I Bought a Chevy Avalanche on the Internet!

Are you really a car enthusiast if you’ve never bought a car on the internet? I mean, we all know it’s a terrible idea, and yet the temptation is always there when that sweet looking deal on that car you just can’t find appears on your computer screen. Fortunately, there are people in the world willing to take the risk and publish their foolishness on the internet so others don’t have to. I never thought I’d be one of them, but the siren song of this 2013 Chevrolet Avalanche LTZ Black Diamond Edition truck with four wheel drive and in Fairway Metallic trim (green for those not familiar with Chevy’s 2013 color naming) was too much to ignore.

What Makes the Chevy Avalanche Unique?

Full size trucks, no matter what brand you prefer, typically come in the same basic configurations. You can get a crew cab to seat 5 or 6 people with a 5.5′ bed, or you can get a single cab to seat 2 or 3 people with an 8′ bed. Or you can get one sort of in between with a half cab to stick your dog behind the front seats. The Avalanche, however, was altogether different.

With its unique midgate, the Avalanche can be a crew cab truck that seats 5 with a 5 foot bed, or it can be a single cab truck that seats 2 with an 8′ foot bed. Because the truck is all one piece (think Suburban with the rear end carved into a pick-up bed), you can drop the rear seats, open the midgate, and extend the length of the bed. 4×8 sheets of plywood disappear all the way into the extended bed. With the gate closed and bed covers on, you don’t have to worry about the plywood sheets falling out or getting wet on a rainy day. Put the seats back up, and you can take the whole family on a road trip. The midgate was a brilliant piece of design work by GM.

So Why Buy a Vehicle on the Internet?

There are lots of reasons you might buy a vehicle on the internet, but for me it was a challenge of geography. Some cars simply have different values in different parts of the country. I live in the deep south. A four wheel drive truck down here is hard to find, which makes the ones that are available expensive.

Dealers down here know that, of course, so they all go to northern auctions and buy 4wd trucks to sell. But dealers in the north don’t send their nice 4wd drive trucks to auction, they send the terrible ones, and those are the ones that end up being sold in the south.

I looked at every Gen 2 4wd Avalanche in metro-Atlanta before settling on the one I ended up buying on the internet. I saw trucks with holes in the frame, trucks without spare tires because the spare tire carrier had rusted away, and trucks with rust holes in body panels. All of which might be ok if the trucks were priced reasonably, but they aren’t. They are consistently priced 20% or so higher than 2wd versions of the same truck that have lived in the south and don’t have any rust at all.

So after looking at a handful of $25k to $32k Avalanches with 4wd and all of them had issues, I expanded my search to the north where I figured better examples had to live. And there it was. The perfect Avalanche. A 2013 Black Diamond edition in my absolute favorite color in the LTZ trim. The asking price was under $20k.

Now to be clear, I’m not crazy. This wasn’t a Facebook Marketplace deal and I didn’t buy ‘the cheapest Avalanche on the internet’ or any other such nonsense. I paid a fair price for a vehicle from a very reputable dealer in Wisconsin. Yes, it has some surface rust under it, but it’s in great shape. Everything is very solid, far better than the northern cars for sale in the south. And substantially cheaper. Even with the $1000 or so in shipping, I’m still in a better Avalanche than I could find locally and for cheaper.

The Process of Buying My Avalanche Online

The process was remarkably smooth. As mentioned, I bought the Avalanche from a truck dealer in Wisconsin, so it wasn’t Carvana or Driveway or any other internet based car dealer. It was a real car dealer with physical inventory that happened to be willing and experienced at selling cars to people out of state.

I reviewed all of the pictures online as well as the Carfax history. The dealer also provided a repair history of everything they had done and as well as disclosures required by the State of Wisconsin related to a full inspection of the vehicle. Satisfied with that, I called the dealership and asked a lot of questions about the vehicle and about how they do business. I liked everything that I heard and we made a deal on the phone.

From that point on, it was all email. The dealer emailed me all of the contract documents through docusign and I was able to review and sign them all online. I signed everything on a Thursday and the dealer had the truck off to the shipper that afternoon. On Friday, he sent me one last document to sign and gave me instructions for mailing the dealership a check. I dropped the check in the mail on Friday, but at the point the truck was already on it’s way.

On Saturday I received a text message from the transport company telling me the truck would be at my house on Sunday. And sure enough, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, my truck arrived! I signed off on the drivers phone just like when you receive a ‘signature required’ FedEx package and then he was off to his next delivery and the truck was mine.

I’ve bought a lot of cars, and this was BY FAR the easiest transaction I’ve ever been involved in. I doubt I spent more than 30 minutes on the entire transaction. No hot boxing, no sales pressure, no meeting with the paperwork guy to be sold a bunch of BS warranties, no waiting for them to talk to their sales manager. None of it. It was great.

So Should You Buy a Car on the Internet?

I might change my mind if this Avalanche falls apart, but honestly, I think there is a fairly safe way to do it. Make sure you are working with a quality dealer. If they have nearly 1000 Google reviews like my dealer did and those reviews add up to a 4.7 rating or something, you can be pretty comfortable you are working with someone reputable.

I think you should also look for dealers with a good track record shipping cars out of the local area. If they feature out of state and out of the country delivery, they know that customers are relying on their pictures and representations of the vehicle. If they can survive that with good online reviews, they are probably worth doing business with.

You aren’t going to get a screaming deal from a really good dealer that only sells good cars. You are hopefully going to get a fair deal and you are going to have to pay for delivery. So I wouldn’t look at the internet as a way to save a lot of money on a car, but the internet is a way to open up your search for cars you can’t find near where you live.

It goes without saying that buying a car you can see, inspect, and test drive is MUCH better than buying a car on the internet. If you are looking for a Honda Accord, there is definitely a good one for sale near you and there is no reason to take the risk of buying it online. But if you are looking for something that is harder to find, the internet may be a chance you have to take to get what you really want.

This is just one guy’s opinion in a blog post you found on the internet. Buyer beware. Don’t take my advice. Make your own choices. Everyone knows it’s a bad idea. Your financial position is relevant in deciding how much risk you can take on big purchases like cars. Etc. Etc. Etc. But it worked out for me and I would probably do it again if I couldn’t find what I wanted locally.