A recent survey in the United States found that 38% of car buyers were prepared to travel up to an hour for the best deal and 63% of car buyers contacted more than one dealer during the decision making process.
It would be interesting to know how far Australian car buyers are prepared to travel for the best deal and I would expect that it would be somewhat higher here.
In our recent adventure in car buying we travelled over 2 hours … not so much for the deal … but to get the vehicle we wanted. We spoke or had contact (email) with five dealers and spent quite a bit of time searching dealer listings on Car Guide and Drive looking for the vehicle that fitted our requirements.
It’s also interesting to note that on the outskirts of our town a dealer about two hours north of here is running quite an expensive billboard campaign to attract car buyers.