So I was looking into car buying costs across different states and stumbled onto something pretty wild - where you live can literally save or cost you thousands when buying a car. The average new car price is sitting around $48k, but that's just the starting point. Turns out sales taxes, dealer fees, and even regional pricing differences create massive variations.

I checked out data covering new and used car prices plus dealer fees state by state, and some states are way cheaper to buy in than others. Oregon actually tops the list for cheapest car purchases overall - they've got zero sales tax and crazy low dealer fees at just $353. Montana and New Hampshire also make the top three because they skip sales tax entirely, which is a game changer even when car prices run higher there.

If you're looking for the cheapest car deals, here's what I noticed: states with no sales tax obviously win, but even among those, dealer fees matter. Hawaii surprised me - car prices there are actually below the national average by 3.58%, which you wouldn't expect from an island state. Virginia, Wisconsin, and New Mexico also came in as pretty affordable options if you can't relocate.

The least affordable? States with high sales tax plus elevated dealer fees get hit twice. The difference between buying in the most expensive vs cheapest state could literally be thousands of dollars for the same vehicle. If you're seriously shopping for a car and have any flexibility on location, it's definitely worth checking your state's numbers first.