Anyone purchased a car over the net?

[MaukaRunner]

My coworker told me that a friend bought a car thru Carson Toyota and it was cheaper than our local dealer.

I was recently at the City Hall and asked the person working there if a tax is charged when purchasing a car thru the internet. The girl told me that if the bill of sale does not show a tax being charged on it then they have to charge our 4% tax before the car can be registered. If the tax is over 4% then no charge but if it less than 4% then you have to pay the difference.

I was wondering if anyone experienced this.

I asked Linda @ Carson Toyota twice about a tax being shown on the bill of sale but have not gotten a reply.

Their price seemed good but if I add the 4% tax and the license fees then it became within a hundred dollars of the local dealer. Please leave me your experiences of if you prefer not to have it public you can pm me. Thanks.

[Matador98]

I bought my Land Cruiser on ebay. I didn't really have to deal with the taxes of a new car....I had the seller write up the bill of sale for 20% what I paid. It worked.

[sequoiasoon]

Bought mine over net/phone. As City hall told you. You have to pay the local tax rate. I was charged 0 tax in North Carolina wher I bought it but had to pay local New York tax when I registered. Same deal pay there and pay difference here otherwise. I did it to get the truck I wanted which NY dealers were unwilling to do.

[ausk9-0]

At the time we were looking at a '04 Sequoia SR5 that had the dual tone Grey/Sand. They were willing to "give" it to us for $35,000 out the door and this was in Sep '04(I think). At the time they didn't have any '05 Sequoia's in stock and they didn't know when they were coming in. I looked on Carson's site and they had a special for a '04 same model for 31K.I was going to buy it but I also saw a '05 SR5 that was for $32K. After shipping and tax it came out to around $35K. I got the better engine in the '05 and I was also able to get the truck in one color instead of that dual tone.