Buying a van and getting it back to my place

[Iwant2dothis4ever]

Okay so I got a weird question that has just occurred to me. I am in looking to move into a chevy express cargo van in the next couple months. I live in a rather large city, so it is damn near impossible to find one here, and if one is posted on craigslist it will literally be bought within 48 hours.

So, I can obviously just look into more rural areas of the state and even outside of the state to find a van, which I actually did, and there is a lot better of a selection to choose from. My only problem is the drive time I am looking at is like 1+ hours away from my apartment. Once I buy the van I need to somehow drive this thing back to the apartment, because if i drive my own car than I would need to drive my own car back home. 

I currently do not know anyone that could drive my car back home from the dealership for me, so I can then drive the van back home. The only way I can think of is to get a taxi to drop me off at the dealership initially, but that would cost me a lot of money since it is going to be a long distance ride.

 

[BC Guy]

Is a bus or train an option?
How about asking the dealership if they could have one of the lot men drive the van to your place and then you drive him back?

 

[BradKW]

Down here, Miami area is the closest for car shopping and it's 3+ hours away. Over the years I've done the mainland shopping trip too many times both for myself and for friends. What really sux is the added pressure to "buy something" after going all that way.

I've done it in every form, from same day turnarounds to hotel and 3 day weekends. I've found the best way for me is to simply rent a car with the option of 1-way drop off...if you book it online you can usually find something for $30-$40/day. Make sure there's another rental in area you're going, and make it very clear you might want only 1 way...I once needed to return a Budget rental to Ft Lauderdale airport and they tried to charge me a $300 fee for one way drop off.

Home Depot rents trucks and vans cheap, but I have no idea if you could swing a one way trip with those...likely not.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

I think the Car rental advice is probably the best if you can do the one way rental and there is a place to drop it off. If not renting a trailer and towing the car home could be an option. I've rented trailers from U-haul a few times over the years and pick them up and drop them off at a different location and it's always been fairly cheap. Just need a Uhaul in both locations and if they have uhauls in both locations, most likely have car rental places in both locations.

 

[Milk Hauler]

I think the Car rental advice is probably the best if you can do the one way rental and there is a place to drop it off. If not renting a trailer and towing the car home could be an option. I've rented trailers from U-haul a few times over the years and pick them up and drop them off at a different location and it's always been fairly cheap. Just need a Uhaul in both locations and if they have uhauls in both locations, most likely have car rental places in both locations.

This! How big is your car? Even my lil poe dunk town in Idaho has 6 uhaul places. Buy your van, have it checked out for any issues, then rent a TOW dolly for $35 a day. Tow it to the closest uhaul place to where you live. Drop the tow dolly off and drive the van home.

Call a taxi to take you back to the uhaul place, then driver your car back home.

Sent from my SCH-S968C using Tapatalk

 

[cyndi]

I used to do drive-aways. I'd drive a car, one way, to the owner's desired location.

There's several avenues for finding a driver
Uship - https://www.uship.com/
auto driveaway - http://www.autodriveaway.com/
and of course, craigslist

Or you can rent a dolly or trailer from uhaul. If your current vehicle is not big enough to tow the van you can rent a vehicle that is

 

[masterplumber]

Or if your car is smaller, just tow it on the dolly behind the van.

 

[Wanderer]

Great suggestions people, I was also thinking of a major drive (Till life issues got in the way) and by gum, these are good suggestions!

 

[66788]

California DMV sells a "One Trip Permit" for $30.00 that is good for any motor vehicle.   It is legal registration valid in any state for that one trip only, and the trip can be multiple days or round trip.

Oregon has a "2 week registration" that one can get at the DMV with minimal paperwork (VIN only I believe) and it's valid registration as well.

Check your local DMV for something similar.

 

[BlackNBlue]

Public transit, rideshare (Craigslist), hitchhike, ask a friend. I just picked up my van from about 500 miles way, and it took some earnest phonecalls with the seller to hold it for two weeks while I waited for someone local who was heading there and back anyway. I also had a couple of people who'd've done the trip for a few bucks.

Brad makes an excellent point about the pressure of "well, we've already gone this far". Do your best to mentally decouple the condition of the vehicle from the effort invested in checking it out in person. I've seen utter disasters happen because of that factor.

 

[66788]

How do we ask the goons at the dmv about this one trip permit :huh:.. every time i tried to buy a vehicle and to take it out of state they told me that it either had to be put on a flatbed with a BOL and driven out of commieforina and taken delivery elsewhere to avoid the sales tax

You don't tell them that you are taking it out of state, you just buy the permit.  

I made a round trip from Sacramento, California to San Jose, Costa Rica (about  10K miles) on a then $10.00 one trip permit by checking the "round trip" option.   I never had a problem with the permit, and it was examined by 3 different traffic cops en route.

I have a few of these in blank with my important papers in my safe just for future use.  (Yes they are the older $10.00 versions, identical to the newer ones, but costing less)