CPO vs Private party - preference?

[Bruin21]

I'm sure there are many threads about CPO (Used Tesla now) vs private party cars but I wanted to see what people find themselves buying. I've been looking for a while and while I thought private party was cheaper, it looks like the used cars from Tesla are comparable or even cheaper when you factor in that Extended Warranty which is about $4700. I'm only looking at Facelift models which I believe are supposed to only get cheaper as the 2016 leases come in.

Just wanted to get peoples' opinion on what they find themselves doing in their used buying process. Thanks!

 

[JerryEVall]

I ended up getting a used car from a dealer rather than from Tesla because I just preferred to be able to see and drive the car before buying it. We were looking for a model with 3rd row seats because we intend to use it as a family car with 5 kids (2 of them small enough for the rear facing seats) and wanted to make sure that we fit comfortably. We also checked out the cpo listings and asked for photos for some of them but mainly used that to compare whether we are getting a good deal with the dealer or not.

 

[Bruin21]

I ended up getting a used car from a dealer rather than from Tesla because I just preferred to be able to see and drive the car before buying it. We were looking for a model with 3rd row seats because we intend to use it as a family car with 5 kids (2 of them small enough for the rear facing seats) and wanted to make sure that we fit comfortably. We also checked out the cpo listings and asked for photos for some of them but mainly used that to compare whether we are getting a good deal with the dealer or not.

Thanks for sharing. Are you worried about the warranty at all?

 

[JerryEVall]

Thanks for sharing. Are you worried about the warranty at all?

Not really. I mean, we were talking to one dealer who was almost exclusively selling used Teslas as he had a connection with the company directly and from what he was telling us if there really are defects with the car they get covered by service and repair under the warranty up to 8 years or 100k miles. Since we bought a 5 year old car with very low mileage (less than 34k) figure we had a few years coverage before needing to worry. First service call was a request for new key fob and that went okay except for now we have a message about low battery that is clearly wrong since both key batteries are new. Just like any used car we bought before, we enjoy what works well and can't really tell if something is not working right until it just stops running. I have been thinking about the third party extended warranty offers but I don't have the car's service history available to me yet to check what's been done on it so far.

 

[dannycamps]

I'd be leery of third-party warranty offers. They typically have very stringent requirements and may not be applicable to Teslas.

 

[Ostrichsak]

I'd be leery of third-party warranty offers. They typically have very stringent requirements and may not be applicable to Teslas.

They're in place to make money. Their sole existence is profit at the expense of it's clients. Much like Las Vegas though, there's plenty of people who think they'll hit the jackpot so that's why they usually achieve their goal. Personally, I self-insure for everything that's not required by law to insure. It's been my philosophy for decades and I'm so far money-ahead now that anything I have to come out-of-pocket for is covered 20x over by now.