Buying a car for a road trip

Hi,
Im from the UK and me and a couple of friends are hoping to go on a road trip across the US this summer. However, we are not quite sure how to go about this as we are not sure how easy it will be for us to purchase a car once we get out there. We have looked into hiring but it is very expensive to do so for a long period (we will hopefully be travelling in the US for about 2 and a half months). At the moment it looks like we will be starting our trip in Seattle and ending up in New York or Washington D.C. Does anyone have any advise for me on buying a car? I have got a lot more questions but will save them for another time....
Thank you,
Rachel

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America forum.

This forum seems to have been 'discovered' recently by our British cousins! It is great to have you all here and sharing both your concerns before your trips and your insights and discoveries afterwards. I'm afraid I don't have a great answer for you. In fact here is a post on the same topic. My answers there still hold. For an extended trip such as yours, it very well might make more sense to buy/sell than to rent. As noted in the other thread, the key is to be able to sell the car at the end of the trip for something close to what you paid for it and within the time you have before having to return home. But by all means, please let us, and your countrymen, know how your efforts turn out. Someone's going to find a good answer to this one someday, and I hope it's you.

AZBuck