Has anyone used an online car dealer?

[MrsP]

I am in the horrifying position of needing to buy a car in the next month or so. We are a family of 5 who have gotten by with 1 car for many many years. However, we moved to a town with terrible bus service and between my husband's job, my son's commute to community college (there is no bus within 2 miles of the school, how the hell is that a thing????), and needing to bring other children to activities and specialist doctor appointments (I'll have to go 1.5 hours away once a month for a while). My 05 Camry has done has us well and has 240k on it (we bought it 8 years ago with 150k on it). Our hope is that my husband and son will mostly use that car for around town and get something "better" for the commute to the specialist and maybe some more road trips now and then. Anyway -- it is a terrible time to do this.

In looking around I've some OK prices on Shift and Vroom (accounting for delivery fees). I wonder if anyone has experience with them or something similar? I'm hoping to pay cash around $15,000 all in but could go up to $20,000. We don't buy cars often and I'd like something that will last 7-10 years but maybe I'm delusional and should get something under $10k and expect to buy sooner.

Any thoughts/advice? Thanks!

(EDITED title because I suddenly realized it looked like I wanted drugs and not a car, lol)

[travel2020]

I used a company called Tred.com some years ago and had a great overall experience. It wasn’t 100% online as the car was local and they arranged to bring to a location for me to check it out, but everything else was done fully online. I never met the owner and they took care of all paperwork, etc.

Definitely planning on exploring online options when I’m in the market again as it beat dealing with the usual car  dealer salesperson nonsense.

[AccidentialMustache]

Well, no love if you're in the midwest. Not a single car on tred within 500 miles of the-Chicago-suburb-I-grew-up-in's zip code. Not that I'm in Chicago, but I'm within 500 miles of it and there's nothing within 500 miles of me either.

@MrsP you drive a lot. It would probably be worth looking at an older hybrid. That probably means prius. They're reputed to be reliable tanks. Can't speak to it, don't own one. Did test drive one, thought it drove like a slug.

[monarda]

We're on our 2nd Prius. Bought it at 101K miles when it was 6 years old. Ours was $10K when we bought it.
You can find a lot of nice  ones at good prices.  Now ours has 150K miles and still gets 50 mpg. Seats fold down flat and there's room for it to haul plenty of stuff.
We shopped for it online, I think through autotrader. But we bought it in person from a Toyota dealership.

[MrsP]

What is the back seat space like in a Prius? We do OK all going places in the Camry. My boys are 18 and 16 (the 16yo has special needs and is 6'1"). We want to do the occasional road trip and we are already pushing it space-wise. My 9yo ds sits in the middle. Most people think we are crazy for not having a bigger car with 3 kids. However, the specialist trips out of town are the big issue right now. The oldest and my husband can carpool to school/work and I probably have to take the 9yo with us (we homeschool -- or car school on those days). I hate driving so much but I don't think it can be helped for the time being.

[monarda]

It might depend on the "generation". Gen 2 ( 2004-2009) and Gen 3 (2010-2015) are the same and pretty roomy.
If you want a newer one than 2015, I'm not sure. Best to try sitting in one.