So, a friend of mine is looking for an used car and he heard that cars in LA are generally much cheaper (~1-2k) than other areas like mine, the Bay Area. Any truth to that?

 

Not for AZ compared to LA. My mom wanted to buy an accord. We shopped in LA and AZ and found the car for 1900 less in AZ. WE had the car shipped back to cali for my mom and she still came out ahead

 

between bay area and LA, yeah i think LA is cheaper. generally speaking, of course

 

According to what I've seen, Honda's are extremely cheap in the LA area. My Lexus definitely wasn't in that "cheap" field compared to others of the same model.

Thats why we have the internet. Look up and compare prices to other areas.

 

It does seem like you can find better deals in L.A. than elsewhere in CA. My bro just picked up a 98 SC300 pearl white with 120k for $5300 which I think is a great deal!! It came with aftermarket HID's and gs400 17' wheels.

BTW, the car is clean in and out and does NOT carry a salvage title.

 

Larger concentration of dealers in LA ? Is that the reason you always bought your cars in LA even when you were in North Cal ?

 

Maybe larger population area with LA over SF, even though both are top 5 cities in the U.S.

 

New car dealership, yes,
used car market, not really, at least here in Vegas you can find better deals than Cali.

 

I saved about 7k for my GS in LA compared to AZ prices

 

yup, of all cars i bought, norcal prices couldn't touch socal. even if i calculated in the time and gas i had to buy to drive the car back up, it was still cheaper

 

I found yes if you buy from dealers that are right next to the auction houses, my lexus was cheapest there.

I try to buy private cars only from ritz areas, like Laguna Beach, OC, La Jolla etc and avoid ghetto areas just because in my experience people with money take better care of their cars.

 

Being from NorCal and having friends that are originally from SoCal and some current friends who live down there, they have told me that cars and many other things are cheaper than up here in NorCal. When I took a road trip down there about 8 years ago, I actually bought some aftermarket parts for my Honda (not originally intended) because the exact same parts were so much more in NorCal. Heck.... I was down there recently and they have specials at many McDonald's such as 2 Big Macs for $3.50. A single Big Mac at the McDonald's next to my house is $3.29.

It's probably because LA is so close to the Port of Long Beach where many things are shipped from overseas in containers. I'm sure us NorCal folk get the added markup because of shipping upstate.

 

haha, not exactly, there is a Port of Oakland right up in nor cal =)

 

cars are cheaper in LA because there is more competition in LA for new car sales. Basic rules of supply and demand and prices =D

 

mostly coz' of the competition in LA is much bigger. the number of lexus dealers in socal alone is amazing. 15 mins in any direction and you hit lexus dealership, traffic or not.