Just a suggestion for those still looking to sell. Get these offers from Carmax, Carvana, etc, then shop it around to local dealers. I got this suggestion from someone and it worked out to get me an additional $2k from my highest online offer.
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Selling to Carvana - our experience
- Thread starter goin2drt
- Start date
YEah, seems the horror stories for these online dealers is on the buy side, not the sell side.
Did anyone get your car detailed before selling to Carvana (or similar)? I was going to get my car professionally detailed to sell on Craigslist, but if I go the Caravana-type route I am wondering if it is worth the money and effort if they just clean the cars themselves before re-selling? (My car is pretty clean as it is and I can just do a quick vacuum and wash at home)
Clark_Kent
Member
Save your coins my friend. Do NOT detail the car before selling. It's not necessary at all. When you make the decision to sell a car the money you've been pouring into it should immediately cease. Unless the car looks it has been rally racing there's absolutely no need to wash it before trading/selling.
csrpenfab
Member
Totally agree! I thought about paying $20 to drive my dirty GX460 through the touchless wash before the Carvana flatbed showed up for pickup. I didn't , and when the driver showed up he commented how nice and clean the car was and what great condition it was in. He gave it a 2 minute look over, verified the VIN and Odometer and had it loaded up and gone in less than 10 minutes. I've sold two cars to Carvana, and both times were similar and easy. They don't even drive the vehicle.
Great!!! It is stressful enough waiting for my Tesla that I am not going to worry about my old car.
FindMyElectric
Former Vendor
A little insider info--there are a few reasons outside of the car shortage that make some of these "instant style" offers high...
One of the popular car buying companies mentioned in this thread actually owns the bank that's used to finance their cars--so they can afford to overpay for them because they make it up on the finance end (where financing is available from them, and often used). It's all calculated algorithmically and has worked out quite well for them, especially on Teslas.
Another popular one is actually just a business arm of one of the biggest dealer auctions in the US. Allegedly, what they do is put your Tesla up for auction before they've even committed to buy it--and then your final offer is reduced upon "inspection" to be in line with what the car fetched at auction--and dealers understand that these are temporary listings that may or may not close--so if they don't buy your car, no big deal.
As far as our system goes, our offers tend to be higher because our dealer partners are EV dealers who compete against each other and understand Teslas very well (i.e. not gas car dealers buying up Toyota Corollas, etc.).
So, it's true that the car shortage is a big factor in these high instant offers people are seeing vs. the private market, but there are also a lot of inventive business factors at play too--in case anyone finds a "peek behind the curtain" interesting!
FindMyElectric
Former Vendor
Allegedly Carvana will overpay for Model 3s by significant amount when their inventory falls below a certain percentage because their algo is calibrated to maintain a specific mixture of vehicles. So, depending upon their inventory levels, you might be able to snag a really high offer from them, or it might be much lower if they've got a good stock of Model 3s. So, you may want to try again at a different point--it can change often.
One thing that we do pride ourselves on is being able to consider features like FSD in the value of offers, where this isn't the case with some other buyers (not to say that they don't have good programs as well, because they do).
FindMyElectric
Former Vendor
This is definitely true. Why not check with everyone? It doesn't cost anything (but a little time), and no single vendor will be the highest all the time, as there are so many factors that play into offer calculations!
danaleighton
Member
I actually had a substantial crack in my windshield, which I disclosed in the notes, but it did not seem to lower the offer at all (compared to one I got a few weeks earlier without the crack). I was also tempted to get the car detailed and get the windshield replaced -- Just know that none of this matters to Carvana. They specifically say on their website to not worry about cleaning - just get your personal property out because once they haul it away you're not getting it back.
One of the reasons I really liked this experience was that I got an offer above Kelly Blue Book retail price, and if I had tried selling it to a private party to get maximum value, I'd have had to detail it and get the windshield fixed.
My 9-year-old Toyota Corolla that I bought for $15000 -- sold for $12400 -- 83% of original purchase price. Granted I had jobs I walked to for a lot of that time, so only 45,000 miles, but still, ridiculous! It only cost me $325 per year in depreciation to own that car!
preilly44
Member
FSD does transfer to the next owner. If you trade it in to Tesla, they will pay you a higher trade in value but they may remove FSD once the car is theirs to resell.
FindMyElectric
Former Vendor
In most cases it will transfer. We wrote a pretty detailed blog post about this: Does Full Self-Driving (FSD) Transfer When You Sell a Tesla?
Our Carvana experience has been god awful! We ordered our Model Y Performance in November 2021 and offered our 2020 Outback Touring XT with 16k miles to Carvana. They came back with an offer of $38k. Uploaded all the documents (title, license, etc). They said they get back to us in 1-2 days. Two weeks elapsed. I tried contacting them and I was told they are behind in purchasing. Tried to start the process again, it said they are still working on our current deal. We were then contacted 3 weeks after we started and they said they have too many of our car type and countered their original off being $7000 less at $31k. We cancelled.
It looked like Vroom can/will adjust their offer downwards after the sale (so: your car is gone, but now they are telling you they will pay less). So we sold our old minivan to Carvana instead: they were going to trade their check for the title, so I figured either the deal would happen, or it would not happen, but there would be no haggling or late adjustments.
We also bought a Bolt via Carvana, and that went fine. The carfax showed it had been leased for 3 years, and I figured that a leased car (A) will have repairs when needed, and (B) probably won't be beat-up. No problems in 25k miles on that Bolt. Maybe I got lucky.
We also bought a Bolt via Carvana, and that went fine. The carfax showed it had been leased for 3 years, and I figured that a leased car (A) will have repairs when needed, and (B) probably won't be beat-up. No problems in 25k miles on that Bolt. Maybe I got lucky.
Sludog
Member
My experiences the last month with Carvana is they were up to $12k less than three other offers I got for my Model 3 LR. One quote was $47k then a few weeks later it dropped to $42k. Just checked again today and now its $46k. They must have a lot of Model 3 they cant sell considering Vroom offered me $52k last month and two weeks later it was $54k. Im going to check again in a few days to see if it went up or down since then. Carmax is usually the highest but they won't quote my Tesla online and they need to see the car in person but salesman I spoke with said they would beat Carvana offer easily without even knowing what the offer was. Carmax advantage is that you get a check in hand the same day.
I had a great experience selling my SR+ to Carmax. Almost didn't have them appraise it because I didn't feel like going in. They bought it for $49k, 1.5k higher than vroom's offer. Carvana was something in the low 40s
Don't forget to bring the charging cable the day of the appraisal. They said I could have gotten a couple hundred more the day of the sale but I didn't want to have it reappraised and risk missing out on that ridiculous offer.
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My experience -- sold 2010 Acura MDX with 98000 miles on it to Carvana this past weekend.
I had been re-submitting this car for a few months since used car prices are so high. Car is/was great but at near 100K miles I was worried about upcoming big services (water pump etc) and the car at this point gets like 12 mpg.
Most of the offers had been about $11K, but last week it suddenly bumped up to $13100 so I jumped at it.
Uploaded documents, got response in 24h that we were good to go, set a pickup for saturday morning. Mild annoyance that I set an 8am pickup at my house and the guy ultimately didn't show until 10am, but he wandered around the car, drove it around my block. We did the paperwork, I took a picture of "all clear" on his iPad, and within 48h I had gotten the money direct deposited in my bank account. The guy was at my place for maybe a total of 20-25 min, and then 2h later a guy showed up in a truck to tow the car away. And that was it. Could not have been easier or more straightforward.
FYI Vroom and carmax offers for the car were about $10K. I took it to a dealer to see if I could trade-in for another car and save the sales tax on the new purchase, and they offered $6K (even knowing I had $10-11K offer in hand). What a joke these dealers are.
I had been re-submitting this car for a few months since used car prices are so high. Car is/was great but at near 100K miles I was worried about upcoming big services (water pump etc) and the car at this point gets like 12 mpg.
Most of the offers had been about $11K, but last week it suddenly bumped up to $13100 so I jumped at it.
Uploaded documents, got response in 24h that we were good to go, set a pickup for saturday morning. Mild annoyance that I set an 8am pickup at my house and the guy ultimately didn't show until 10am, but he wandered around the car, drove it around my block. We did the paperwork, I took a picture of "all clear" on his iPad, and within 48h I had gotten the money direct deposited in my bank account. The guy was at my place for maybe a total of 20-25 min, and then 2h later a guy showed up in a truck to tow the car away. And that was it. Could not have been easier or more straightforward.
FYI Vroom and carmax offers for the car were about $10K. I took it to a dealer to see if I could trade-in for another car and save the sales tax on the new purchase, and they offered $6K (even knowing I had $10-11K offer in hand). What a joke these dealers are.
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