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Buying (and returning) a used car through Carvana

April 12, 2018 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Carvana delivering my car.

Driving a new car is exhilarating, even if the initial excitement is short-lived. But the process of buying one is rarely so: Pushy dealers. Endless negotiations. Upsells.

It’s even worse when you buy a used car. Many dealers shunt you off to a second-rate sales experience when you opt to buy used.

For many reasons (worthy of another post) I prefer to buy late model used cars whenever I can. After my family’s second car finally called it quits over the winter holidays, I begrudgingly set out to find a replacement.

Off to the used car lot

My first stop was CarMax. CarMax has a lot of good things going for it. If you’re trying to narrow down a short list from a lot of different cars, you can check many of them off your list in an hour or two at CarMax. They carry just about every make and model. It’s very efficient.

This was my first time test driving at CarMax and I came away wondering how the company stays in business. I sold a car to CarMax a while ago and the process was very easy. But just about every car I test drove at CarMax had a problem with it.

The plug-in hybrid had no battery life left. Worse, it had a serious transmission problem.

Another car had a flat tire and was running on run-flats.

Another had a seriously jacked suspension.

It was almost comical. When I got into each car I played a guessing game about what would be wrong with it.

To the big brand dealers

My next stop was to the luxury brand dealer used car lots. It was a step up from CarMax because the cars actually worked. But I was flummoxed by a couple of things.

1. I had a few specific requirements for the car, including a backup camera. I found that most dealers are inconsistent in how they label the features their used cars have.

2. Pushy salespeople.

The BMW dealer was particularly frustrating. Its website had a horrible user interface. Figuring out which options the cars had was almost impossible. Some car listings had all of the features listed while others had just basic info.

I assumed that the salespeople would have better data on which cars had which features. So when I sat down with a salesperson and told him I wanted to drive a car with a backup camera,
I was shocked at what happened next. He literally opened the website, went to each car listing individually, and clicked through all of the pictures looking for which ones had photos of a backup camera!

Nirvana at Carvana

Frustrated with my real-world experiences, I decided to check out online car sellers.

The idea of buying a used car sight-unseen might be scary to you. I’ve done it before, though.

Online-only used car sellers tend to have generous return provisions to make you feel comfortable. For example, Carvana has a 7-day, no questions asked guarantee.

Carvana seems to be the heavyweight in online used cars. It’s a publicly traded company with a $3 billion market cap. Compared to a couple of other online used car sites, Carvana has higher standards for the cars it will sell. It doesn’t sell any cars that have accidents reported on their CarFax report. It also seems to stay away from cars that were used for a special purpose, such as fleet and rental.

And compared to all of the dealer sites I visited as well as used car aggregator sites like AutoTrader, the user interface and search features were much, much better on Carvana.

You can search by dozens of different features so that you can find exactly the car you want:

I found a 2015 BMW 3 Series that met my requirements.

Ordering at Carvana

All of Carvana’s cars have fixed prices, so there’s no haggling. You reserve your car online through a checkout process, much like buying anything else online. There’s a bit more information they need, of course. We’re talking about a big purchase with state regulations.

I was paying cash for the vehicle. Carvana needed to verify the funds and offered an online way to connect to my bank account. I was a bit uneasy about giving my bank account info to a third-party tool, so Carvana did a simple phone verification instead. They called me and then three-wayed with the bank to confirm the funds.

I spent a total of about 10 minutes online and 10 minutes on the phone to complete the process.

There was one drawback to buying a used car at Carvana rather than a local used car dealer. Carvana required me to add the car to my insurance before receiving the car. When I buy a car from a dealer in Texas they need to see that I have insurance but I don’t need to add the new car. Since my insurance company covers new cars for 30 days without adding them to the plan, buying a car at Carvana essentially required me to pay for an extra month of car insurance.

Delivery day!

Carvana has a cool gimmick for getting your car. They have “car vending machines” in select cities including my hometown of Austin. Your car is delivered via an elevator and conveyer belt from a five-story machine.

They will also deliver the car to you via flatbed truck for free. I watched a video of the vending machine online. It was really cool, but seeing the video was good enough for me. I didn’t want to spend an hour roundtrip going to the vending machine. You can check out the vending machine here:

My delivery person called an hour before my scheduled delivery to verify I would be available. She then showed up right on time and unloaded the car (see photo above).

She let me take the car for a quick spin to make sure there wasn’t something obviously wrong with it. Next up was about 5 minutes of signing paperwork.

That was it. Then I had seven days to drive the car and get it inspected. Any problems? Just return it.

Trying the return policy

This review is going to be a bit different from others you read because I ended up returning the car and testing the return policy.

Let me start by saying this was not Carvana’s fault. The car was fine. I just made a mistake. I’m meticulous, so I’m a bit ashamed to admit my mistake…

The car came with “keyless entry and ignition”. I assumed that this meant there was a button on the door that I could press to unlock the car. My retired Infiniti from 2007 had this feature. So surely a 2015 BMW would.

But everything on a BMW is an option.

“Oh, you want the car to drive? That’s an upgrade.”

It turns out that opening the door without taking the keys out of your pocket requires an additional package called Comfort Access. This package is part of another package, so it wasn’t listed on Carvana’s listings.

When I realized my mistake a couple of hours after getting the car I felt a pit in my stomach. What an idiot. This was one of the few must-have features I wanted and the car I selected didn’t have it. It was a true face-palm moment.

So it was time for me to test Carvana’s return policy. I called them up and told them I wanted to return the car.

No problem, sir. And no questions asked.

Maybe they would have asked if I didn’t tell them why I was returning it. But they didn’t give me any grief. They offered to pick the car up within 48 hours.

At this point, I was so enamored of the company and how it operates that I offered to return the car to their vending machine. I wanted to see what it was all about. I returned the car the next day. The entire process at the vending machine took about 3 minutes. I signed a piece of paper and they initiated an ACH transfer back into my bank. They even paid for an Uber for my ride home.

If you’re in the market for a used car, I recommend checking out Carvana.

Wow: Only 16% of Luxury Car Buyers Pay Cash

December 11, 2015 by Andrew 3 Comments

An Experian study says the Lexus RX 350 is the most-purchased luxury vehicle.

Credit agency Experian released data this week about luxury car buying, and I’m a bit surprised by one statistic: only 16% of luxury car buyers pay cash.

It turns out that the majority of luxury vehicle buyers lease their vehicles. 54% lease and 30% get a loan.

While general financial wisdom is that you should buy rather than lease a vehicle, there are plenty of circumstances where this isn’t true. Even taking out a loan can make sense depending on the rate and your alternative use for the cash. Still, the fact that 84% of luxury car buyers lease them or get a loan suggests that many car buyers should probably look at a less expensive car.

Here are other interesting facts from Experian:

The average loan on a luxury car is $42,876.
Tesla has the highest average monthly payment of $1,285. (Leases are expensive, too, and consider buying a used one.)
The average monthly lease payment for a luxury vehicle is $592.

A Time-Saving Christmas Gift

December 1, 2015 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Hands-free cleaning.

One of the 5 ways to get more enjoyment out of spending is to buy things that save you time. Another way to get enjoyment from spending is to give things to others. Combine the two and you should get double the happiness!

Here’s a way to do that: Gift someone a Roomba.

The only regret I have about buying a robot to vacuum my floors is that I didn’t do it sooner.

Now, when my dog is shedding becomes visible, I just push a button on the Roomba and it goes to work. It vacuums the floor and then returns to its docking station to charge, all without intervention (usually). It’s much easier than pushing around a vacuum.

In some ways it’s superior to a regular vacuum. It cleans hard-to-reach areas like under a sofa. It also picks up a lot of dirt that regular vacuums leave behind.

It amazes me when I run it in the bedroom after the floors have just been vacuumed. It still manages to fill up with dog hair and dirt.

The only complaint I have is that it tends to get stuck underneath the lip of cabinets. The Roomba is just the right height to get wedged underneath.

A robot vacuum won’t replace your regular vacuum, but it’s a great tool to clean the floors between visits by the maids.

What to buy and where to buy it

There are two well-known brands of robot vacuums: Roomba and Neato.

Roomba is the most popular, but Neato is a more efficient cleaner. The Roomba takes a seemingly random path around your floor. It can be annoying to have it travel to a corner and pick up some of the dirt, only to skip nearby dog hair and travel to the opposite side of the house. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes for it to return to the spot it missed.

I did the homework before last Christmas and went with Roomba, but the Neato might be just fine for you.

I recommend getting at least an 800 series Roomba. Maintenance on earlier Roombas was quite extensive. Since the whole point of a robot vacuum is to save you time, why buy one that requires constant upkeep?

Other than emptying the waste bin, the 800+ series robots require about 5 minutes of maintenance every 10-15 times you run them.

Pro tip: Save 20% on a Roomba using a 20% coupon from Bed Bath & Beyond. The coupon states that it doesn’t work on 800+ series Roombas, but that’s not encoded on the coupon.

How to Buy a Used Tesla

November 18, 2015 by Andrew 7 Comments

This Tesla P85 originally cost over $100,000. It’s available used for $59,000.

Take a test drive of a Tesla and you’ll think it wise to short the oil companies. It’s an incredible driving experience that doesn’t require a drop of gas.

The downside is that the car of the future is expensive. It’s easy to top $100,000 for a Tesla after adding features.

The good news is that used Teslas are starting to come on the market, often at discounts of 30% or more off the original price.

This is a first-hand guide to buying a used Tesla.

Do you really need a used one?

Before we drive into a tutorial on used Teslas, ask yourself this: Can you afford a new one instead?

Believe it or not, you can get a brand new Tesla for just $62,500 after the $7,500 government rebate.

That’s for the basic 70 kWh battery with no options. Even without options, this might be a better choice for some people than buying an older, used Tesla. The new cars come with upgraded hardware and small fixes that are superior to Teslas that are even a year or two old.

A basic Tesla is still likely better than any car you’ve driven, but Tesla sells basically everything as a feature. The $70,000 entry model car doesn’t even come with leather seats! [Read more…] about How to Buy a Used Tesla

Happy Money: How to get more enjoyment from spending

October 6, 2015 by Andrew Leave a Comment

happy-money It’s natural to think that the more money you make, the more you can spend, and thus the happier you will be. But as you make more and spend more, you quickly discover a disconnect in this logic.

Happy Money is a recently-updated book (Elizabeth Dunn, Michael Norton) about the science of spending and how to make yourself happier when you spend. The principles are simple, yet we often overlook them. I’ll refer back to these principles frequently on this site, so here they are:

1. Buy Experiences. The best way to look at this is to consider the opposite first. Odds are, when you bought your current car, you were pretty stoked about it. You drove it just to drive it, to experience it. After a couple years you got less satisfaction out of it and looked at it as more of a mode of transportation.

Compare that to some experiences you’ve had, whether they were vacations or evenings out with friends. Do you have a memory or two that you remember often?

This is why you should buy experiences. Experiences give you joy well after you’ve bought them (if they even cost money). Physical goods eventually don’t give you happiness. You end up upgrading, enjoying it for a period of time again, and then continuing the cycle.

I hadn’t really thought about this before reading Happy Money. I used to think spending money on experiences was throwing away money since you had nothing to show for it when you were done, as opposed to buying a physical item.

2. Make it a Treat. Simply: if you get something too often, you take it for granted.

Remember the first time you flew first class and thought it was awesome? After your tenth time, you probably appreciated it less. You start nitpicking the first class experience and the food.

Perhaps a couple flights in economy will make you appreciate first class again.

3. Buy Time. Spend money on things that save you time, so that you can do things you enjoy with your time. One great and reasonably-priced timesaver: a Roomba vacuum.

4. Pay now, consume later. Since this site is geared to people with savings, I’m going to assume you aren’t sitting on a mountain of credit card debt. But the principle of paying now and consuming later is still relevant.

The key is to separate the payment process from the use of any major purchase, be it a vacation or a car. Buy your flights a couple months in advance. Consider paying in advance for a vacation rental. When it comes to to enjoy it, you won’t have to think about the cost.

Growing up, I was told to delay the payment process as long as possible to earn interest on the float. That’s not very relevant when bank accounts are paying less than 1% interest!

5. Invest in Others. In other words, help someone out. Donate time or money.

It is amazing how good it feels to help someone out. I’d argue that spending time helping someone feels much better than writing a check, which is a topic for another day.