[mzbk2l]

I would not buy any car sight unseen, not even a new one.

I bought the car in my signature sight-unseen (except for the pictures on the web). Never even talked on the phone to the salesman - we did the whole deal by text and email. They showed up at my work with the car, the keys, and some paperwork for me to sign, and I handed them a check. No regrets at all - it was by far the best car-buying experience I've ever had!

 

[joroan]

Should I be wary of buying a car that is from MN. or WI? I'm looking at 2019 XT5's from those states.

I've been looking for a 2020 xt5 sport for two months. I started with a 2020 xt5 build and price. By studying that. I determined what options were important to us and then looked for a used model with our choice of color and interior color. I reviewed Autotrader, Cars.com, CarMax, Edmunds,a couple of others. The most success we had was with Autolist.com. I put the distance to look as nationwide. After some time, I wondered why some areas of country weren't represented, so I used a middle or southern US zip code. That helped a lot. Since I wanted a sport model, there are fewer of them. Now, I didn't want mileage over 25k and found most under 15k, mostly because cover restricted the amount of traveling that was done then. Majority of these cars are from leases. Also wanted one owner, no accidents.
No to your question... I'm from PA. and am quite familiar with salt and rust. I wanted a car from south or west. While sorting out several choices, I started checking out their Carfaxes. They, along with service info, list original location where car was shipped from factory. And if buyer stayed there or another location. One thing I discovered studying these, is that after lease is over, many dealers send the cars to an auto auction, not because of problems, but their marketing operations, such as they want to lease new ones, but not sell used ones, whatever. Ok then I discovered many Salt state cars ended up being bought by non salt state dealers, so take that into consideration. A 2020 might be ok if it was washed regularly and driven in a significant amount of rain in spring to remove most of the salt, you maybe fine.
One thing I would recommend is to have the chassis sprayed down thoroughly with a product called SALT-X. It is used a lot at saltwater marinas to neutralize salt residue. Comes in gallon jugs and makes 30 gallons of mix. Looks like the color of blue washer solvent.
We're from Pa. and are currently in Florida to pick up a 2020 XT5 Sport tomorrow that meets our requirements. Lesser than sport models are much more plentiful, so most likely no need to travel that far.
Oh, and we considered 2021 models, but due to the chip problem, some options are currently available till they get the chips, and some options gave a credit for it and won't be installed. Same with 22's also.
Sorry for being so long winded.

 

[CSIMME01]

So Toyota's two best sellers are 4th and 8th on the list. So where does the perception / ongoing belief Toyotas being so safe come from? Seems to me from that data they are pretty bad in terms of safety.
And I agree @mzflorida about the fact that the cars ability to absorb damage and not have intrusion into the cabin is more important than repairability. In the end we just want to make sure people stay alive and uninjured. But in my instance I had zero intrusion into my vehicle and a lot less damage, so win/win IMO.

I bet if you compare this to a list of the number of vehicles on the road by make and model they are a perfect match. Nothing to do with safety. If there are more of vehicle X on the road than any other then more people will die in vehicle X than any other. There is a name for this type of data manipulation but it escapes me at the moment. It is used quite often with great effect.

 

[UberCaddy]

I would not buy any car sight unseen, not even a new one.

I also bought my XT5 sight unseen, it was a CPO at a dealer in Salt Lake. It was exactly what I wanted and more! Some unexpected curb rash on a couple wheels, but nothing major. No regrets! But, it was a CPO at a Cadillac dealership.

 

[mzflorida]

I bet if you compare this to a list of the number of vehicles on the road by make and model they are a perfect match. Nothing to do with safety. If there are more of vehicle X on the road than any other then more people will die in vehicle X than any other. There is a name for this type of data manipulation but it escapes me at the moment. It is used quite often with great effect.

Using that logic, we would see a 1 to 1 correlation and that's not the case. There were half a billion Silverados and 220,000 Tacomas sold last year. That would mean that we should expect to see about double the number of fatalities with Silverado but they are at multiple of ~4 compared to the Toyota. The Honda Accord did sell at about a 50% rate compared to the Silverado and fatalities are represented closer to the 1-1 ratio. Population density vs. vehicle ownership, average number of miles driven in each model represented in the data, age, education, road condition, average posted speed limits, driver behavior, weather patterns, law enforcement per capita, probably have more influence on the outcomes than number of each vehicle model sold and in service. The engineering designed to protect the occupants probably also has a significant influence.

 

[CSIMME01]

Using that logic, we would see a 1 to 1 correlation and that's not the case. There were half a billion Silverados and 220,000 Tacomas sold last year. That would mean that we should expect to see about double the number of fatalities with Silverado but they are at multiple of ~4 compared to the Toyota. The Honda Accord did sell at about a 50% rate compared to the Silverado and fatalities are represented closer to the 1-1 ratio. Population density vs. vehicle ownership, average number of miles driven in each model represented in the data, age, education, road condition, average posted speed limits, driver behavior, weather patterns, law enforcement per capita, probably have more influence on the outcomes than number of each vehicle model sold and in service. The engineering designed to protect the occupants probably also has a significant influence.

Not the number of a specific vehicle sold last year, the total number of a specific vehicle on the road.
I don't have those numbers so I can't make the comparison. I suspect there is probably a close correlation. Maybe not a direct 1 to 1 but probably quite close.

 

[Maximumkk]

The table posted indicates the vehicle was involved in a fatal crash. There is no indication that the fatality occurred inside that particular vehicle. You're reading something into it which is not there.

Max

 

[mzflorida]

The table posted indicates the vehicle was involved in a fatal crash. There is no indication that the fatality occurred inside that particular vehicle. You're reading something into it which is not there.

Max

Good point and you are right, I did. This is the extent of the distribution produced so far. The actual deaths per vehicle takes longer to produce for some reason. From NHTSA:

The majority of people killed and injured in traffic crashes were drivers (67%), followed by passengers (24%), motorcyclists (4%), pedestrians (3%), and pedalcyclists (2%)

 

[ALPAN]

sales statistics for 2022:

Lexus RX​	96041​
BMW X5​	82373​
Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class​	57933​
Audi Q5​	57053​
Acura MDX​	41690​
Volvo XC90​	34101​
Cadillac XT5​	27340​