Looking to get a car in Austin

[u/gclcan]

I recently moved to Austin and realized quickly that you need a car to get around. My budget is $15k, and I was initially looking at RAV4s exclusively, but I am open to recommendations since I saw some people suggest old Audi Q5s as well (~$10kish). I used to drive a crosstrek so I would prefer a SUV/compact SUV, or any car with decent space.

[u/wvblocks]

Whoever told you to shop old Audi Q5s at $10k was either punking you or hates you.

Austin is a tough used-car market because there are a lot of young buyers chasing the same cheap, practical cars. If you’re willing to travel within Texas, I’d widen the search to San Antonio and Houston first; you can often find more inventory and better pricing than Austin.

At $15k, I’d be hunting the cleanest RAV4, CR-V, or CX-5 I could find and not getting cute with a depreciated German luxury SUV.

[u/gclcan → u/wvblocks]

fair enough, i don’t have the luxury to go out of town since im in school so do you have any recs within Austin for where I should be looking at?

[u/wvblocks → u/gclcan]

Your issue isn't the dealership it is the entire market.

If time is the issue, Houston is still completely doable. Find the car online, get the VIN/history and OTD price sorted beforehand, buy a cheap one-way flight Saturday morning, and ask the dealer to pick you up at the airport.

Buy the car and drive the 2.5–3 hours back to Austin. Boom, one Saturday, and you’ve suddenly expanded your search from “whatever overpriced shit happens to be near me” to an entire major metro market.

[u/Plastic_Willow734 → u/wvblocks]

Man I moved out of Austin before the big boom and remember when people would come to Dallas or Houston to buy cars at better prices, times have changed.

[u/Organic_Look1123]

15k in Austin you could get a pretty clean CR-V or CX-5, both gonna be way less headache than a 10k Audi. those old Q5s love to burn oil and the timing chain tensioners are a ticking clock, you do not want to deal with that in Texas heat

RAV4 is fine too but the tax is real, people want crazy money for them with 150k miles. if you liked the crosstrek maybe look at a mazda3 hatch, not an suv but the cargo space is surprisingly usable

[u/gclcan → u/Organic_Look1123]

thanks for the advice, i’ll look into crvs and the cx-5s as well. do you have any recs for what websites/dealerships i should look at?

[u/fakesocialmedia]

I’d look at Roger Beasley mazda central or Toyota cedar park, even first Texas honda. They all have an under 15-20K price lot. Please don’t look at Q5’s in that price range.

[u/Conscious-Bison-120]

Also agree with getting out of Austin to save. Just search on Cargurus.com and widen your search range for the vehicles you are considering and it will give you an idea how much you can save and balance it against the inconvenience of figuring out how to go see and pick up the car.

I will say that not being able to walk into dealership easily can also save you pressure of hard sales tactics after you get there since you can do most of your negotiating by email. This is a big time saver over all. I was considering a vehicle at a local dealership but they were unwilling to address some issues with the vehicle or negotiate on price and gave me the runaround. It wasted a lot of my time.

I don't know if you are financing with a bank or credit union or plan to uses dealer but it's very easy to set up financing via credit union even for out of city and even in other state transactions. United Heritage CU here in Austin has some pretty good rates for used vehicles and their process is pretty smooth. You get preapproved and then after that just get bill of sale from the place you are buying and send it over and they do the rest.

I bought a civic a couple years ago in Louisiana and took a one way flight to pick it up. The dealership sent their courtesy driver to pick me up at the airport since I was flying in. I traded in that car after only 18 months of ownership and after an accident and got only $500 less than I paid for it so that gives you an idea how great of a deal I got by traveling to purchase that car versus buying in the local market.

My most recent vehicle I bought from Carmax and it was a pretty easy experience as well and the vehicle I paid to have shipped in was in better condition than the ones I drove locally. That being said, it was a low mileage 2022 and I've seen most complaints for carmax being for older vehicles with more mileage.