Paul Hawker
Enthusiast
Anyone trying to purchase a used Viper, or has recently purchased one...Please post your experience here!
Buying a used Viper...Your experience here!
- Thread starter Paul Hawker
- Start date
SneakyPete
Enthusiast
I just bought my 3rd viper from the Viper Club classifieds. Seems to be the best place to shop along with autotrader.com.
venmous
Viper Owner
In July, I purchased my Viper, a Black 95RT10 from Bay State Motorsports in Boston, MA. These guys were great! Todd Rosenthal, who also runs Naples Motorsports in Naples, FL made my buying experience a great one.
Mine had 4K miles and was in beautiful shape; I mean immaculate.
Straight stock and it came from Maryland. This car was and is everything I expected.
All bias aside, I originally planned on buying in the 39-41K range and could have done so for any Viper w/ 18K+ miles. However, I realized I had the opportunity to purchase a solid black Viper (my favorite color) w/ only 4k miles and pretty much brand new. I paid $46,500 and do not feel like I was cheated, even if it was a Gen1. I love my car; like it's said: Supply and Demand.
I almost purchased a '96 White/Blue advertised on Autotrader near Detroit with 18K miles and advertised for 41500 OBO, but I decided on the color I wanted with many fewer miles for more than I really budgeted to spend!
Mine had 4K miles and was in beautiful shape; I mean immaculate.
Straight stock and it came from Maryland. This car was and is everything I expected.
All bias aside, I originally planned on buying in the 39-41K range and could have done so for any Viper w/ 18K+ miles. However, I realized I had the opportunity to purchase a solid black Viper (my favorite color) w/ only 4k miles and pretty much brand new. I paid $46,500 and do not feel like I was cheated, even if it was a Gen1. I love my car; like it's said: Supply and Demand.
I almost purchased a '96 White/Blue advertised on Autotrader near Detroit with 18K miles and advertised for 41500 OBO, but I decided on the color I wanted with many fewer miles for more than I really budgeted to spend!
Jerry Dobson
Enthusiast
I looked for a long time. I wanted a good clean car. I wanted forged pistons. (I did not want a new car)
None of them had over 8000 miles. I was amazed at how trashed these Vipers were. Not looking at the speedo, I would have guessed 30k-50k miles. Many of these Vipers go through a lot of owners, auctions, dealers. So buyer beware. Seeing a car on Ebay for $45k.....you get what you pay for. These **** cars are affecting the price of the nice cars.
I ended up flying out of state and paying for a transport to bring me the car. So the flight was $600 and $850 for transport, on top of the higher asking price. But now I am happy.
None of them had over 8000 miles. I was amazed at how trashed these Vipers were. Not looking at the speedo, I would have guessed 30k-50k miles. Many of these Vipers go through a lot of owners, auctions, dealers. So buyer beware. Seeing a car on Ebay for $45k.....you get what you pay for. These **** cars are affecting the price of the nice cars.
I ended up flying out of state and paying for a transport to bring me the car. So the flight was $600 and $850 for transport, on top of the higher asking price. But now I am happy.
snowmann
Enthusiast
I have been looking for about 6 months now. The best piece of advice I can tell you for looking at used Vipers is to use CARFAX!!! USE CARFAX!!! In my experiences I would guess about 75% of all the "good" deal turn out to have a shakey past. I have seen wrecks, salvages, double the amount of owners the seller claims, autions, lemon laws, you name it and I have seen it. If you don't use carfax you'll be lucky if you don't get ripped off.
lleone
Enthusiast
I bought mine last year from a dealer in AZ (I'm in NY). I saw the car originally on eBay and it didn't sell. Worked out the deal after the auction and I'm very happy. The dealer wasn't a Dodge dealer and a little out of his league when it came to details on the car, but they were very cooperative and basically nice guys. I almost drove the car back, but decided to ship it at the last moment. I've seen some people complain about Reliable Carrier, but they picked my car up in AZ on a Monday and had it on my doorstop in NY on that Thursday, which was one day early.
Vanquish
Enthusiast
lleone
May I ask who was you carrier and ** much did they charge?
Regards,
BR
May I ask who was you carrier and ** much did they charge?
Regards,
BR
lleone
Enthusiast
Geesh, I bought my 2000 ACR used for ~$65k a little more than a year ago. It was and still is a good price for the car I bought. I'd imagine that if I were selling it now, I'd price it somewhere in the mid-50s, but that's a big IF. If you walked up to me and said here's $65k, I say no thanks. Fortunately it's most likely the last of my cars that I would sell. I drive this thing everywhere. I can't help myself. I have some very nice machinery that is feeling very envious of my snake. I've seriously beat up the lower front fascia, put 9k+ miles on it, raced and autoxed it frequently, drove it up and down the Eastern sea board, and I can't even begin to count the number of times I've run to the grocery store in it. Hmm, I guess I didn't buy it as an "investment". I bought it to drive. If you're worried about your investment, consult a financial planner and put your money elsewhere. If you're worried about not having a Viper to drive, buy one!
Lou
Lou
gtsviper
Enthusiast
Don't tell us you're finally buying a Viper Paul. We'll miss seeing your Lexis on the track.
slaughterj
Enthusiast
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When I was looking to purchase, I searched for a few months, looking at all the websites, good (viperclub.org, autotrader.com, cars.com, etc.) and bad (random ones that come up, can't recall them). Found one of interest in Tampa, and there were viper owners willing to inspect it for me (save me an extra trip just to take an initial look - definitely the way to go). Flew down, and "flew" back with it! Make sure to get an extended warranty, because mine has paid for itself repeatedly in less than a year into the extended term, but I do drive it daily so that accumulates a lot of wear and tear.
ssstrong viper
Enthusiast
I've got a red 97 GTS....are you interested?
Scorch
Enthusiast
My wife and I purchased a 1994 RT10 from Naples Motorsports (Florida) in June and had it shipped to Michigan. Darren and the crew at Naples were very good to deal with. Car had 6700 miles on it (the highest we looked at) but it was in near perfect condition. IMPORTANT LESSON: MILEAGE IS IN NO WAY AN INDICATOR OF CONDITION. Paid a premium price but that's what it took to get the car we wanted. I was able to verify the car was a one owner in addition to getting complete service records. Just for piece of mind we also had a third party inspection done including compression and leak down on the engine.
It took us almost 9 months to find the right car. As stated by Jerry, there are a lot of completely crap cars on the market. It is truly a buyer beware situation. My wife and I looked at cars in four states and talked to people in ten others before buying the car from Naples. Most of the cars were simply not maintained or had been grossly abused.
The hardest thing for me to deal with personally is that people will flat out lie to you about their car. I know it's not a perfect world out there but the level of dishonesty in the used car market is appalling. People who would defend their families and this country to the death will lie to you in a heartbeat about their used Viper. Our personal experience was that private owners lie to you worse than the dealers do. Most of the business done by exotic car dealers is by word of month. They can't afford to screw people over and stay in business.
Like Jerry, we paid $600 airfare to Florida, $900 shipping, plus premium price for the car. In the end we have a car we are very happy with. It runs great, looks great and is an absolute blast to drive.
It took us almost 9 months to find the right car. As stated by Jerry, there are a lot of completely crap cars on the market. It is truly a buyer beware situation. My wife and I looked at cars in four states and talked to people in ten others before buying the car from Naples. Most of the cars were simply not maintained or had been grossly abused.
The hardest thing for me to deal with personally is that people will flat out lie to you about their car. I know it's not a perfect world out there but the level of dishonesty in the used car market is appalling. People who would defend their families and this country to the death will lie to you in a heartbeat about their used Viper. Our personal experience was that private owners lie to you worse than the dealers do. Most of the business done by exotic car dealers is by word of month. They can't afford to screw people over and stay in business.
Like Jerry, we paid $600 airfare to Florida, $900 shipping, plus premium price for the car. In the end we have a car we are very happy with. It runs great, looks great and is an absolute blast to drive.
