Here's a way to search for inexpensive vehicles.
There are a number of national web sites that can help you find a used vehicle. Sites like
www.cars.com
www.autotrader.com
www.truecar.com
www.truckpaper.com (for light, medium and heavy trucks)
can help you search using vehicle type, model year and price range.
The problem with these sites is that it costs money for a seller to post an ad. No problem when you're a car dealer offering late model Land Rovers. For someone selling a $3500 car, it can be a significant disincentive.
This is where Craigslist comes in. Non-commercial sellers can post ads for free, making it a good site for buyers to search when the budget is tight.
Craigslist isn't perfect. You'll get results that include ads that have expired or been deleted. And Craigslist is often used by scammers. Don't send any money as a deposit until you get someone to confirm that the vehicle is real and is for sale.
Craigslist lacks most of the specialized search tools that the national sites offer. But Google can help.
First, the basic search. Using your favorite web browser, navigate to
www.google.com. Now enter the vehicle name and tell Google only to search Craigslist. For example,
Land Rover site:craigslist.org
Note there is no space between site: and craigslist.org.
This will produce a lengthy list of Land Rover vehicles for sale around the country, and for all prices.
Let's narrow the search by price. Type this command
Land Rover $3000..$7500 site:craigslist.org
That's two periods separating the dollar values. Don't use a comma in the dollar amount.
You can use the two periods to separate a range of dates, too.
Land Rover 1997..1981 site:craigslist.org
Now let's limit the search to a specific area. Craigslist has separate web sites for metropolitan regions. For example, the San Francisco area is sfbay.craigslist.org. Prescott AZ is prescott.craigslist.org.
Our command becomes
Land Rover $3000..$7500 site:sfbay.craigslist.org
That narrows the search down to the San Francisco area.
How about excluding the Land Rover Freelander? Use a minus sign.
Land Rover $3000..$7500 site:sfbay.craigslist.org -Freelander
Using Craigslist and Google can be tedious. If you're searching for a particular vehicle, save the search in a text file. The next time you want to search, just copy and paste into the Google command line.
