Trade-in experience at Lawrence Service Centre

[Shaz]

Hi Everyone,

Has anyone gone through the trade-in process at the Lawrence SC? If so, how was your experience?
I currently have an appointment this Wednesday for a trade-in inspection for my current ICE car to give me a final trade-in amount. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[mazeminder]

Hi Everyone,

Has anyone gone through the trade-in process at the Lawrence SC? If so, how was your experience?
I currently have an appointment this Wednesday for a trade-in inspection for my current ICE car to give me a final trade-in amount. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I have one coming up in early September and I'd love to hear other people's experiences as well.

 

[wayner]

I traded in my Lexus GS 2.5 years ago when I got my Model S. I didn't get quite as much as I had hoped for but that always seems to be the case when you do a trade in - but other than that the process was pretty straight forward. I didn't want to go through the hassle of selling it myself and I think you benefit from lower HST when you trade in.

 

[Shaz]

I traded in my Lexus GS 2.5 years ago when I got my Model S. I didn't get quite as much as I had hoped for but that always seems to be the case when you do a trade in - but other than that the process was pretty straight forward. I didn't want to go through the hassle of selling it myself and I think you benefit from lower HST when you trade in.

Interesting I didn't know the trade-in value would be applied to the pre-tax amount. That definitely would be a plus due to the lower HST. Thanks for the info!

 

[wayner]

Here is how it works (Google for more details - this is from a "dealer-friendly" website):

There are significant tax savings available when trading-in your vehicle. If your new vehicle price is $30,000 and the dealer gives you $10,000 on your trade-in, you’ll only be required to pay tax on the difference of $20,000. Therefore, if you were to sell your car privately you would have to sell it for at least an additional $1,300 to make it equivalent to the dealer offer, and that does not include the additional time commitment required or potential necessary repairs.

 

[Struja]

Mine was a disaster and it is why I walked away from Tesla for about 10 months before I bought my car.

They had me fill out a questionaire and send pics. I did both. I answered everything 100% truthfully. My trade was a 2008 IS350 in great condition.

They offered me 13k in June 2016. Prior to finalizing the deal they said I had to bring the car in for an inspection. I went to Lawrence they looked at my car and said they wouldn't honour the price because I had "lied" about my brakes. My car had after market Brembo brakes and they said I only had 5% left on the brakes. They said they would only give me 11k based on brakes and 2 accident (both of which I had disclosed on the application).

I took my car back to my mechanic (who had just changed my pads a few months earlier). Showed me the brakes up on the hoist. 90% left on the pads. Basically still brand new. He felt I was getting scammed. Who knows.

I walked away and told Derry I didn't appreciate being called a liar. After looking for anything other than a Tesla for 10 months, I swallowed my pride and came back. I sold my IS350 privately for 15k and I got my S90D. It's my dream car but my experience with Tesla trade-in was not a good one at that time.

 

[Shaz]

Sorry to hear the horrible experience and thanks for sharing!

 

[skhenry81]

I sold my car privately and had Tesla broker the deal. I was able to take advantage to the tax savings still. Tesla charged $500 to broker the deal which I passed that on to the buyer.

I got 4k more selling privately than what they were offering.

 

[cwave1]

Mine was a disaster and it is why I walked away from Tesla for about 10 months before I bought my car.

They had me fill out a questionaire and send pics. I did both. I answered everything 100% truthfully. My trade was a 2008 IS350 in great condition.

They offered me 13k in June 2016. Prior to finalizing the deal they said I had to bring the car in for an inspection. I went to Lawrence they looked at my car and said they wouldn't honour the price because I had "lied" about my brakes. My car had after market Brembo brakes and they said I only had 5% left on the brakes. They said they would only give me 11k based on brakes and 2 accident (both of which I had disclosed on the application).

I took my car back to my mechanic (who had just changed my pads a few months earlier). Showed me the brakes up on the hoist. 90% left on the pads. Basically still brand new. He felt I was getting scammed. Who knows.

I walked away and told Derry I didn't appreciate being called a liar. After looking for anything other than a Tesla for 10 months, I swallowed my pride and came back. I sold my IS350 privately for 15k and I got my S90D. It's my dream car but my experience with Tesla trade-in was not a good one at that time.

I had a similar experience there in January this year trading in my 2013 Model S for a 2015 CPO. I received a trade in value and then a service centre saw my car to confirm the condition. I heard nothing from Derry including whether my new car was even ready.

I finally heard late on the night before I was picking it up that it was ready (I needed to drive into work which I don't normally do so I needed some notice on when it would be ready).

The morning of the day I was picking up the new car, I finally received the contract with the final pricing and they had lowered the value on my car by $2000. I told them I wouldn't accept that and they had a higher manager of some sort call me. He apologized but tried to explain why it was less. I said I would cancel the transaction if they wouldn't honour the original price and eventually he agreed.

My little proverb - "He who yells the loudest gets what everyone deserves"

 

[TomatoOne]

I sold my car privately and had Tesla broker the deal. I was able to take advantage to the tax savings still. Tesla charged $500 to broker the deal which I passed that on to the buyer. I got 4k more selling privately than what they were offering.

Same here. The trade-in quote from Tesla on our BMW was very low, so we listed it on Kijiji and sold it for almost double in just a couple of days. Tesla had no problem running the private sale through (they call it a "convenience sale", charged a $500 fee), so we could take advantage of the tax savings.

 

[Whisky]

I traded in my 2012 BMW with pretty great results. With the HST rebate it ended up about the same as the autotrader recommended price for the car. I didn’t do the ‘self appraisal’ and instead came in for the 30 minute inspection. The quoted me a price, and honored it a few weeks later when my car came in. Sucks about the bad experiences others have had, but definitely a great on on my end.

 

[skhenry81]

It seems to be hit and miss. I was driving a 2010 BMW 750i mint condition. When they first evaluated it and gave me a price it wasn't bad but a week before my S was ready they came back with $2000 dollars less and said that it was because there were more clicks on the car now. That's when I decided to sell it privately.

You can't do better selling privately.

 

[Safari]

We ended up trading in two cars: one owned by us that became surplus once we got our S90D and one that we had on lease and hadn't intended to trade-in. On the first car they arranged a third-party purchase which came to our house to get it, and Tesla handled the paperwork. On the lease, Tesla gave us slightly better than what we owed, so the trade gain, with HST, applied to the purchase. Overall pretty happy. We could have tried for more privately, even the Tesla reps suggested that, but it would have delayed getting the S, as well as changed how the tax benefit would have applied to the purchase.

 

[Doug_G]

I traded an Infiniti G37 for my first Model S (at Tranmere), though that was before the current system was in place. I could have got a bit more for it selling privately but the HST thing makes it hard to do a lot better.

No problem at all trading in Tesla for Tesla under the new system.

 

[SmartElectric]

I traded an Infiniti G37 for my first Model S (at Tranmere), though that was before the current system was in place. I could have got a bit more for it selling privately but the HST thing makes it hard to do a lot better.
No problem at all trading in Tesla for Tesla under the new system.

+1

Note : Tesla doesn't do the trade in appraisals, the trade in is a convenience, and not a primary line of business for Tesla.
In our case, a professional car appraiser came to my house, did the evaluation, sent the car for bids, and the highest bid was chosen.
While it was $4K less than I could have sold privately, it was way more convenient to just let this process work.

If you have the time, sell privately and bring Tesla in with their $500 fee to broker the transaction to help offset the sales tax on the car purchase.

 

[sataponw]

+1

Note : Tesla doesn't do the trade in appraisals, the trade in is a convenience, and not a primary line of business for Tesla.
In our case, a professional car appraiser came to my house, did the evaluation, sent the car for bids, and the highest bid was chosen.
While it was $4K less than I could have sold privately, it was way more convenient to just let this process work.

If you have the time, sell privately and bring Tesla in with their $500 fee to broker the transaction to help offset the sales tax on the car purchase.

Hey, I am in the process of selling my car right now and will most likely go the private route since the trade-in valuation was really low. Do you mind expanding a bit more on bringing Tesla in as a broker? Is this what they normally do? Just want to know what to ask them and how the process works.

 

[skhenry81]

J

Hey, I am in the process of selling my car right now and will most likely go the private route since the trade-in valuation was really low. Do you mind expanding a bit more on bringing Tesla in as a broker? Is this what they normally do? Just want to know what to ask them and how the process works.

Just let them know you are selling privately and want to use them to broker the deal. They will give you all the details you need. It was pretty simple and in my case I feel like it brought more legitimacy to the the transaction.

Shawn

 

[Shaz]

Thanks everyone for sharing their experiences. Just wanted to give a quick update, I had the inspection done this past Wednesday and I was quoted at $9500 for my 2011 Mitsubishi Outlander XLS. I submitted a pre-inspection form prior to this and got an estimate of $10000. So it just went down $500 which I'm fine with. The reason they gave me was due to a dent on driver side door, some rusting under the car and the tires being very worn out (still the OEM's). Overall good experience. Like everyone said here I probably would have gotten more if I sold privately but I just find this more convenient for me.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Struja]

Thanks everyone for sharing their experiences. Just wanted to give a quick update, I had the inspection done this past Wednesday and I was quoted at $9500 for my 2011 Mitsubishi Outlander XLS. I submitted a pre-inspection form prior to this and got an estimate of $10000. So it just went down $500 which I'm fine with. The reason they gave me was due to a dent on driver side door, some rusting under the car and the tires being very worn out (still the OEM's). Overall good experience. Like everyone said here I probably would have gotten more if I sold privately but I just find this more convenient for me.

Thanks again everyone!

When are you getting your car?

 

[Shaz]

When are you getting your car?

Estimated delivery date is Sep 13 - 27