The Best Places To Buy A Used Car In North Carolina

Memorial Day weekend is here and that means a lot of savvy car shoppers will try to capitalize on the best deals. According to an online service that helps compare car prices, shoppers in North Carolina looking to get behind the wheel of a used car this weekend may want to rethink heading to the nearest dealership.

Autolist says North Carolina ranked No. 26 in the country last month for vehicle affordability. A car here typically costs $229 more than the national average.

The best city to buy a car in North Carolina is actually Charlotte and the best county is Lincoln County. Shoppers who buy a used car in Charlotte pay $744 less for a car. Similarly, those who buy in Lincoln County save an average of $1,895 on the car.

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Here are the top 10 cities to buy a used car in North Carolina:

1. Charlotte, average savings: $743
2. Huntersville, average savings: $705
3. Greensboro, average savings: $443
4. Raleigh, average savings: $265
5. Wilmington, average savings: $243
6. Cary, average savings: $166
7. High Point, average savings: $81
8. Winston-Salem, average savings: $35
9. Durham, average savings: $10
10. Burlington, average savings: $3

Here are the top 10 counties to buy a used car in North Carolina:

1. Lincoln County, average savings: $1,895
2. Edgecombe County, average savings: $873
3. Mecklenburg County, average savings: $794
4. Orange County, average savings: $564
5. Pender County, average savings: $492
6. Robeson County, average savings: $414
7. Granville County, average savings: $315
8. Moore County, average savings: $313
9. Stanly County, average savings: $289
10. Iredell County, average savings: $277

The prices of used cars can vary significantly in counties in the same general geographic area, Chase Disher, product manager for growth and analytics at the company, tells Patch. Knowing that information can empower shoppers.

“The buyer knows that they can actually go 20 minutes west or east or something, and potentially find a better deal on a car,” he says.

Those looking for the best deals might consider heading to an urban area, where there’s often more competition. That usually leads to lower prices.
“There tend to be more dealers, a lot more inventory and therefore more competition, so that tends to drive prices down,” he says.

But if you can, buy that sweet ride in Florida or California.

“Without a doubt, Florida tends to be the cheapest state consistently,” Disher says. “Often when I’m going to look at some of the top data I need to scroll past a bunch of Florida cities because that’s just single-handedly the best place to buy a car.”

The company aims to provide consumers and the automotive industry data to better understand local trends. Every month, the company refreshes its entire car-buying database and crunches the numbers for each city and county where it has statistically significant data. The firm compares the cities and the average price across them for different vehicles.

“I'm looking at California right now and I can see that, you know, Aliso Viejo is the cheapest city within all of California and the average price of a vehicle is $1,500 bucks less than other vehicles,” Disher says.

If you want see information for a specific city or county and see how it stacks up to others, head over to the Autolist website and type in the name of a city.

Autolist, based in the San Francisco area, is a metasearch automotive marketing platform. The company aims to provide the best search experience for finding a new, used or certified pre-owned vehicle.

The company has between 5 million and 8 million listings at any given time.

Disher notes the company’s data is based on listing prices and doesn’t include any taxes or other fees.

Patch reporter Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images