Looking for a used car? County ranks high in survey

Flathead County is the third most affordable county in the state to buy a used vehicle, according to an Autolist study completed last year.

Used car buyers can save $538 within the county. Although, they can save $200 more in Lewis and Clark County and about $1,000 more in Sanders County. The study pulled data from Edmunds.com, Autobytel, Ebay and other major retailers.

Joe Peters, owner of Joe’s Auto Sales in Columbia Falls, said it would be very hard to prove that this survey is true, because of the nature of used car sales.

“You’re the only one who’s got that rig,” he said. No other dealer or vehicle owner is going to have a vehicle with the same combination of make, model, mileage, color and condition.

New cars are a different story because dealers all pay the same price initially, he said. A dealership’s advertising scale and number of salesmen make the difference in sale price.

He said the Columbia Falls market is blue-collar so they have to keep prices affordable. They don’t sell new cars.

“We’re very competitive,” he said. They check prices online at sites such as Autotrader, and try to be less expensive than the competition.

The general practice in the used auto industry is using lots of past sales to be able to predict the price of a specific vehicle, said Alex Klein, data science vice president for Autolist.

Autolist, like other websites such as Kelley Blue Book and NADAguides.com, use algorithms to predict how much the price will fall as a vehicle ages, or if it gets into a wreck.

Autolist found that the biggest factor affecting price is the density of dealers in the county. From an economic standpoint, more competition between dealers will drive the price down, Klein said.

However, Peters doesn’t buy the reasoning. He said the Internet has made everything more competitive. His store has been in the family since 1956 and he’s been selling vehicles for over 30 years.

In the past 10 years he has noticed that “people are more informed than they’ve ever been.” Customers are likely to have already researched prices online before going to the lot.

However, he looks on the bright side.

“Despite the Internet, it’s still all about service,” he said. Good customer service will bring a customer back and encourage them to tell their friends, he noted.

Plus, he believes that smaller dealers have better service.