. Oh wait, I forgot, I replaced the brakes during a cross-country trip. More like $3,000 in repairs. Still a bargain.
Stephen Walter Gossin
My best buy is the 230,000-mile Jaguar XK from Jacksonville, Florida that the seller bought at auction, then ditched in a parking lot for two years, untouched. He then found a 4-speed all-original GTO and completely forgot about the XK and sold it to me for $1800. I still can’t believe it.
Wish I still had the $50 1985 manual Honda prelude . But the $135 2000 xj cherokee sport I’m daily driving is great. I get all my friends cars when they’re about to go for scrap
1989 Nisssan Pathfinder SEV6 2 door. This was my very first car. It had 56K miles when I bought it at 16 in the late 90s and I proceeded to put another 100K miles on it through college. Oil, brakes, and tires were all it ever asked for. I still miss that “hardbody” Pathfinder
’87 Saab 900. Car belonged to this woman’s son who left it in her backyard when he moved for school. She got sick of it sitting there so he finally let her sell it. She originally had it listed for $750 because it wouldn’t go into gear. I went to go look at and it started up fine but the clutch felt spongy. She said $350 if you take it today. SOLD. Rented a trailer and took it home. All it needed was the clutch slave cylinder. Fixed it myself and drove that thing for a few years before giving it to a friend who drove it for a year and then gave it to someone else.
Without a doubt the 2014 C7 Stingray I won on BaT for $37K.
Pounced at the right time (May of 2020, when hope was lost but everyone was trying to sell stuff), had all the good options (Z51, manual, highest interior trim level), had a little over 20K miles on it, the owner was a great guy who took care of it, and it looked awesome being a black car with black rims; legit batmobile.
Obviously it had some stuff happen to it, and I sold it earlier this year because it just kept… “catching repair strays” as I would say, but I still miss the ol blackbird. Put on just over 30K miles in just under 4 years of ownership; I got my money’s worth.
I have a few deals that’d qualify, I think the two that stick out are:
1) 16 fiesta ST, fully loaded with all the options MSRP ~26k, got it for 17.5.
2) 19 E63S Wagon, 4k miles on the clock. Original MSRP 137k, bought it in 22 for 82k
I love great deals and obscure cars. In 2015, it was time to buy a larger 4 door family car. I found a 2011 Hyundai Azera Limited that was a local trade in from a little old man who had every single service done at the dealer so it was all on the carfax. It was a 4 year old car with 30,000 miles on the clock and every single option that was offered back then all for $11,000! It cost $32,000 four years ago and had been babyed. The salesman said they were about ready to send it to auction because every person they told about it had never heard of the car and wasn’t interested, or they changed the body style the next year and wanted the newer looking car. I freaking love that car, it’s comfortable, has more power than it needs, and has been as reliable as a hammer.
These are the best. You can maybe get them for cheap, and you can drive a rare car. Win-win.