Unfortunately during this lockdown my car is on its last legs. To be fair, it's a 2006 Saturn VUE and she gave me 191K miles with no major issues.
I've found a few cars I really like on Carvana at a reasonable price. How was the buying experience? I want to make sure that the actual experience matches what they promise on the website.
There is one of those giant vending machines near me (Charlotte) but due to social distancing I may opt for the driveway delivery.
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I've had friends who have had a good experience. CarMax is offering the same service (driveway delivery). I have been browsing Carvana and CarMax websites lately as well. I wanted to see if anyone had any luck recently negotiating with dealerships. I've seen articles saying that with the social distancing and everything that good deals are available if you can haggle with the right dealership. I saw some that said they would deliver to your house for free within a 100 mile radius and provide virtual tours and everything. Will even deliver to your house for a test drive
I had a coworker who went back and forth with dealerships via email a few years ago. It seemed to work very well for him, as he was able to leverage one dealership against the other. I think at one point they were underbidding each other to sell him the same vehicle (same vin).
I was able to buy what I think was the cheapest Honda Civic EX Hatchback in the Hampton Roads area at the time all from negotiating over email. I was about to get a lower price when I called the other dealer to let them know I wasn't stopping by when I overheard the salesperson "discussing" the discount with the GM. A lot of unfavorable names came out when they thought I was on mute.
I bought a new car in 2017 doing just this thing....email and phone calls. Waited until the end of the month....Its much easier and you can play the "walk out of the dealership" card by email. You hold the cards and if you can play 2 or more dealers against each other, that's a plus. When buying daughter a used car we ran into CarMax being more expensive, no haggle, but from what I heard, they at least check the cars out by a mechanic. Carvana was also more expensive and the thought of not kicking the tires on a used car was more than I wanted to entertain. I guess the have a trial period, but....
"Waited until the end of the month"
This is very important. Most dealerships don't really make money on the profit from the sale of the vehicles. Manufacturers give the dealerships monthly "bonuses" based on how many units they move that month. So, at the end of the month they will sometimes even sell cars for less than cost just to hit that magic quota number to get the big bonus. If they don't want to haggle at the end of the month, just walk away and try again at the end of the next month. They get the rest of their money from add-ons, things like scratch and dent plans or interior/upholstery replacement plans that "only" add a few extra dollars a month to your loan payment.
I know Carmax has a no haggle policy
Full disclosure, I provide financial planning on a retainer contract for all of Carvana's HQ (3 locations) employees here in Phoenix/Tempe, so I've gotten incredible insight into how they do things.
By all accounts from people that have purchased through them and my own first hand observations, its a first rate experience. I will more than likely go through them when I make my next vehicle purchase. Ironically, I would not suggest financing through them though.
I mean, Carvana's parent company is Drivetime. Financing with them is arguably worse than just using a credit card to buy a car.
Using a credit card to buy a car? Don't let Dave Ramsey find out...
Yes, it's a bad idea. When I was helping people with their total loss claims, the ones with DriveTime as their lienholders were always massively upside-down on their loans and because they usually had bad credit and carrying a balance, they essentially had no choice but to go back to DriveTime for their next car and continue the terrible cycle.
I'm not sure there is a dealership you should finance through.
Depends if its new or used. Most dealers have bear 0% interest kn new cars during deal periods that seem to be all the time.
Most being the keyword, sold cars for Honda and Toyota and Toyota rarely ever gets anywhere near 0% because of the quality of car they make, Honda has really gone down hill lately on quality used to have them up there near Toyota, now it's Toyota then everyone else.
You can finance through any dealership. Just make sure you've been preapproved through the bank(s) of your choice before the purchase. The dealer will do an exhaustive search to match or beat your rate to get the loan.
Not always. Last purchase, after I heard the dealerships rate, I told them I was preapproved through a credit union and they said, "Ok if they are better, then go with them." They didn't even try to beat their rate.
Bought from them last year. I hate car shopping. Ran my 2006 Acura into the ground and it wouldnt pass emissions by my birthday (GA law thing). So I waited until the last minute and gave it a whirl. Was quick, easy and painless. If you are a car 'snob' (not saying that is bad) and need to test drive and care about specific amenities, features, feelings, etc. I can see it being iffy but for someone like me it was great. Took an hour or so online purchasing and uploading docs/info. Maybe 30 min of phone calls. And about an hour for delivery and transaction.
You sound exactly like me: a car is a tool to get me and my family places while hauling our stuff.
I'm looking at vans, and I've already driven the few I have my eye on via rentals.
What documents did you need? I'm assuming drivers license, W2/Pay stubs, insurance info. Anything else?
You also need current title for trade in if you go that route + current registration. You have to get your insurance company to give you some sort of temp rider for them to give you the car. They explain it to you pretty well. They have you take photos in a pretty clean process. Trying to remember if anything else. I paid cash so they just had to verify my funds.
Oh no! Please never pay cash for a car I know it seems like a great idea to avoid payment but it's single handily one of the dumbest decisions you can make with you're money, invest the money you would have spent in something that can return some money for you and finance it through your bank instead, and pay it off sooner than the financing to avoid all the extra interest.
You do realize that interest is calculated based on remaining balance and not the original balance, yes? I'm not saying you're strictly wrong, but if you're following the "finance the balance and invest the rest in the market" you're banking on the market providing a higher rate of return that your interest rate. If that's the case, then the best strategy is to make only the minimum monthly payments and invest the rest you would be spending in the market. But taking the half measures you're suggesting still exposes you to the risk of the markets while taking away the long-term potential of compound returns.
In short, it doesn't sound like good advice to me.
especially since most asset classes with higher ROI than your car loan interest rate likely trigger taxes on your gains or aren't as liquid as cash. might as well buy a cheap car for cash, then still make budgeted "payments" into some investment such that you're growing your money for your next car while you're using up the life of the one you just bought.
That is some impressive mileage
Religiously following the maintenance schedule pays off
Yes sir, I tell you whut.
this might wind up being me depending how long this all stretches out -- had started test driving some cars in December while my current car still had some marginal resale value, but then decided to drive it until it dies. 2010 Mazda 3 hatchback with 201k miles and climbing
Recently had an Uber ride in a 2005 Mazda3 that had 314,000 miles at the time and was running well. My daughter's 2007 3 has 220k and so far so good (knock on wood). So you may have that 2010 for a good while yet.
I don't feel as if it's on its very last legs quite yet, but i do about 400 miles a week for my work commute (less now that i'm a third remote, but still) so the miles really come quickly. mostly highway miles, but NJ commuter traffic will get after ya. i'm more wary about putting too much more money into what is already a sunk cost. It's going to be due for typical service soon, but i know I'm also coming up on brake pads etc.
Plus it's definitely seen better days -- the audio system stopped working in December 2018 and i got into a stupid fender bender in December 2019 that pushed some stuff around in the front end (sneezed at the wrong time, didnt stop quite quickly enough 🤦♂️) which is what totally killed any resale value.
To me, no resale value means drive it till the wheels fall off. I saw an OEM radio listed on GregsList recently for like $25. There are cheap ways to make it more livable, but we have encountered numerous things over the past couple of years on our 3 that would probably have made me get rid of it if I wasn't able to work on it myself.. Good luck to you!
It's a bad capacitor in the custom-made-for-Mazda-by-Bose amp. not so bad to replace the whole amp with an aftermarket, but it's not worth spending the money or effort on the car to fix it at this point, either 🤷♂️
Million dollar company name idea right there
I also have a 400+ mile per week NJ commute. Ive done relly well with finding hyundai sonatas or something similar with 80 to 100k on them for like $4500 and driving them into the ground over the next 5 years. I currently have an 07 sonata i got a little over 2 years ago with 79k on it that now has almost 150k.
I bought from them a few years ago. From a transaction point of view it was very smooth and so much easier than going to a dealer. Just make sure to get the car independently inspected within your 7 day return window. I didn't and it almost cost me a hefty repair bill. Luckily I was still within the 100 day warranty window when the issue was found (bent control arm), but it took a lot of fighting with them on the warranty claim.
That's the only thing I've heard too. Several posts on r/legaladvice about them being difficult to work with for the warranty.
Good advice on the inspection.
If you are buying a used car, make sure you know of any issues it has by getting a pre-purchase inspection done. They typically cost around $100-200 and can save you from thousands of dollars of future repairs if the car you want to buy has mechanical issues or unreported accident damage. They can also help in negotiating the price down if you find issues and still want to buy the car. PPI's are not perfect and won't catch everything but can be very worthwhile.
Places like Carvana and CarMax most likely won't let you have a PPI done beforehand but take advantage of that return policy window and get the PPI done while you can still return a car. There are plenty of cars that have passed a dealers inspection process and still have issues that a 3rd party PPI would catch.
Anyone else read Carvana and insert it to the tune of Havana?
🎶Carvana na na na...🎶
I actually used to work at Carvana a few years ago in the DC market (actually the 2nd employee ha) and I am sure it is even better than it was then. I highly recommend it, and I worked with a lot of the people in Charlotte and Houston offices as well. Great customer service, great selection of cars, and the perfect way to get a car right now; so highly recommend.
Wife and I are entering the market for a new (used) vehicle soon, and as lousy as the economy is everywhere right now, it impresses me as a great time to buy a vehicle. Dealers should be VERY open to negotiations if you choose to go that route. Have thought about the Carmax and Carvanna route, and may go that way, depends on what my wife finds acceptable, vehicle-wise.
Oh, and if anybody is interested in a very nice 2012 Nissan Altima 2.5SL, 77K mi., very clean, hit me up.
edit: The Altima milage is 72,000, not 77,000.
Carmax has no haggle policy, not sure that's changed under the current circumstances haha
Oh, I know they haven't changed their policy. I'm saying that you should be able to find deals out there with regular dealers. Carmax is a great place to start a car search because you can check out a lot of different vehicles in one place. Maybe you find what you want there, maybe you don't, maybe you figure out what you do or don't want.
Nissan owned by Renault...no thanks.
It's actually been a very good car. Couldn't comment on newer models, but I've heard quality has gone downhill in the past 3-5 years. I've had three Nissan cars over some time, and all have been solid.
This one has had no issues (other than an airbag recall....but what vehicle hasn't had that?). My wife wants something a little higher, like a small SUV. Easier for both of us to get in and out of, since we passed spring chicken status quite a few springs ago.