How to Buy a Car on Ebay

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Buy a car on eBay? Seriously?

You can buy anything on Ebay like empty toilet paper rolls, pinecones, Cubs World Series Champions memorabilia, and even cars!

Over the summer, I was talking to my neighbor about how her husband bought a new truck off of Ebay. I was surprised, I had no idea that you could buy cars on eBay.

Buying a Car on Ebay

Where do you start when shopping on Ebay for a car? Ebay Motors is the car page. You can browse through cars based on make and model. It’s a good idea to search this page often to find the best deal!

You will also want to become familiar with the Ebay Vehicle Purchase Protection.  Here’s the overview from the Ebay Vehicle Purchase Protection page:

“Vehicle Purchase Protection (VPP) provides protection, against certain losses associated with fraud, up to a maximum amount of your purchase price paid (not exceeding $100,000) for purchase of an eligible vehicle on ebay.com or through the eBay mobile application.”

How did you hear about buying cars on eBay?

Patt (her husband) always shops for stuff on eBay. He started looking and saw that cars were cheaper other places than where we live.

When did you buy your first car on eBay?

We bought our first car on eBay back in 2006.

How many cars have you bought from eBay?

We’ve bought 4 cars through eBay, plus a boat.

How much do you save on average when you buy a car on eBay?

We saved on average probably $5000 – $7500.

What is the process you when you buy a car on eBay? 

Make sure you’re looking at an actual dealership. You can google the dealership and see their ratings. The dealships usually have almost a 100% rating through eBay, so it’s important to research other places to get a better idea of how accurate the eBay rating is. I just feel more confident if we are hearing the same positive comments in other places.

You also need to read the fine print on what they will do if you don’t like the car. For example, the people we’ve bought from said we could return the car within 2 weeks no questions asked. We did have to pay for shipping to return the car if we decided we didn’t like it.

We haven’t always used the same seller. We bought 2 trucks from the same dealership in Texas. All of the vehicles we have purchased have come from Texas except 1. For some reason, we have been able to find great deals in Texas.

The places we have bought from will ship straight to your door! The cost of shipping is about $600, but it can be added into your financing through your bank. Before they load it off the transfer truck you can look at it to see if you approve.

In your experience, what are the Pros and Cons for buying on eBay?

The Pros to buying on eBay is that your not tied down to your location when buying a car, so you can really get the best deal if your patient. The banks know the process so it’s like buying from a car dealership, but you just have way more variety and can save quite a bit of money!

The Cons would be if you aren’t comfortable navigating eBay or if you aren’t patient enough to wait for the right deal this probably isn’t the best way to buy a car for you. Another con is that you can’t test drive the vehicles before you buy, but we have always bought similar cars so we were pretty comfortable with not test driving.

What’s your best tip for finding a good deal on eBay?

My best tip for buying a car on eBay is to keep looking. It was easy for us because my husband enjoys browsing eBay, so we had a really good idea of prices and inventory that was out there. Don’t settle for just any car, if you can wait it out you will eventually find what you want!

What do you think? Would you buy a car on EBAY?