re: Anyone used a private auto broker to buy a used car?

My cousin has used this broker since 1993, he mentioned it a few months ago and I asked for his name when I decided to get rid of my Acura TSX earlier this month. He's bought a 1-2 year old car just about every other year. The dealer is a specialty dealer for high end and collector cars, so he's good at sourcing specific cars, through auctions and other specialty dealers.

This is definitely easier and better than a traditional dealer in just about every way in my opinion. The whole process is completely transparent. At auction yesterday I bought a 2015 Lexus ES with ~17,000 miles for $24,400 plus freight/fees of $620 and his broker's fee of $1,500. The seller was Lexus Financial services. He punched in the parameters I gave him and had plenty of results, just like eBay. The car is arriving on Monday. The same car at a dealer would cost $32,000+.

I'll never go to a traditional car dealership again, it's been so easy and I don't feel like I'm getting screwed because I see every part of the process and he's really working for me. The owner is semiretired and I'm actually considering switching careers to join him because I see such a huge opportunity based on the experience.

Edit: Echoing others' advice above, the condition reports are great and you can filter/search for cars 4.0 and above only, 5.0 is a new car. The level of detail on the reports is pretty amazing and the broker can run a report on completed auctions of the same type car to get parameters to bid and price expectations.

I saved over $5,000 doing this at least, inclusive of all my costs, not to mention the lower sales tax basis versus buying at a retail dealer.

I think the service would be very popular with buyers, there is really no one marketing it beyond word of mouth and could be leveraged with existing technology.