Although I did this once [about 25 years ago with a '98 993 C2S], I would never recommend this strategy. I got lucky and received exactly what was advertised [a car with 4500mi in pristine condition]. After watching them unload it from the enclosed carrier, I told myself that I would never make such an unwise purchase again [although it had a thorough PPI at the "best" Porsche dealership I could find]. The car was about a thousand miles away and I was at the time extremely busy with work, family, and life.

I'd be curious to hear from others who have bought remotely and what their experiences have been [as well as any tips for those considering such]. When you think about it, dropping close to six figures for anything sight-unseen seems to go against everything that makes people successful in the first place.

 

We just purchased our 2017 F Type R remotely. Of course, this isn’t my preferred method, but for some makes/models you have to go nationwide in your search. For more common cars, I try to stay within inspection and driving distance. As I wanted a white Type R, this meant a nationwide search this time. I’ve done this for about a half dozen other cars over the last 30 years, never really had any issues. I did travel to see one of our purchases (bought a 1985 Lamborghini Countach 5000s in 1997, wanted to inspect that one before purchase), but otherwise have relied on pictures and discussions with dealers.

For remote sales, I tend to stick with established dealers. Our F Type came from the Atlanta Jaguar dealer, and everything went pretty easily. Generally, reputable dealers sell cars that are as-described. Asked questions, got service records, and worked out a deal. Had my bank wire funds, and they shipped the car. Took less than 2 days to arrive (Atlanta to Albuquerque).

Very, very happy with the car. No issues at all. Differentials looked pristine with no evidence of seal or fluid leakage. Everything works, and it had all the manuals, etc. I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat this process should the need arise. I think if you stick with OEM dealers, you’ll minimize issues. I’d be much more hesitant with either brokers or private sellers.

 

I'm in Ohio and like Diablo, just purchased a 2017 R remotely. I have had cars shipped to me from Cali, from Florida, and from Germany to me prior to in-person inspection. Is there increased risk? yes, of course. But with rare, specialty cars that is part of the process sometimes.

You perform due diligence, and roll with it. I typically try to do a PPI, but in the most recent case, there were no Jag shops in the area. So I'm getting a Post Purchase Inspection :-), and the dealer agreed if there was anything major wrong they would work with me on it. Not in writing, hard to enforce, but they don't want damage to their rep when you sell premium cars.

Depends on your tolerance to risk. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!

 

BTW, that fire orange R is just spectacular. Well done!

 

I hear ya, but considering the state of the world today, the notion that much of what is going on is downright fraudulent, one might believe that risk in all financial endeavors is pretty darn high. After all, we are talking about used cars, which might be that commodity that prolifically led society down the road to consumer-fraud hell BIG time.

As a blanket statement, get whatever you can in writing, as I am sure there are none among us here who have not learned that ugly lesson once or twice or...

 

Thanks! I like your contrasting seat leather inserts, the deviated stitching was a must on my list, but if I could have Firesand seat inserts it would have been just spectacular.

 

Just be sure to pay attention while it's being unloaded 😂

 

Like ThunderKitty, I too live in Ohio and purchased my 17 R from a Jag dealer in California. One owner, Car fax was clean, was given extended warranty. Dealer sent me pictures, claimed the car was perfect, ( only 12K miles ). I also convinced the loan officier to go look at the car and tell me if he sees anything. Then luckily I was able to tract down the original owner and spoke to him. All said everything was perfect. Had the car shipped in an enclosed trailer. When it arrived the car carrier person went over the car with me and pointed out a dent in the right front hood. Amazing everybody missed this dent. I was able to have a Dent Wizard come and get the dent out perfectly. The only other issues were the original tires (Pirelli's) they were hard, worn and crap. and the underneath engine shield and front spoilers were badly scraped and I replaced them. But this was the exact car I was looking for. So overall it was a decent experience for not having one professionally inspect it.

 

I would never buy remotely. When shopping for a car I look within a 300 mile radius, the distance I’m willing to drive or fly to and drive back from a potential purchase. I’ve test driven and walked away from far too many cars that were advertised as “clean”.

 

I had a similar experience when I bought my 16 R from Orloff Jaguar in Chicago about 4 years ago. The salesperson, Matt, could not have been more professional and the car exceeded my expectations...it still does. One other point, my little brother conducted dealership audits for a large firm that does that sort of thing...globally. He told me Jaguar has one of the most rigorous and comprehensive programs he'd ever seen when it came to dealership operations and sales. That doesn't mean every experience will be a good one, but it increases the odds.

 

Certainly a CPO from a JLR dealership has a better chance of a good outcome. I’m still going to test drive it.

 

If I was buying or thinking of buying a car remotely and was unable to check it out myself I would be utilizing the “services” of this forum and asking someone within the vicinity—preferably someone I’ve known over the years, months, weeks, days?—to check it out and offer to buy them lunch, dinner or even just a beer. Some gesture of thanks.

 

Another member with better experience with a CPO vehicle needs to corroborate, but I thought I read somewhere on this forum that there is NO standard for CPO. Posts/threads indicating that this that or the other was not found or disclosed, much to the buyer's dismay.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/f...f-type-252771/

 

I've purchased multiple cars remotely. As @ThunderKitty mentioned, when you get into trying to buy cars that are rare or low production, you don't have many options. With that, it's always going to be "buyer be ware".

Any reputable dealership is going to sell a level of quality. Now that level may not equal your level, but the reputable dealerships want to sell "more" cars so they aren't going to risk creating an unhappy situation where their name is smeared all over the internet. Some of the larger dealerships that handle more of the exotic type cars will offer a 30-day return policy (depending on the amount of the purchase, you can negotiate this as well). You would have to pay shipping back but sometimes losing $1500 is better than 10x that.

If you are going down this route, here's what I'd recommend:

If you can get an independent inspection done remotely, do it. If you cannot, have the seller do a live video where you can ask them to view normal problem areas of the car. The photos the sellers put online will always show the car in the best possible situation. What you want to see is what they don't show in the photos. Just know you "might" have to do some work when it's a used car. You might need to do fluid changes, new tires, new brakes, etc.. Just be prepared (financially).

 

I don’t look at the BS marketing about the multi million inspection points. My CPO purchases include Volvo, Porsche and Jaguar. I bought them knowing they had a specific warranty period and what they covered.

 

^This^
Anyone who buys used, low production/rare cars should have money set aside for it to level set maintenance, or any wear items really. It bears repeating to do your research, while I'm still digging through the forum, you'll notice I joined here long before I had a jag in my garage. The boutique dealership I purchased from deals in more upper end cars, if they were selling flood cars, etc., their rep would be trashed very quickly. So background on dealer, carfax showed two prior owners, the car was sold as CPO both times so another clue. Dealer serviced, ask for pic's of all flaws, a walk around video of it running, even a driving video as is common on BaT and other auction sites.

I typically would do a PPI, there were no Jag experts local, so I just dropped it off this morning to Jag dealership for a Post Purchase Inspection. Interestingly, they could not get me the original window sticker, but they were able to print out the full list of available options, and there are notations on what was equipped on my car. EXCEPT it said my car was red with red stitching, which it is clearly not. They had no explanation for that. They could see the infotainment system had been replaced, but could not find record of 30k mile service (diff fluid) done. So a dealer had incorrect/incomplete info on a car that had been sold twice as CPO and dealer serviced. There are absolutely no guaranties on used cars. Buy a warranty or have some cash.

Oh, and I needed a second key- $650. And they wonder why they are called 's t e a l e r-ships'

 

There's not much need/sense in shopping remotely for a Camry, but, for a more unusual vehicle, like the F-Type, your opportunities and selection are much better if you expand your search horizon. Obviously, you do what you can to vet the car and/or seller, but you end up just working through the process.

You asked what experience others have had on remote sales. Fortunately, all have been good.

Purchase:
- F-Type (DC)
- e-Type (FL)
- Mits 3000 VR4 (MD)
- 911 Targa (CT)
- F-Pace (admittedly new on this one, but ordered before ever seeing one in person) (DC)

Sold:
- Mits 3000 VR4 (BC, Canada) - my long distance winner
- Acura TL-S (CA) - 2nd place for distance
- e-Type (PA)
- 4-Runner (WV)
- E320 (MO)
- RX350 (Asheville, NC)
As a notation, none of the buyers did a PPI.

Meanwhile, my son has bought several 911's remotely (Turbo, Turbo-S, GT3, GT3 Touring).

But, I'll give the prize to my Dad, who once bought a Rolls from the Bahamas, site unseen and no local dealer to do an inspection. He gets the prize, because he owned the car for 8 years -- and then sold it back to the original seller: for 3x the price!

 

Let's put it this way...if the same car was available 3000mi away or just on the other side of town, would you tailor your evaluation differently? Unless you could care less about the financial repercussions of the purchase [not to mention the time involved in fixing potentially unknown issues], why would any of us buy a car we would not check out thoroughly? Would any of us take this path professionally? Would you subject your customer/client/patient to the same risks by not completing full and thorough due diligence?

I believe this is where one must attempt to take the emotion out of the process. All of us know how we get when we see what we think is the perfect car, right? It's like how we get when we believe we have found the perfect woman...completely irrational. This is what allows people to do crazy things like buying a really expensive car based on what a salesperson tells us is the case. These people are experts are pushing our buttons, so we talk ourselves into doing bizarre things...like we have all done when certain neurotransmitters are released which cause us to open our wallets and spend stupid money trying to impress a women.

I am sorry, spending this much money for something THIS important requires the proper mindset. We all know that taking shortcuts generally doesn't work out so well in life, so why do we think it will payoff in this arena? I believe I can state with confidence that a car delivered from thousands of miles away will not be held to the same standard as one that you can evaluate in person.

 

It's certainly interesting to read this sort of thing. The fact that none of the people who bought from you did a PPI reveals the level of ignorance and just how lazy people have become. A PPI is THE best money anybody can ever spend!

I believe that when you get into the serious money-car category, you have a broker representing your interests as all kinds of "i's" need to be dotted and "t's" crossed.

 

Well, caution to the wind I suppose. I bought my 2017 S 6MT remotely out of Canada from a private party. No in-person inspection, PPI (could have asked for one, I know) or warranty. And I had the car shipped as I could not get into Canada to see it at the time due to their covid border closure.

I decided to trust the seller for several reasons. One was that I was introduced to the seller by a frequent poster here whose posting history made me feel he could be trusted. The other was that the seller was a fairly prominent member of the Jag community in his area with a good rep and was known for a lifetime of restoring older Jags. The F was his first new Jag. He was selling because he was getting on in years and just was not driving it. Speaking with both on the phone reinforced my intuition they could be trusted. Finally, the car had only 4,000 miles and the pictures showed it was immaculate baring one scratch that was easily polished out. Price was fair. The car was perfect, exactly as billed. Zero problems since.

I was committed to a 6MT S coupe and had seen how hard it might be to find that. If I had been looking for a more common car I probably would have stuck to cars I could inspect in Southern California. I rolled the dice based on my sense that the seller and recommender where good guys. Your mileage may vary. This isn't a recommendation to do the same, but thought I'd share the story.