Tesla would not match my CarMax appraisal on M3

[Mulligan Jake]

After being told they would, I am now told Tesla will not match CarMax appraisal. This will cost me over $2000 in additional TAVT fees (sales tax). Seems like all Tesla would have to do is take my car at CarMax appraisal on trade in then take the car to CarMax and sell it to them. I’m trading 2013 MS60 for M3. Anyone else had this problem yet?

 

[Qbenjamin]

Tesla is notorious for low-balling current owners. Your best option is to sell it privately, as you'll definitely come out well ahead of their offer. With the 3 being delayed for SR, I've noticed that more people are looking for an S now. As soon as the configurator shifted to the right by nearly a year, more potential 3 owners started looking harder at the S.

Hope it works out for you.

 

[KJD]

The CarMax here in Utah will only give a very low ball price anyhow, so you would not do well to sell it there. Much better off to clean the car up and sell it on your own. That is the only way to get a fair price on a specialty car like a Tesla.

 

[Drax]

Tesla won’t match CarMax on Tesla’s, but they used to match CarMax on everything else. Who knows what the current policy is though.

Provided your S60 is in reasonable condition, you should just sell it privately. It’s a much better solution and shouldn’t take too long!

 

[comanchepilot]

Since Carmax low balls everything - of course Tesla would match a Carmax offer for any car other than Tesla. . . .

Why would anyone sell a car to Carmax?

 

[thegooch49]

I agree with everyone else here.....if you were OK w/ the number that Carmax gave you, list it privately for $2K over the CarMax offer. Someone will probably jump on it at full ask price, I think you would have multiple people interested in it. The downside of this, is the work involved....I get that. Selling to CarMax or trading in is dead easy. My advice is to put in the work, make some extra money, and take the extra cash and get something nice for your new Model 3.

 

[lirandy]

Have you tried KBB instant cash offer? Their offers are better than Carmax in most cases

 

[doubleohwhat]

Why would anyone sell a car to Carmax?

Low hassle. A car can be sold to carmax in less than an hour if there's no lien.

I've sold two cars to carmax. Both times I was offered several thousand over the local dealer quote and that was good enough on those particular cars.

 

[Hitman007]

Is your time worth more than the effort to chase down another $2k and have to deal with selling it yourself? Thats the question.

 

[MMHouston]

Try vroom.com. It’s pretty easy.

 

[EXOTIC1]

Tesla is notorious for low-balling current owners. Your best option is to sell it privately, as you'll definitely come out well ahead of their offer. With the 3 being delayed for SR, I've noticed that more people are looking for an S now. As soon as the configurator shifted to the right by nearly a year, more potential 3 owners started looking harder at the S.

Hope it works out for you.

agree
they're buy back/trade in prices are ridiculous
far worse than other hi end car dealerships

 

[Boourns]

Carvana is another option. They gave me the best price on my S out of any other of those types of places.

 

[MMHouston]

I remember when I bought my S in 2014, I couldn’t do the buyback guarantee program because Tesla couldn’t offer financing in Texas.

 

[dsvick]

Unless Tesla specifically said to you that they wouldn't match it because you were buying a model 3 you may want to consider changing your thread title to something a bit less accusatory.

 

[T-Will]

CarMax makes the process easy, but their trade-in offers are extreme lowballs. I sold my 2004 Subaru WRX private party for $9800, nearly $4000 more than CarMax's offer of $6000.

 

[clmason]

For what it’s worth, Tesla offered me more than Carmax for my 2014 S85 with 70,000 miles.

 

[smak]

Selling private party is hard, because you want to give it enough time to sell, but you also need to be willing to sell it when you're not ready.

I guess if you get a good enough offer over CarMax, you can just rent a car for a few weeks while waiting for your Model 3.

It would be a good problem to have.

 

[Qbenjamin]

Go private party, put in a little work, make more money...

 

[brkaus]

agree
they're buy back/trade in prices are ridiculous
far worse than other hi end car dealerships

And high end car dealers also work the trade in value into the negotiation of the new car price. So you really don’t know how they value the used car. They are looking at the entire transaction fir profit.

 

[DarthPierce]

In some states (WA and CO for sure) the value of the trade-in is subtracted prior to calculating sales tax so dealer trades get a ~10% bonus in value. That can be a factor as well.