Difficult buying a car in the US

I am, I think maybe over two months busy trying to purchase a 2008-ish 4runner,

up to hoe I was busy with ons garage in Ohio, which fell through..

hoe Om trying to contact several sellers/ shops and up to now, just one shop has answered..

because the shipping agency is near NYC/ east coast, Om mainly searching the eastern USA.

Im wondering if this is how garages work or Its because Im from the EU...

I have money "burning" a hole in my pocket..
so this cant be the/ a issue..

any help or insight would be apriciated..

greetings from Amsterdam patrick

 

Hi OP!! I hope the only issue you’re facing is timing. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can chime in but, I shouldn’t see an issue aside from covid. Without doing research maybe there is a difficulty shipping US cars to the EU. Sorry I couldn’t be of much help but best of luck!

 

Are you using services that are experienced selling to overseas buyers? Many dealers may not respond to direct requests if they don't understand the process, but an intermediary service may be able to get it done for you.

 

thing is, I am in pretty close contact with a Dutch shipping company,
theyre pretty experienced with in/ export to the US (with cars)

so that wont be the issue..
even used w-app to send a message to a sales person..
he read the message, but thats it..

 

I can offer a little advice which I hope can be helpful...
1.) You have to be very careful purchasing vehicle form the Northeast Area because of the amount of road salt that is used during the winters here. It destroys vehicles so make sure you request a ton of photos prior to purchase. Toyota’s are very susceptible to rust...I have rust bubbles in quite a few areas on my 2017 and I wash/wax it about once a month.

2.) This is most important in my view... The NYC area is notorious for vehicle fraud. There are many companies that ship to Africa, Middle East, and many other areas of the world. However a lot of the vehicles are stolen or have stolen parts. For example, they will take the VIN plates off a totaled vehicle and put them on a stolen one. Some guys do very good work and only an expert would be able to spot this. With newer vehicles this is becoming more difficult but when there is money to be made, they will find a way. I could go on for an hour telling you about the scams OP.

I don’t what to dishearten or scare you OP, I just what to see you become of victim of these scumbags. Do your homework and if your gut is telling you something listen! Good luck brother, I hope this was of some use...

 

I would make my search for the southern part of the US, less rust. Ask for pictures of the underside, the wheel wells and the bottoms of the doors, where the seams are.

 

The issue is almost certainly that you are out of country and speak broken English. Your posts read like Nigerian scammer emails (no offense) so anyone who might be selling a vehicle that reads a similarly worded email is gonna be like "yeah, okaaaay". If I was selling a car and you contacted me I'd almost certainly delete the message assuming it was a scam. You are going to need to make a friend here and have that person be your boots on the ground, so to speak.

 

oh boy...

and I was thinking my english is quite better than average..
only thing that kicks in is the autocorrect... that might sometimes changes it all into Dutch..


on the other hand:
the export company has several connections througout the US,
they check and testdrive the vehicle and report back to me,
if alls fine and looks decent, I start the purchasing process..

the car needs to meet a certain standart in order to make in roadlegal in the Netherlands...

so... the search continues...



(also for a local friend)

 

this post read quite clear compared to your first post. If you find something in the Bay Area of California I don’t mind looking for you, however right now our entire country is pretty much in lock down so doing stuff right now is quite difficult compared to normal. Good luck with your search.

a good source would be Craigslist “sf Bay Area”.

 

"ANY" help is more than apriciated!!

thanks everyone..
I understand that everything is locked down now,

and I dont mind waithing a week a months longer...

prefer a 2008/ 2009 V6,
white sport, sunroof
black (leather) interiour.
max 145K miles.

 

Yeah, it’s a tough time to do anything in Canada or the US, patrick2wd. Our Prime Minister said the peak here will end late summer, if all goes well. In the meantime, all the provinces have emergency laws in place that force you to stay at home and avoid non essential travel. Maybe things will ease up a bit in May, who knows?

 

True,
Iit seems that the (northern) americas have been hit hard..

Im not in a particular hurry,
But would be nice to have something to look out for!

Might start calling dealers, maybe that would be more helpfull,


sidenote;
I received a text that a certain car was sold on friday,
ok, too bad,
day after I received a mail that this car was ready for a test drive...

hmm...

@Antman
Craigslist = a interesting tip!
thanks!

 

I am now looking at several sites to get some more info and worjk my way through the different adds,

this isnt easy..

so help is greatly apreciated!

If you have any (inside) info on a (preferably) white 2008-ish 4runner,
and again prefairably a urban runner, with all the goodies..

let me know,
I am not interested in a beige 4runner,
thanks!

Greetings from Amstedam,

Oh,
anyone who finds me a 4runner, (and which I buy)
Ill ship a Dutch cheese to you!

 

Urban Runner is 2wd?

And I'm not sure offering some smelly Dutch cheese is really a motivator!!!!

I'll keep an eye out.

 

I hope (thougt) a urban runner is 4wd???
(Im looking for a 4wd)

but Swiss/ French cheese is smelly...


Dutch..= not

 

I have no idea what an Urban Runner is. I've seen the reference once or twice but never delved into the actual description of them.

Edit, now I know... and knowing is half the battle:

https://www.4runners.com/threads/2009-sport-urban-runner.3045/

 

Hey patrick2wd, when you search use autotempest - it integrates several lists and will give you a lot of options. There are a lot of 4 Runners for sale and now is a good time to buy when no one has any money and the sellers are hungry. Good luck!

 

Its been a while prince Ive been online,
Searched quite a bit and getting rather fed-up...
Even tried fb, not a fan.. but of jou dont try..
But whitin a day one member mentioned Im a fraud.. nigerian... whatever...

Tried to convince him he was wrong.. to no effect until I send him a link with me on 4runners.com.

Ill look up other listings as mentioned.. but Im not convinced..

 

Use Cargurus to help find what you want. You can type in exactly what you want and the search engine will list everything that meets your parameters. Good luck in your search.

 

Hi,

did that, have a alert
and get "most" interesting cars in my mailbox,
contact with the various dealers/ seller is rather... difficoult..
(as in mostly ignored/ never answered)

 

Hey patrick2wd, another thought would be to find an international broker in the US who will do it all for you. Check out Hemmings, or Bring a trailer - also eBay has international sellers on there that do customs clearance, shipping etc. Naturally you have to pay for these services, but they will make it happen. That’s what they do for a living. 4 Runners aren’t rare, so this shouldn’t be an insurmountable task. You can do it.

 

Thanks mr,

Ill loook into that..
first Ill try go on holiday... somewhere..

 

@patrick2wd - I was in Amsterdam last year for a day; very interesting city.

I did a quick cars.com search.
This one isn't the color combo you want, but here's one that specifically mentions "urban runner" (which is something I never knew existed).
https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/819410131/overview/

Not my listing, can't verify quality, but 1 owner and super low mileage.

Suggestion: understand the features you want and branch out from 'urban runner' - these are very hard to find.

 

thanks,
looks good,

but to be honest Ive seen a 2014 model for about the same price in the last months..
hence I think the price is rather steep...


and about Amsterdam...

you should have been here in the late '70ies early '80ies ..
that would have been a difference,
I now have the idea that Amsterdam is looking like Disney World..

the only thing people want here is to get stoned and see the red light district..
were rather liberal here.. nothing wrong with it.. but ist all too easy..

hence were looking to move to Spain in the next few years..
only covid is bit of pain in the...