Bad Time to buy 1st Gens in the NY/NJ and Connecticut area

For a number of weeks, I have looked for the right used 1st Gen Tundra. I wasn't looking for a garage Queen or something below two grand. I frankly prefer cars in excellent condition. The following are my impressions of the present market:

Most of the trucks I saw were garbage or in need of lots of repairs. Frames rotted beyond beyond. Timing belts delayed. I must have looked at almost 20 trucks. The last one was at a little dealer in Keyport NJ. The Carfax for this showed an accident but it was in 2007 when details were not recorded. This truck went through a major reconstruction but one couldn't tell by just looking at it. I brought my flashlight and spent at least 30 minutes looking at everything. At one point, I opened the gas door and ended up with it in my hands as it was in place using magnets. The hinges had broken off and the genius dealer glued magnets to it to keep it from falling. This guy was asking 13K for a 2004 AccessCab with 160K miles and would not bulge on price. That's on top of a dealers fee of $995 and a documentation fee for $595. I ask him if the price mattered if I paid cash or credit and he said he preferred cash but could not waive this "standard" fees. I tried to haggle on the RWD and the accident but he told me that the price was the price and that I was welcome to look elsewhere. I said thank you and left.

9 out of 10 sellers on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace turned out to be folks flipping cars and always selling for their uncle, father, wife or cousin....Lord have mercy, stop with that line please!

In the end, I found something 2 hours away from me. Double cab, one owner, I'm super excited about it but I couldn't stop reflecting on how crappy the market is right now. Much more so for a sought after truck. Looking at the last 10 cars I have bought, I either love cars and keep them forever and get rid of them within a year. We'll see.

 

It’s asinine for a dealer to charge a doc fee of something comparable to 10% of the value of the vehicle. The dealer fee is bullshit as well.

 

It’s not just up north. I looked at 10 1GT’s before finally finding a good one I considered worth buying. I drove all over NC and settled on one down east from me that was a SC it’s whole life. Most of the ones I looked at were either rust buckets, 2WD or mileage was to high. I still see plenty of them on the road here in NC. The problem is most owners by now know what they have and don’t want to part with them. As we move forward they are only going to become harder to find and ones in really good condition are only going to climb in value. Don’t give up, you will eventually find one. Just takes patience and alot of searching. They are fantastic trucks.

 

NY is never the place to look for bargains. My wife and I were flown out to a Mopar Dealer in Indy, on them, a few years back when I bought my Hellcat. NY prices for a comparable vehicle were 10k higher. FNY!

 

It’s a bad time to buy anything in this country and I don’t see it getting better anytime.

 

Honestly, I think it's just a bad time to buy used cars period. Everyone is still trying to capitalize on the used car boom that happened during lockdown.

 

To add to this, even car dealers are struggling to keep inventory. My dealer has sold 246 new units month to date. You would think that they would have close to that number in trade ins, right? No. Our sales department has only taken in 108 units mtd in trade and out of those only 86 have been worth resale. The others just went straight to auction. It doesn't matter the brand, all used car owners are holding on to what they have.

 

I think that’s due to the high price and limited availability of new cars which in part is intentionally driven by the manufacturer. Fewer cars means greater demand and higher prices.

The chip shortage is still there but if you ordered a year to a year and a half ahead of time, you should have them by now. I know we do and I work in electronics.