Tesla's Tesla Trade In is Broken

[JetFalcon]

I'm not quite in the same income bracket as your Dad but I make a decent amount and will tell you that you do get to a point where you value convenience more then a few thousand dollars. I'm likely going to sell my 340i to CarMax just because it's easy. Even though I know I could get several thousand more if I sold it privately. It's just not worth my time and sanity to deal with a bunch of randos from craigslist.

Yeah, that's true. I guess there will be a point that making a few thousand bucks more on a used car, he could have made $100k on something else.

He bought a Mercedes GLC AMG Edition 1 for my mom last year. Just bought it just because he liked it, he doesn't really know much about cars. He doesn't really follow up on cars or research them. And doesn't really care on getting the best price, I mean how can you if you're going for a baller looking car instead of a base model?

He likes buying brand new and paying the highest price and then selling it back to CarMax. He simply doesn't care about taking a loss as a car buyer.

I hope maybe I can buy a Tesla Model X in a couple years, with my own money. Either when there's a huge price drop, a crazy deal on a used one, or if they refresh it with a price drop. It's gonna be tough, most my high school / college friends don't own Teslas, most of them may have a newer Toyota and that's enough for them to insta-post about "adulting".

And I rather pay it off in cash, I don't really wanna do loans.

 

[kengchang]

Tesla doesn't want Tesla trade-in, simple as that.

 

[cwerdna]

In the past, I've often found KBB values to be inflated. The "joke" is that KBB isn't buying your car for that amount or try selling your car to KBB for that...

 

[JetFalcon]

In the past, I've often found KBB values to be inflated. The "joke" is that KBB isn't buying your car for that amount or try selling your car to KBB for that...

Yeah how does selling your car work? If you're super lazy, but still want a decent offer, can you just go to carmax, get a written offer. Then post that offer to Craigslist and be like, I want $1000 more, and you will likely have 5 people who may wanna buy your car and fight each other over it?

Best kinds of sales are when you got 10+ people messaging you and sound serious. I never sold cars though, the most expensive thing I may have bought then flipped was this LA designer couch I bought for $1500, sold it for $1800. I wanted to keep it though, but my mom didn't like it, thinking it was too strange. So stupid though, I don't even care about the $300 profit, the measly profit would have been nice if I got to use it and get paid $300 to use a couch.

And I bought it a price I thought I could resell it at in case things didn't go as planed. I mean thankfully I got my money back and some extra profit, but it was nicer than the couch my mom later bought.

 

[cwerdna]

^^^
FWIW, I've sold a few cars myself. So far, it's been thru my previous work, Craigslist, to a Nissan dealer (I did put up on CL) and to my dad.

Selling a car private party is a bit of a pain and you can get weirdos low balling you, offering weird trades and weirdos/dangerous drivers wanting to have a test drive.

I'm actually in the process of trying to sell my used '13 Leaf. I fortunately didn't pay much for it. I have taken it to 3 Nissan dealers, Carmax and submitted info to a few places online for a quote (e.g. Shift, Autonation, Vroom etc.) Some are way too low and Carmax isn't offering what I'd want. I've put it up at work but have gotten very little interest, unfortunately. I'd expand my audience a bit wider (e.g. a local Leaf FB group, CL and a few other car web sites), but I've been really busy and may not have time to deal w/the volumes of contacts.

 

[resteb]

I see this as an opporunity for Tesla to move more units and produce more cars if they make a "trade up" process easier. One simple idea would be for them to partner with a Carvana or Carmax and do a pass through transaction if they don't want to be in the used car business. Tesla is redefining the auto industry including dealer experience - why not improve the trade in experience too?

I appreciate the comments on maximizing the value on a used Tesla. I still think Tesla can do better than other manufacturers with trade in just like they have in blowing away all other cars from an engineering perspective.

I was hoping someone on the forum could get a message to Tesla corporate so they could consider improving the process and sell more cars to existing owners as a result. Good for them, good for us and good for the stock price.

 

[Xenius]

Just for poops and giggles (I'm looking at maybe getting a long range X to replace our S) I had them quote me for my AP1 75D uncorked, 19" wheels, coil suspsension, cold weather, textile seats, pano roof.

33k as well. lol. I'm friends with the employee who was quoting it for me and I told her beforehand I'd walk away from anything less than 40k without looking back and that I was pretty sure could do closer to mid 40's. 33k is ridiculous.

 

[jjrandorin]

I see this as an opporunity for Tesla to move more units and produce more cars if they make a "trade up" process easier. One simple idea would be for them to partner with a Carvana or Carmax and do a pass through transaction if they don't want to be in the used car business. Tesla is redefining the auto industry including dealer experience - why not improve the trade in experience too?

I appreciate the comments on maximizing the value on a used Tesla. I still think Tesla can do better than other manufacturers with trade in just like they have in blowing away all other cars from an engineering perspective.

I was hoping someone on the forum could get a message to Tesla corporate so they could consider improving the process and sell more cars to existing owners as a result. Good for them, good for us and good for the stock price.

As said, they dont want to be in the business of selling used cars, so they price accordingly. Tesla has decided they have to make enough money to make it worth their while, and that number seems low to you. Just sell it somewhere else. They have already decided that its NOT a "good for them" scenario at giving a better price for it, or they would do that. Likely also not "good for the stock price" either, although I dont care about that as I am not a tesla stock holder.

as said, a regular car dealer is not the manufacturer. They dont want to compete with themselves selling used cars because they can sell basically every new car they make right now, and new cars move the factory (used ones dont obviously).

 

[Dan203]

Tesla doesn't want Tesla trade-in, simple as that.

Why? The current lease terms on the 3 don’t even have an option to buy at the end. So they obviously want those back.

 

[SigNC]

They are offering a price where they can easily make money off you if you decide to take it but also setting the price low enough that you probably don't want to trade it into them and them having to deal with it. Makes sense to me.

 

[kengchang]

Why? The current lease terms on the 3 don’t even have an option to buy at the end. So they obviously want those back.

That's 3 years down the road and Tesla lease term in general is just meh

 

[The Gray Foxx]

Carvana can pay more because they will be the one selling it do another consumer, it's their business model. Tesla doesn't even have dealerships so it doesn't have the space to store used inventory. They don't want it. I traded in my Nissan Leaf to Tesla but I know they just put it on a truck and took it straight to auction. So you aren't getting retail trade-in price, you're getting auction price.

I honestly don't know how Carvana can offer $42k. The inventory price of a new one from Tesla is only $48k now, minus $1875 for tax rebate. If I'm weighing $42k for a car with 11k miles on it or $46k for a brand new one, I think I'd find a way to spend $4k more. Plus you can often get a lower interest rate and longer term on a brand new car than one with 11k on it.

 

[The Gray Foxx]

Why? The current lease terms on the 3 don’t even have an option to buy at the end. So they obviously want those back.

They want those back in 3 years when Autopilot is more mature. But let's be real...

 

[MountainJedi]

They want those back in 3 years when Autopilot is more mature. But let's be real...

I suspect they want the leases back in 3 years to add to/replace the existing loaner fleets at service centers.

 

[Falkirk]

I have a M3 LR 2018 with FSD upgrade. If I wanted to upgrade to a Y has anyone moved the FSD upgrade to a new car? That's a deal-breaker I'm sure for the wife if not and I'm pretty sure its stuck to the current car, although does it say that anywhere?

 

[tfraley]

You would think Tesla would be wanting to get the cars back into their fleet for the taxi service.
IE would think their would be more of an incentive to sell back to them.

 

[davewill]

You would think Tesla would be wanting to get the cars back into their fleet for the taxi service.
IE would think their would be more of an incentive to sell back to them.

I think that is part of the motivation for the new leases, but not for current trade-ins.

 

[Chaetagnath]

They did the same thing to me, offered me 33K for my LR RW from last year when I was buying a new P3D+. It’s disappointing that they accept the KBB price for any other car, but lowball their own previous customers. Really doesn’t make you feel like a valued customer. I used the cargurus App and sold it in 1 day for a fair price. I’m not mad at them, just think they’re business practices could be improved.

 

[ChrisH]

So, my LR AWD silver was $55k late last year. Deduct the tax credit, then about $47,500. You drove it 11,000 miles, so a full year's depreciation, so knock off somewhere in the range of $6k, leaving $41,500. And now it's wholesale, not retail, so knock off another $3k, $38,500. I understand the sales tax issue, so trading it to Tesla has some financial advantage, but the Carvana offer is too good even when you factor that in. It'd be like Tesla offering $40k. I think Carvana's offer is right in the ballpark.

Tesla's offer seems very low. Maybe they are stuffed to the gills with new and used Tesla's, and don't want to buy more, so the low offers.

You aren’t considering the full picture. Your car was $55,500 PLUS TAX. In WA state it’s 10% so it’s closer to $61,000. Then tax credit brings it to $53,500. So even if you knock off a year depreciation and wholesale at $10k that’s still $43,500.

 

[pigwet]

Again, Tesla matches CarMax - or at least they did for me. All I had to do was send in a picture of my CarMax quote for my VW and done. Do they not do the same for a Tesla?