When it comes to buying a used vehicle in Colorado, it can pay to drive around looking for a bargain, according to a of Ford F-150 sales in the state by Autolist.
Autolist, which describes itself as the Kayak of online used-vehicle listings, looked at more than 30,000 used F-150’s on sale in Colorado to measure what difference location made in price.
“We want people to make more educated decisions. I could drive two hours and save thousands of dollars when buying my next truck,” said Alex Klein, vice president of data science with the San Francisco firm.
And it doesn’t always have to be two hours. Cañon City in Fremont County is a 60-mile drive from Salida in Chaffee County.
But the variation from the state average price for a comparable F-150 between the two counties was the largest around — $6,698.
Why Fremont County dealers sold Ford trucks for so much cheaper isn’t entirely clear. As a general rule, urban areas tend to offer the best prices, making Fremont an outlier.
“For your major metro areas, you will have a lot of these car dealerships. There is more competition and the prices are driven down,” Klein said.
A from the state demographer found that while rural areas had an overall lower cost of living, a lack of retail competition resulted in higher costs for consumer goods.
After Fremont, Denver County showed the second biggest discount versus the state average — $1,449. Boulder, Weld, Garfield, Pueblo and Adams are other counties where list prices for F-150’s came in below average.
Among cities, Greeley and Boulder provided the steepest discounts, which lines up with a national pattern of university towns offering some of the best bargains available on used vehicles.
Even within the metro area, Autolist found some variations, with dealers on the southwest side offering better prices on comparable trucks than those in the northeast.
One explanation for the differences in prices between urban and rural could reflect the vehicle surveyed, said Todd O’Connell, executive director of the Colorado Independent Automobile Dealers Association.
Buyers in rural communities are more likely to view a truck as a work tool, making it more valuable to them and resulting in a tighter supply.
Also, independent auto dealers can vary in what they spend on reconditioning a used vehicle, the warranties they provide, and their ability to provide financing.
“Dealers provide different after-market products, service contracts, and roadside assistance,” O’Connell said.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or @aldosvaldi
