Full disclosure: I'm not an employee/affiliate of Carvana (or DriveTime) nor am I receiving any kickbacks for this post.
I recently purchased a 2014 MS85 from Carvana and have received several questions about buying off Carvana. I figured that I should provide some insight into purchasing a Tesla form Carvana based on my experience.
Before buying a Tesla from Carvana DO YOUR RESEARCH. Carvana does a poor job of tracking the actual model trim levels. Often a standard trim model will be listed as a "P" model or a "D" model. Features like AP is also not shown in the car listing. Use the 360 degree view to look for the various features instead (e.g. AP cameras/sensors/radar, trim badge on the rear). Also use the interior view to look around inside and check out the highlights. The highlights will also clue you in to what options the car was delivered with (e.g. power trunk + premium nav = tech package). Once you narrow it down to the car you want, you'll have to pull the trigger and purchase the car. You will only get to inspect the Tesla when you pick it up, but you also have a 7-day return window if you're not happy with it. There's also a 100-day 4189 mile warranty provided by SilverRock that comes with all Carvana purchases.
The purchase process itself was smooth and hassle free. No haggling, no hidden fees, etc - only sales tax. I traded in my wife's Nissan NV3500 HD van for it (can't justify keeping a 12-person van for a family of four) in the process and Carvana gave me a good trade in offer (they revised it up after getting updated info on the van). Carvana provides direct financing through Bridgecrest Acceptance and in my case, their financing terms were reasonable.
Delivery - I picked up the car at the local Carvana "vending machine" because delivery was not available on the date I wanted. Give it a good once over and note any defects with the Carvana rep - they may offer to have the issues fixed. You'll have the final say whether to take it or walk away at that point. If you decide to take it, there's the 7-day return policy that you have the option of using if you find more issues.
The car I picked had some minor issues (IC bubbling and a squeaky subcool fan) but I decided that it was a keeper and that I could deal with the issues through the warranty, since I could not get an appointment at the SC within the 7-day return.
I finally got an estimate from the local SC with the cost of repairs. Tesla also mentioned that they will not deal with 3rd party warranties - and that pissed me off. Called SilverRock was lucky enough to get transferred to a claims adjuster. She said that they "deal with Tesla all the time" and have me take the car down to the SC and provided me specific instructions to the service advisor assigned to my case to call them and get authorization. That took care of most of it so I had the SC replace the IC and the subcool fan (total was $1600). When I got the notification to come pick up the car (I had been riding Uber on Tesla's vouchers for about a week) Tesla once again texted me that they did not deal with 3rd party warranties. Went down to the SC anyway and had them call SilverRock for payment - which was taken care of pretty quickly and I went along my merry way.
Transferring the ownership required an email to Tesla with the following:
- scan/copy of ID (front and back)
- scan/copy registration paperwork (must match ID)
- email address (use the same one as your Tesla account if you already set it up)
- phone number
- type of purchase (i.e. 3rd party - Carvana)
Ownership was transferred in about 9 days for me, along with the free unlimited supercharging that should come with a pre 2017 MS.
Overall, I'm happy with my purchase experience with Carvana. The staff were helpful and were willing to work with me to get all the issues. Only thing would have done different is to have them extend the 7-day return until I got the chance to bring the car to the SC for an inspection -- some owners on this forum mentioned that they were granted the extension for the same reason.
I hope this long post goes to help you guys when you're looking for a used Tesla.
FYI, DriveTime is the parent company of Carvana, SilverRock and Bridecrest.
