Carvana offered me a very good price for my Subaru Crosstrek. Is this a solid approach? Anyone here sold to them? Any concerns or gotchas I'm not aware of?

Thanks!

Never personally dealt with them but if you’re good with the offer, do it.

One thing to keep in mind though, the preowned market is insane right now so you might want to check around as you could possibly get more.

To expand a bit, the wife and I bought our 17 year old daughter a used, but newer and nicer than she had, truck on February 18. I put her other truck up for sale for KBB 3rd party value, which seemed high, but that truck didn’t have signs on it for even 24 hours before I had cash in hand. Literally the first person that looked at it, bought it. Had one call the evening before and he wanted it, but it was a 2wd and he wanted 4x4.

You might be able to do a bit better if you park it for a few days and check. If nothing comes through, Carvana will likely still be there.

recently i checked on what they'd offer for my 2013 mb e350, compared to for sale prices for the same vehicle in my area.

carvana offer was low wholesale.

There is a car shortage. Used cars have not been entering the market as quickly due to people driving less this past year. New car production has been disrupted.

There is pent up demand from the past year where people have held off on buying vehicles due to uncertainty regarding their commute situation, and now are looking to buy.

If you didn't buy a car right at the beginning of the pandemic when dealers were trying to downsize their inventory and people were liquidating assets to ride out job losses, then now is a really bad time to buy a car by comparison.

But, good news for the OP is that he should be able to get a good price if selling a used vehicle.

Personally I'd go with CarMax if I knew what my vehicle was selling for on the street. Little to no hassle and cash in the hand. Easy peasy.

Jim

I'd put the extra effort into selling it myself instead of leaving all that money on the table. But that's just me.

Those places offer you 50% to 60% of what you could get selling it yourself.

Of course, you won't have the hassle of test drivers nor can you provide financing (at 18%) to realize that additional 40% - unless you get a cash buyer of course.

Carvana are a nightmare.

I bought my wife's car from them. We started the process in the beginning of February. It took six weeks for it to be delivered,even though we were cash buyers, and a further month for the plates.

When it arrived, it had some stains on the seats as if someone had spilled coffee.Of course, this was not mentioned on the description of the vehicle. After I complained, I was told to have it detailed up to a cost of $100. I did so (which was worthless) and submitted the invoice for reimbursement five weeks ago. I got the check today.

I had to call them over and over again asking them for my check, each time I was waiting on hold for 30+ minutes. Every time I was told someone would look into my question and call me back. Not once did they do so. I bombarded them on social media, which was ignored.

I will never, ever, ever, do business with them again, either buying or selling.

Whatever they offered, you probably can get more in the market, right now most of these online buy used car companies are flipping the good cars to dealers through the large auctions and making serious coin.

Check around at dealers in your area at their web pages for prices on your vehicle, even if you have to go around the state to find them, craigslist etc.

You might find that the market price is higher for person to person. Used market is going to get hotter if the chips for new vehicles don't show up.

Dealers right now are in the shit or get off the pot scenario, they may run out of new inventory to sell in the next 30 to 60 days, or the chips might show up. They don't know if they should load up the lot with top level used cars or wait. The wrong guess could leave them in a big hurt, either way..

My auction friend says they are seeing 90+% conversion rates in the dealer lanes, a big increase in sale pct, whats not selling, nobody wants... basically 100% conversion on used vehicles...

Right now NADA and Kelley mean nothing, prices are moving up rapidly.

I sold my 98 Sonoma to Carvana and it was awesome.

I probably could have got more if I’d sold it through autotrader but I don’t have time to screw with that.

Anyway I got on the website and put in my info, took a couple pics of the car and within a couple hours I got a very fair offer. I set an appointment for the following Saturday and the guy even showed up 15 minutes early. The only funny part was that they told me they had to test drive the car before they took it, but the guy who showed up couldn’t drive stick so he had me drive him around the block, and then needed me to pull it on the flatbed for him.

I pulled it on and he handed me a check. Again I could have probably made a little more selling it myself but this was your painless and for a guy with a busy schedule it was fantastic.

As unbelievable as it sounds
2 weeks ago I sold my 2013 f150 for the same price I paid almost 4 years ago(it did have a brand new $1200 set of tires)

No experience with Carvana, but I know two people who have bought and sold from Carmax recently, and they said it worked great. There is a local Carmax lot in town.

To be clear, the offer is $16,400 while I'd have guessed $12k. Their first offer was over $17k, but I couldn't believe it so I ran it again and described it VERY conservatively because I don't want surprises should I choose to proceed. The mileage is very low 62k miles on a nearly 8 year old car. One owner no wrecks. I'm guessing I'm experiencing the benefits of this bubble.

The down side is I'll not likely get much discount on my new car. The dealer mentioned 4% which is something, but not amazing.

If you have a Carmax nearby, take it there for a second opinion.

You will always make more money selling private party. There is a massive supply shortage on vehicles due to manufacturers slowing or shutting down during covid and a choke in supply on components. They are giving competitive offers because they can make the same margin with the shortage. If the money lost is worth the time saved, go for it.

Sold the spousal unit's 2014 Mini Countryman S to them . Best offer around and a smooth deal.

RMD

Low mileage car- just keep it unless you have to have something else

Used car prices are skyrocketing and the supply is low, just like housing.

They are going to flip your car and make a nice profit, but if you are happy with the price they're giving you, then that's great.

You don't have to deal with tire-kickers and game players and low-ballers this way than compared to trying to sell privately.

In Ohio when you buy a car the state sales tax is calculated on the difference between the trade value and new purchase price. At least in Ohio this something to consider when you sell instead of trading your old car. In any case always run the numbers.

Be sure to get a quote from VRoom. They beat a Carvana quote by a couple of grand on an Escape a friend is selling.