[Table 5]

Good post Pylon.

Despite them being a bad place to SELL a car if you want to maximize your dollar, I definitely think when you're BUYING a car, a dealer is often best place to go (unless it's one of those corner lot type deals). They have usually inspected/fixed/cleaned the cars, so you have a fairly good idea of what you're getting into.

Plus they tend to be pretty fair in terms of price. I've found that most private sellers typically over value their cars (especially if it's something interesting), while dealers tend to just want something that will maximize their profit but still sell in a reasonable amount of time...so they tend to be fairly decent price wise, or be willing to negotiate into a fair area. You might not get a steal, but it should be a decent price.

The only better place to buy from is the obsessive owner who has every single maintenance record (although this guy tends to price their cars a bit higher too). The one thing I think a lot of dealers lack is maintenance history/records, as that stuff doesn't always change hands if the car bounces around a bit. It might not be a big deal with a lot of newer cars as sometimes you can track those records down, but it makes a huge difference with older/speciality cars. With these types of cars, I am ok with paying more, because ownership/maintenance history is everything.