Bank wire transfer or take cash when picking the car up in person.

You have to post an epic road trip thread with lots of pictures for the drive back. It is in the terms of use somewhere. Depending on how much time you have, you can hit Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. Keep us posted on your most excellent adventure.

Small deposit, fly out, drive home is what I advocate. Having a friend inspect it for you is the next best thing. A PPI is seriously overrated, I'm yet to see one that provides enough information to base a purchase on.

I sell and ship a lot of cars sight unseen. I typically provide over 100 high res pictures, a super detailed inspection, an accounting of records, and typically have a lot of conversation via email or phone. Best advice I can give is to trust your gut. If something doesn't feel right, don't send thousands to a stranger.

No. It could take several weeks for the bank to identify a fraudulent cashier's cheque. Wire transfer is safest and best for sellers, period.

Last time I sold a car it took 3-5 days for a cashiers check to clear my bank and that was several years ago. I am not talking about a check from Nigeria.

Peace of mind = seeing in person.

I agree that seeing the car in person is best but that can't always happen. There are also problems with wire transfers such as fees and also fraud. Most large banks have wire fraud departments such as Bank of america. There are many options and the person must decide which is best for him. I have bought and sold a few cars by just viewing photos and making phone calls and I have been lucky that I have not had a problem and I think that this is the norm but I may be wrong. Now transport is another ass ache sometimes and a whole other story.

If you have your bank call and verify the cashier's check they are pretty safe. With check transactions being electronic it's not like the old days, and you can't write a bad cashier's check.

We purchased the 930 remotely and tried to buy a GT40 remotely. For both we used JJ Best for a loan and paid it off right after. They send an inspector out to look at the car. This is not a PPI but a verification of VIN and that the car is as advertised.

With the 930, we got exactly what we were looking for.

In the case of the GT40, the seller would not crank the car for the inspector. Everything else looked fine. We chose to walk away from that deal because he refused to crank it. I have no idea if it actually ran.

I really can't say enough good things about how JJ Best handles things. They were extremely helpful in the long distance purchase processes.

This.....
I did exactly this when I bought my SC.....Best road trip ever!:D