Man I'm sick of looking at used Mustangs, taking a break and shop again next week...

[Volstang]

Madsedan, I experienced the same thing a couple years ago when I was looking for a used Mustang. I expanded my search area and found a 2015 Mustang GT Premium with the color and options I wanted that was 18 months old and only had 3200 miles. Completely unmolested and CPO and $9000 below MSRP. Loved it and drove 3 hours to get it. Luckily, you are in Dallas and have a larger selection. Take your time and don’t settle and you will find the right car. Best of luck!

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[Shifting_Gears]

Great deals exist on used Stangs. IMO, I rather let someone take the depreciation hit and scoop it up after. There’s great deals on cars with plenty of warranty left. A thorough drive and knowing what to look/listen for help a lot.

I got my 16 a month ago with 5,700 miles. 1 owner, looks like it rolled off the assembly line. Paid a little under 10k less than original MSRP and was able to nab a super low mile PP GT, CPO. Still had the original tires with tread left, whereas a 17 I looked at with 10k had already gone through a set of rear tires and had the axle bearings and seals replaced. Bet you I can tell you why...

 

[AlmostFamous]

Find some more money and buy a new one ?

If your looking at used $27k cars and they all suck that bad, find a little more money. There’s guys posting here that bought new Mustangs for not much money more.

Good luck. Used car Market is a nightmare. I just went thru that buying a used truck.

That’s what I paid for my base 2016 Mustang GT brand new!

 

[JJP SVT]

Hi Gang,

First post and I can certainly relate to this topic as I was recently shopping for new / slightly used cars too.

A little back story, my love and ownership of Mustangs goes over 30 years. My recent purchase is a used '18 GT Premium with the following: Royal Crimson, A10, 401A, Smart and Safe package, Security Package, 19 inch polished wheels, mini spare, with 3400 miles. This is the exact car I specced out on the Ford site and it came out to be just under $48,000!

For the previous 2 months, I shopped Mustangs on Craigslist, Searchtempest, and Cargurus. I used the options I wanted as a guide while I traveled the all over CT, NH, MA, and NY for a clean used Mustang GT. All were one or two owner and in "excellent" condition. I must admit that these cars looked great in the pictures but looked slightly different in person.

The final straw at looking was when I decided to drive 5.5 hours one way to the Western side of NY to a Ford dealer that had about 25 used S550 mustangs. I had picked out the 3 I wanted to drive, while shopping online, and found that they were still there when I arrived at 4pm. I drove a 16 GT A6, 18 EBoost M6, and an 18 GT vert with an M6. I liked the 16 GT the best, as it had only 11k miles, and looked into it some more.

Looking it over, I noticed on both door latches (attached to the body) had rust! Well, come to find out that this car was bought back by Ford, repaired, and wound up on this dealer's lot. The Carfax showed some history and the dealer service records showed me a lot more... many electrical issues. While that car had what I wanted for options, I decided against it as it "didn't feel right".

I had stopped shopping for a while and decided to look again.

My current car I noticed / stalked (online) on this dealer's lot for over 2 months. During that time, the price went down by $7000. I had stared at the car online long enough and now it was time to go check it out.

Thursday, I go the this dealer in middle of MA and there is the '18 GT sitting right on front of the door at the dealership. I tell the sales person that I'd like to test drive the car and he asks for my license. After the typical "4 right turns", back to the dealership we are. I thank him for his time and tell him that all I wanted to do was drive an automatic mustang. My 2 previous GTs, '13 and '15, had the M6.

Saturday morning, the sales person calls me asks if I'm still interested and I said yes. I said that I'd like to bring my wife, a bank check for $10,000 and ask if I wanted to, can by the car today. He says yes and I ask is there anything stopping me from making this deal work. He says that they take care of everything. Works for me as that is how I bought my 2 previous GTs. Well...

My wife and I go back to this dealership (125 miles one way), we were given permission to drive the car for a bit, and we come back to speak with the salesperson. We tell him yes, we'd like to buy it today. Fill out some paperwork and into the finance office we go. After a few minutes, all is approved if I wanted to buy BUT... I couldn't bring it home today. Say what...?

"Well, in MA, the RMV isn't open and we can't get you plates and then we need to..." I had signed off at this point. I tell him that the sales person would have everything ready if we wanted to buy today. He goes on to say "well, that's not how this works. Haven't you ever bought a car before?" His manager comes on and repeats what the FI guy said. He goes on to say that if I don't buy today, the car might be sold or auctioned soon. I said "so be it" and walked out of the office.

At this time, the sales person walks up to me thinking that all is well. Uh, no. I tell him what had happened and he apologized big time. He then reaches out the the GM of the dealership, tells him what had happened, and then the 3 of us speak. He listened very well to both sides of the story and then says that he understands both sides of the story. He proceeds to say that it is rare that a person knows what they want, and has the desire / means to make it work that day. The GM offers to hold the car for us and to contact him directly if we wish to purchase it. He also said that he would stay on top of all the processes and details to make it work of we want the car on Monday. Then, he throws in the clincher: "We'll even come to your house to pick you up." I must admit, that sounded good but really dislike the idea of being held captive without a car if the BS happened again. Need less to say, I left with no car and it was a long drive home with the wife. Thankfully, there was an awesome Italian place nearby that certainly took the edge off.

Monday morning, I make a decision to buy the car. I email the GM and the sales person with my intentions and desires. I go to the bank, get the financing approved and now have purchase price of the car in hand. I go back home, pick up my wife, and back to the dealership we go. The salesperson calls me as we're driving and I tell him I'm ready to buy and will gladly turn around if we cannot make this work today. He promises that all will be well and I took him at his word. We check out the car top to bottom again, buy it, and bring it home.

Now, I've only driven the car 3 times since buying it as it's only a toy, not a commuter. I'm still learning the differences over my '15 GT and the 401A gauges have way more options that the '15 did. Driven normally, the car will skip gears. Putting the car in Sport mode, I love how the car shifts gears sequentially.

No regrets with the purchase. Sometimes, you gotta go through the BS but at least go in knowing what you want, and also what is non-negotiable. View attachment 313971 View attachment 313973

 

[Braski]

My car is mint! Make me the right offer and I'll deliver it!!

 

[SergeyMelnik]

My car is mint! Make me the right offer and I'll deliver it!!

Lol

 

[Bob D.]

Hi Gang,

First post and I can certainly relate to this topic as I was recently shopping for new / slightly used cars too.

A little back story, my love and ownership of Mustangs goes over 30 years. My recent purchase is a used '18 GT Premium with the following: Royal Crimson, A10, 401A, Smart and Safe package, Security Package, 19 inch polished wheels, mini spare, with 3400 miles. This is the exact car I specced out on the Ford site and it came out to be just under $48,000!

For the previous 2 months, I shopped Mustangs on Craigslist, Searchtempest, and Cargurus. I used the options I wanted as a guide while I traveled the all over CT, NH, MA, and NY for a clean used Mustang GT. All were one or two owner and in "excellent" condition. I must admit that these cars looked great in the pictures but looked slightly different in person.

The final straw at looking was when I decided to drive 5.5 hours one way to the Western side of NY to a Ford dealer that had about 25 used S550 mustangs. I had picked out the 3 I wanted to drive, while shopping online, and found that they were still there when I arrived at 4pm. I drove a 16 GT A6, 18 EBoost M6, and an 18 GT vert with an M6. I liked the 16 GT the best, as it had only 11k miles, and looked into it some more.

Looking it over, I noticed on both door latches (attached to the body) had rust! Well, come to find out that this car was bought back by Ford, repaired, and wound up on this dealer's lot. The Carfax showed some history and the dealer service records showed me a lot more... many electrical issues. While that car had what I wanted for options, I decided against it as it "didn't feel right".

I had stopped shopping for a while and decided to look again.

My current car I noticed / stalked (online) on this dealer's lot for over 2 months. During that time, the price went down by $7000. I had stared at the car online long enough and now it was time to go check it out.

Thursday, I go the this dealer in middle of MA and there is the '18 GT sitting right on front of the door at the dealership. I tell the sales person that I'd like to test drive the car and he asks for my license. After the typical "4 right turns", back to the dealership we are. I thank him for his time and tell him that all I wanted to do was drive an automatic mustang. My 2 previous GTs, '13 and '15, had the M6.

Saturday morning, the sales person calls me asks if I'm still interested and I said yes. I said that I'd like to bring my wife, a bank check for $10,000 and ask if I wanted to, can by the car today. He says yes and I ask is there anything stopping me from making this deal work. He says that they take care of everything. Works for me as that is how I bought my 2 previous GTs. Well...

My wife and I go back to this dealership (125 miles one way), we were given permission to drive the car for a bit, and we come back to speak with the salesperson. We tell him yes, we'd like to buy it today. Fill out some paperwork and into the finance office we go. After a few minutes, all is approved if I wanted to buy BUT... I couldn't bring it home today. Say what...?

"Well, in MA, the RMV isn't open and we can't get you plates and then we need to..." I had signed off at this point. I tell him that the sales person would have everything ready if we wanted to buy today. He goes on to say "well, that's not how this works. Haven't you ever bought a car before?" His manager comes on and repeats what the FI guy said. He goes on to say that if I don't buy today, the car might be sold or auctioned soon. I said "so be it" and walked out of the office.

At this time, the sales person walks up to me thinking that all is well. Uh, no. I tell him what had happened and he apologized big time. He then reaches out the the GM of the dealership, tells him what had happened, and then the 3 of us speak. He listened very well to both sides of the story and then says that he understands both sides of the story. He proceeds to say that it is rare that a person knows what they want, and has the desire / means to make it work that day. The GM offers to hold the car for us and to contact him directly if we wish to purchase it. He also said that he would stay on top of all the processes and details to make it work of we want the car on Monday. Then, he throws in the clincher: "We'll even come to your house to pick you up." I must admit, that sounded good but really dislike the idea of being held captive without a car if the BS happened again. Need less to say, I left with no car and it was a long drive home with the wife. Thankfully, there was an awesome Italian place nearby that certainly took the edge off.

Monday morning, I make a decision to buy the car. I email the GM and the sales person with my intentions and desires. I go to the bank, get the financing approved and now have purchase price of the car in hand. I go back home, pick up my wife, and back to the dealership we go. The salesperson calls me as we're driving and I tell him I'm ready to buy and will gladly turn around if we cannot make this work today. He promises that all will be well and I took him at his word. We check out the car top to bottom again, buy it, and bring it home.

Now, I've only driven the car 3 times since buying it as it's only a toy, not a commuter. I'm still learning the differences over my '15 GT and the 401A gauges have way more options that the '15 did. Driven normally, the car will skip gears. Putting the car in Sport mode, I love how the car shifts gears sequentially.

No regrets with the purchase. Sometimes, you gotta go through the BS but at least go in knowing what you want, and also what is non-negotiable. View attachment 313971 View attachment 313973

Great first post, and as one who has gone through a similar situation more than once, I liked reading that there was a happy resolution to your story.

I think most of us are saying the same thing in different ways: patience, and sometimes a little time off before starting to look again, can often lead to the right car ending up in your garage.

OP, don’t forget to post an update once you find your “right car.”

 

[JimsFury]

I have been looking at trading in my GTI to get into another Mustang, I had previously owned a 2015 GT base with PP, some nice bolt-ons, etc but the base infotainment and lack of carplay, sat radio, and leather seats pushed me into something more comfy for commuting. Now that I drive less for work I want to get into another one and going to buy a nice used model with premium and performance package if I can find it. Lots of options under $27k at local dealers but the quality of the cars is vastly different and the dealers seem blind to what the market is on these.

Over the last 3-4 weeks of casual browsing and inquiring on autotrader and cargurus I have seen the same cars sit for weeks at the dealers, one in particular was on cargurus for 45 days before I went to see it. They fall into 3 categories so far...
-Car looks great in pictures and seems to check out until you see them in person and realize every piece of sheet metal has a scratch with crappy touch up or highway dings all over the front, etc.
-Car looks great in person but drives janky because the previous owner bounced it off the rev limiter at every stoplight. I've driven two cars that was clearly needing repair, one with a CEL on the test drive.
-Lastly is the cars that push the limits of what can legally be sold. In my state we have emission/safety testing and as far as I know a dealer can't sell you a car that can't pass those test. So how the hell can a dealer sell a car with no catalytic convertors or mufflers, CEL's that they claim will go off eventually because the car has an intake that requires tune on it but they flashed it back to oem to certify the car.

I was so tired of the bullshit from Ford dealers selling Certified cars Saturday afternoon I just couldn't take it anymore and snapped at the sales manager that was thanking me for coming by and wanted to know how to earn my business. I had come in to see a 2017 with aftermarket wheels and a slightly lower ride height but was labeled online, and still is, as a Ford CPO car. When I got there I checked out the car, got on the ground and can see the sway bars were aftermarket, crappy welded exhaust with no mufflers or resonator, intake requiring a tune, and lowering springs on stock shocks that should keep this car from being CPO'd by Ford. When I asked if they were going to reduce the price by the $1,495 for the certified warranty because of the aftermarket parts they told me the price didn't include that and it was non-negotiable on the price. When I brought up the autotrader add on my phone to show them what it said they claimed that the car "could" be certified if I negotiated it into the deal. I decided to play along and see how far we could take this so I insisted we walk back to the service and finance guy that handles the Ford certification process, we met with a guy in finance and he confirmed that the car couldn't be certified with all those parts on the car but I could buy an aftermarket warranty. When I told him that would likely be voided by the mods as well and then pointed out that the cats had been removed they said it would need to go in the shop before they could sell it.

What the hell is wrong with these Ford dealers, am I wrong for expecting them to at least put a car up on the lift before claiming CPO and putting up for sale?

One huge dealer I went to Saturday is apparently really big on buying branded title lemon/buybacks from Ford and putting them on the lot. Their adds say nothing online and the only thing you have to indicate it is if you look at the Carfax. These cars were priced just as a normal title car would be, grossly overpriced for a branded title car in my opinion, so any normal person walking up to the largest volume Ford dealer in the area would assume this $27k 2015 mustang gt with performance and premium package that looks great and drives great must be good to go, why else would this huge Ford dealer put it on the front of their lot right?

So I am taking a hiatus for a few days, no autotrader, no cargurus, I'm just going to wait until Friday evening and update the search engine to see if anything decent comes up at a dealer within 100 miles of my house.

Most cars like Mustang's, Camaro's, Challenger's & Corvette's are usually beat on and have the shit ran out of them. I would be afraid of buying used because of that fact.

 

[Hack]

I wouldn't be afraid of a used Mustang. They are built to take a beating.

 

[APproductions]

I decided I wanted a Mustang back in January and started looking around every now and again but couldn't find anything that fit my wants and was priced right. In July I started a new position with work that made my commute go from 22 miles each way to 6 miles round trip. Plus I have the capability to work from home when the snow arrives, so I decided that now was the time to check an item off my bucket list and buy a Mustang (will be my daily driver).

I started looking every day in early July, called on a bunch and went to see a few as well. What I wanted was a 15-17 base GT 6 speed with PP plus Recaros with under 10k miles. There weren't many in the area so I kept expanding my search more and more. It took 3 and half months and a lot of time, but I finally found my grail car and picked her up last Wednesday, driving over 3 hours each way to get her. It was worth the wait!

There are good used cars out there at great prices, you just have to patient and wade through a lot of junk to get there. I was lucky in that I had a reliable car to drive everyday and there was no rush on my end, so I could be picky and negotiate hard on price.

Good luck to OP, I know the struggle.

 

[swooshdave]

I once shopped for a car for three years and had to fly halfway across the country to drive it home. #thestruggleisreal

 

[Hack]

Around here I've found that late fall or early winter is a good time to buy. Some people are afraid to drive their Mustang in inclement weather and they don't have space/money/etc. to store it.

 

[Party Rock]

Most cars like Mustang's, Camaro's, Challenger's & Corvette's are usually beat on and have the shit ran out of them. I would be afraid of buying used because of that fact.

Would you say that it's worth spending the extra several thousand over used to get a new Mustang?

 

[swooshdave]

Considering there could be several thousand in damage?

 

[axon]

Well I'm in Dallas and had been looking strictly at large dealers, mostly Ford dealers, and just assumed I would be looking at a better quality of car but it hasn't worked out that way.

I put my car up for sale and have had some interest but there is a $1,400 value to trading my car in in tax savings. And so far I am able to get trade offers close to what I'd sell my car for so I'd be better off trading the car in.

I bought my '15 new and I considered doing that as well I just don't want to jack up my monthly too much, and I don't want another base model. I'd end up spending a couple thousand on infotainment upgrade and seats in the first few months, better off saving some money buying a used premium 6mt.

I can certainly afford to blow it out and buy exactly what I want but I'm trying to practice some restraint for once, I got these kid$ man lol...

I had pretty good luck in San Antonio. Got a new 2018 GT Premium 6MT (no performance pack) with an MSRP of 43k for 33k back in July. This was after stacking dealer discount, ford cash back, a private cash offer, and first responder discount (which was doubled for July 4th). Had some equity in my previous car and the tax advantage for trading in a more expensive car as well so I am sitting happy with a substantially lower payment and a car that is just as fun on public roads. This was at Jordan Ford if you're interested in making the drive. I did everything by email since I live some 5 hours away and just drove over on a weekend to sign off on the paperwork.

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