I also just bought a car long distance from Dream Car Auto in Bend. We looked at so many cars online, ran so many auto checks, and talked to so many people that by the time we found the model Audi that we were looking for, fatigue had set in.
Like everything else, and especially buying a car sight unseen: do your due diligence! We should have insisted on high resolution photos instead of the fuzzy web site renditions. We should have found an independent mechanic to go over it instead of just talking to the one who "does a lot of work for them."
We found Tommy easy to deal with over the phone, and the paperwork and auto hauler pickup went fine. But the car itself is pretty beat up. Those fuzzy web photos hide a lot of the details. Surprise dents that are visible past 10 feet away, missing headrests in back, missing parcel shelf for the hatch back, broken latches on armrest and sun shade, missing spare tire and trunk tools like the factory jack and lug wrench. And what sounds like a dual mass flywheel rattle or timing chain rattle. The front end shakes side-to-side under acceleration in low rpms.
They still claim in email after we asked about these things that the book value is $3,000 over what we paid. Problem is that is for an "excellent" condition car, not a "fair" to "good" condition, which is $1,000 - $1,500 LESS than we paid. In our conversations, they offered up no negative information at all. I mean, they need to sell cars to make a living, but when dealing with a long distance buyer you might expect a bit more in the way of honest descriptions of the shortcomings and missing bits... So in summary, buyer beware. read more