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Sold my 2013 S85 to CarMax - Price Data Point

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Hey all,

I've got a P85D on order, so I decided to sell my "regular" S85.

I didn't want to sell private party for all the obvious reasons, so I got a quote from Tesla and also had a broker looking for a wholesale buyer.

On a whim, I decided to take it to my local CarMax figuring I'd get a lowball offer, but figured what the hell.

To help others gauge the value of their cars, here's what my car went for:

Car Info:

S85
Tech Package
Panoramic Roof
Premium Sound
19" Wheels
Black on Black
Paint and Interior in excellent condition
ODO: ~30,600
Current Tires: ~21,000 miles

Tesla Offer: $55,100
Best Broker Offer: $60,000
CarMax (Irvine, CA): $69,000

CarMax experience was quite painless. 30 minutes to get offer, then my wife and I came back same evening with charging cable and title. Took 30 minutes and I walked out with my check.

Hope this data point helps.
 
CarMax seems to give surprisingly decent offers. I got a better-than-expected quote from them for a Honda Pilot (which I leveraged into a better offer from a private buyer). :)

Maybe it varies by region, but I recently got a $71K offer from Carmax for my one year and one month old Tesla P85+ with 10K miles ($115K purchase price). It was less than the $77K offered by Tesla, and it was less than the low-mid 80's offered as a trade in credit by BMW.
 
CarMax has always low balled me. Selling private party each time worked much better.

CarMax offered $19K for my 2010 Chevy Silverado
4 days later sold for $25.5K via Craigslist

CarMax offered $60K for my '14 Corvette Stingray
2.5 weeks later sold for $66.5K via Craigslist

CarMax offered $27,300 for my 2011 BMW X 5
Sold 8 days later for $37,000 on Craigslist

Why take to CarMax? Sell private party.. get paid for listing the car yourself, thats crazy to let them take your property and sell it to make money on it when its so easy to sell vehicles yourself with the power of the internet.
 
Selling private is a pain in the ass IMHO. The thought of having to deal with people who are looking to drive a Tesla for the hell of it is unappealing.

I dunno..... maybe my years as a prosecutor have jaded my view of humanity. :)

Still, I'm not sure how much more I could have gotten private party. Mine was an April 2013 so no parking sensors even.

A new S85 with same features is about $81k post incentives..
. So being it is only $12k more for a new state of the art unit, I don't think I could have gotten too much more.
 
Surprised that CarMax is all over the place with their offers.
I had always heard that they offered top dollar because having locations everywhere, they could transport cars to the strongest markets.
Some people find selling through eBay or Craigslist to be fun and profitable and for others, they would rather spend a few hours at the Dentist's office.
I think wazooda did extremely well on that deal.
 
If selling private party is too hard, let me know and I will buy your car and make $5-10K in a week selling yours. I am not kidding. If you get a CarMax offer and you are in SoCal, just PM me and I will give you $1K cash over their offer the same day as long as you bring me your written CarMax offer. Selling private party is easy for me, I can live with making the difference CarMax is ripping you in a week or two of fielding bogus vs. legit people, I am good at that.
 
So wait. You buy his car for $1K over Carmax. Then you have to pay sales tax on that, plus MV fees including the usually outrageous "Instant Title" fee so you have something in-hand when you sell the car in a week. After all that, you can still clear $5-10K?

in my crazy state, you can only flip so many cars a year (I think it's five) before you're considered a "car dealer" and have to get licensed & pay fees to certain government officials. Is that not an issue where you are?
 
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FWIW, our local CarMax wouldn't even appraise our MS, suggesting instead that we take it to a local high-end dealer. The rep stated, "we tend to specialize in Altima- and Camry-type cars."

Of course, this is Texas so it appears to be far different elsewhere.

As for our other cars, CM has always low-balled by many, many thousands, with one exception: a friend's Miata came out ahead by a few $k.

Thus, be very careful with a CM offer.
 
I think whether CarMax low balls you depends a lot on their inventory at the time, market conditions, and so forth.

They gave me a very fair offer on my e90 M3 and my Mini Countryman. On both, it was within a few thousand of what I could have received private party, and the transactions were incredibly painless.*

They lowballed me on an E36 M3, back in the day. I got more for it on dealer trade.

So, yeah--it's not a panacea, but in my experience it's well worth hearing their offer.



*especially if you are leading or financing, which can make private party sales a real PITA.
 
I would just require that the person selling me the car doesn't put my information on the title, only the bill of sale. I wouldn't even register it because I am confident I could sell in 3 weeks or less, and just have the new buyer fill out the title.

Fine, I will up my offer to $1,500 over a Carmax offer. Time is money and 1-3 weeks of my trouble is worth $5-10,000 that I have no problem depositing in my kids college accounts for such "hard work". This grueling process of selling a car private party can be eliminated by just selling the car to me, so you can guys can go about your busy lives, lives that do not need such small amounts of cash for the laborious duties of selling a car yourself.





So wait. You buy his car for $1K over Carmax. Then you have to pay sales tax on that, plus MV fees including the usually outrageous "Instant Title" fee so you have something in-hand when you sell the car in a week. After all that, you can still clear $5-10K?

in my crazy state, you can only flip so many cars a year (I think it's five) before you're considered a "car dealer" and have to get licensed & pay fees to certain government officials. Is that not an issue where you are?
 
I would just require that the person selling me the car doesn't put my information on the title, only the bill of sale. I wouldn't even register it because I am confident I could sell in 3 weeks or less, and just have the new buyer fill out the title.

Fine, I will up my offer to $1,500 over a Carmax offer. Time is money and 1-3 weeks of my trouble is worth $5-10,000 that I have no problem depositing in my kids college accounts for such "hard work". This grueling process of selling a car private party can be eliminated by just selling the car to me, so you can guys can go about your busy lives, lives that do not need such small amounts of cash for the laborious duties of selling a car yourself.

Out of curiosity.....

So in this case, you'd buy the car for $70,500. You then decide whether or not you want to commit tax fraud and avoid reporting the 8% or so tax on the purchase ($5600).... but let's assume you are somehow immune from the tax for whatever reason.


A $5k mark-up puts the vehicle at $75,500 for a buyer. A $10k mark-up puts it at $80,500. A brand-new-from-the-factory car with same options (of course no auto-pilot or parking sensors on mine) is $82k after tax credits.

All things being equal, I opine that people buying $80k cars are not going to worry about saving between ~$2k - $6k to get an 18 month old car with 30k miles on it.

But I'm not a used car salesman so I would probably suck at it. :)
 
Sounds like people have had all kinds of experiences with CarMax... some lowball and some reasonable offers (and this Model S offer looks quite good). I guess the take away is that it's worthwhile to try CarMax but also do the research to find out what your car is "worth".
Also, when buying a car, this guy is a staunch defender of the CarMax used car warranty... quite humorous.
My Horn Stopped Working: Another CarMax Warranty Update

I plan to sell one of my ICE cars when my Model S is delivered. I've already had interest from friends, etc. in buying it but I think I'll give CarMax a shot since it doesn't cost anything and it may turn out that they have a high demand for this particular car. (Fiat 500 Prima Edizione #476... Jay Leno sold his for $30,000... hey, I can hope.)