You found the best truck for you. It has it all, and now you’re ready to take it home with you. But buying a truck is a complicated task. Here’s what you need to know to find the right truck for sale near you.

Know what you want in a truck

Just like any other major purchasing decision, the first step is being absolutely sure the truck you want is the right truck for you. Consumer Reports gives a lot of pointers in that regards.

The biggest difference between two trucks is likely in the size. Depending on what you need, you might not need a full-sized truck. Or, you may absolutely need one. 

Figuring out what you actually need from a truck will allow you to find the right truck for you. That’s not all though. No car is perfect and no truck is either.

Many trucks, even brand-new ones, can come with issues. Doing research on the make, model, and year on sites like Car Complaints or Consumer Reports will allow you to find the least problematic trucks possible. 

And then there’s price. Trucks can be affordable, but things can happen in life and you could lose your job. A brand-new truck fitted with tons of optional features may become too expensive for you, so you’ll have to think about that, too. And then there’s the insurance.

Insurance, along with fuel prices and maintenance costs, will be the other main things you’ll have to pay for other than the truck itself. If you lose your job and you can’t afford all that, then you’ll need to choose a cheaper truck.

Private truck sales

This is the cheapest way to buy a car and it’s not impossible to find a truck for sale that’s $1,000 or $2,000 or even cheaper through Craigslist or other similar marketplaces. The great thing about this method is that the trucks are so cheap that you can buy in cash.

This way, you won’t have to take an auto loan out. Taking a loan out will mean paying more money thanks to the interest rate, so you’ll ultimately save a lot of money with this.

But, there are a lot of downsides to private sales. The trucks are usually in pretty bad shape and the seller might be shady. Learning as much as you can about the truck as well as the seller of the truck are some of the best things you can do in this situation, according to Credit Karma.

Researching the truck on a site like CarFax is what Credit Karma recommends. You should also check your state’s lemon laws, as some states’ lemon laws won’t apply to used vehicles. 

Buying a truck at a dealership

Buying a truck from a dealership is the other main way to go about it. There are a lot of pros with this method, as dealerships tend to be conveniently located and the trucks are probably going to be fine. However, there are also a lot of cons with buying from a dealership. 

As the stereotype goes, you shouldn’t trust a car salesman, especially a used car salesman. That’s not to say that they’re untrustworthy, but rather that they’re salespeople and their only goal is to get you to spend more money. If you’re loaded with cash and you don’t mind buying an expensive truck, then this doesn’t really affect you.

However, if you’re like many other Americans who have a budget to keep, then you might not need every feature that the salesperson tries to sell to you. This mostly applies to dealerships that sell new trucks, but it also applies to used car dealerships too.

Again, just like with buying a truck off of Craigslist, you’ll need to do a lot of research on sites like CarFax and Kelly Blue Book to find the best truck near you.