USATourist Community

06-08-2007 6:17 PM

Mike Leco Joined on 06-06-2007 Posts 393

Buying a car to tour the USA Reply Contact The following was originally posted to our old Forum:   Author Message Mike Guest Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:13 am    Post subject: Buying a car to tour the USA    I received another e-mail from someone wanting to buy a car in the USA, use it to tour the country, then sell it before returning to Europe. I have repeatedly advised everyone that this is not a good idea. It can be very difficult and very expensive to attempt this. It is usually much easier and cheaper to just rent a car. It is easy enough to buy a car. If you have some money, you can give it to the seller of a car and the vehicle is yours. There are plenty of cars to buy in all price ranges. You can purchase cars from reputable car dealers, from not-so-reputable car dealers, or from private individuals. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to obtain the license tags necessary to legally drive an auto. You must first register the car in the state where you purchased it, then you must provide proof of valid liability insurance before you can purchase the license plates for the vehicle. In order to register the car in any state, you must provide a permanent residential address in that state. This can be difficult for a tourist. In the days prior to 911, some less reputable dealers might have used a fraudulent address to facilitate such registration. Now, the penalties for such actions can be rather severe, so no dealer is likely to do it. The price for liability insurance is dependent upon your past driving record in the USA. If you have no past driving history in the USA, they will typically deny coverage or charge some exhorbitantly high rate. As you can see, this process is not very friendly to tourists coming to the USA for short stays. If you come to the USA as a student or as a worker, you will likely have a residential address in some state and can thus register a car with little difficulty. Your liability insurance rate might still be high due to your lack of driving record in the USA.