By now, you’ve certainly seen the commercials or—if you’re in one of the now 107 markets served by Carvana—one of their giant automotive “vending machines” next to a major highway. Standing nearly 100 feet tall, these vending machines look like every automotive fantasy you ever had when you were putting your Hot Wheels into their carrier. Carvana’s vending machines …
After my wife’s CX-9 was stolen, I used Carvana to get her VW. It was the most painless car buying experience ever. It was easy, fast, clean, and no stupid add ons and upcharge attempts galore.
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What a load. This rig is nothing more than a Japanese vertical parking lot with glass sides. And you, of all folks, should know that buying a vehicle without sitting in it - and taking it for a test ride - is perhaps the dumbest idea ever for buying a vehicle.
In reply to gnichols37 :
Hmm... obviously didn't read the article and first post is trolling... 
I liked the write up, and i'm going to look at their website. I know a lot more about Carvana now than i did before reading this. Sounds like mission accomplished to me, and i didn't even get a Leaf!
We saw a lot of signs advertising them on our drive to and from IoP for Spring Break last week and I was planning on checking them out to see if it was a viable option for replacing the Dancer's ailing Mariner. Good to hear that it might be a workable option- though we would need to check a few things in general (like if what she usually needs to transport will fit as easily as it does into the Mariner) in person on a model of SUV in general.
My wife drove 4 different SUVs at Carmax. Carvana had a cleaner better equipped one, lower miles and lower price. It was a no brainer at the time. You can also return the car if you don’t like it and you take a test drive before signing the dotted line.
gnichols37 said:Spot the traditional car salesperson.
Last time I shifted cars I went to the carvana site and their offer for my trade was about 25% of what I could find anywhere else. It really didn't matter what they had for sale, I never made it past the trade evaluation stage. I eventually traded it in for approx the value I found pretty much everywhere else. I'm well aware that any dealer can shift discounts on the new car to add money onto the trade but carvana was so so so far off....
Busajeff said:Last time I shifted cars I went to the carvana site and their offer for my trade was about 25% of what I could find anywhere else. It really didn't matter what they had for sale, I never made it past the trade evaluation stage. I eventually traded it in for approx the value I found pretty much everywhere else. I'm well aware that any dealer can shift discounts on the new car to add money onto the trade but carvana was so so so far off....
That's not what I've experienced. After I bought my Leaf, we were curious what my wife's 2016 Mazda CX-5 was worth to them, so I did an appraisal and their offer on it was also surprisingly high. To the point where we've got an alert set up for 2016+ Chevy Volts with them. Now, I'm sure there are a ton of factors that go into the appraisal beyond just teh car itself, like geography and current market conditions, so maybe I just had two cars they really wanted to add to their inventory in my area at the moment. At any rate, it's good to hear other experiences.
gnichols37 said:What a load. This rig is nothing more than a Japanese vertical parking lot with glass sides. And you, of all folks, should know that buying a vehicle without sitting in it - and taking it for a test ride - is perhaps the dumbest idea ever for buying a vehicle.
I'll admit that I'm in a somewhat unique position as a journalist in that I get to drive a lot of cars. So a test drive of a specific car isn't as important to me, since it's probably a car I've already driven out of the press fleet. So my priorities become condition of the specific example I'm buying. Knowing I could call off the deal at any time made me feel a lot better about having a limited window to review the particular car I was getting.
As for the rig, yeah, that's exactly what it is. So? It allows them to pack a buynch of cars onto a much smaller footprint than a traditional dealership. Sounds fairly efficient to me.
You wrote “I never really got to test drive this car. I’ve had it three days and have now realized something I hate about it.”
What did you hate?
In reply to Jonwithnoh :
Read the article again...
I checked yesterday for fun. Of the one dealership I've talked to, they were spot-on on offering a trade value (which I still think is low considering mileage/condition and the fact the car has been ceramic coated).
But the cars I was looking at, while seemingly also very clean, very low miles cars........they seemed a bit pricey.
I think there was on '14 or '15 Miata GT with an asking price of like $21-22k. That still seems a bit on the steep side. But to be fair, it only had like 6k miles on it.
The problem with this experience is the fact that the cars are only relatively modern, and to the written point, for the masses.
As an older buyer, I am looking for specific car types that aren't new, as frankly, new cars are over burdened with with features that are unneeded and over priced.
While this is a good service for those that want appliances, which I think are most people, I don't find this to be a good service for someone wanting even a moderately vintage or specific car.
For example, looking just for `Subaru` and `Manual` returned 13 options. And of those, I know I can do better on price than what was returned without trying too hard.
I get this article isn't about this point, but as someone looking for those specialty cars or specific marks in a specific spec... things aren't as rosy as they once were.
Thank you for the article.
You mentioned that you would be unsure about buying a "specialty vehicle" this way. I went all in and did just that at the beginning of March. I bought a C7 Grand Sport from Carvana that I will be campaigning in SSR this year. (SCCA Autocross)
The front splitter was damaged during delivery, but they are paying to have it replaced. Other than that minor inconvenience, I had the same great experience you did, and got the exact car I wanted at a very competitive price, from the comfort of my desk chair. Their financing rate was better than any I was able to secure from a 3rd party as well.
I would definitely buy from them again. It was the easiest and least stressful car buying experience I've ever had.
This almost seems like a new take on CarMax, with CarMax serving as the "Blockbuster" and Carvana serving as the "RedBox/Netflix" lol
It seems like this could benefit a lot of people and remove a lot of the hassle and stress of car buying. I see their offerings come up in my searches regularly and don't think they are too overpriced in comparison to others. I wonder if you are able to go and test drive vehicles in those displays without actually arranging all the financing?
I see one of the vending machines off I-4 when we head in and out of Orlando, seems neat and good Marketing.
I think if I was going to buy a vehicle from them, I'd definitely want to get it from the vending machine. I'd just like to see one of those in action (other than on YT).
4 new users since this article was posted, and their only posts are in this thread. fascinating.
AngryCorvair said:4 new users since this article was posted, and their only posts are in this thread. fascinating.
yeah its like there's a bunch of disgruntled canoes up in here.
dowroa said:The problem with this experience is the fact that the cars are only relatively modern, and to the written point, for the masses.
As an older buyer, I am looking for specific car types that aren't new, as frankly, new cars are over burdened with with features that are unneeded and over priced.
While this is a good service for those that want appliances, which I think are most people, I don't find this to be a good service for someone wanting even a moderately vintage or specific car.
For example, looking just for `Subaru` and `Manual` returned 13 options. And of those, I know I can do better on price than what was returned without trying too hard.
I get this article isn't about this point, but as someone looking for those specialty cars or specific marks in a specific spec... things aren't as rosy as they once were.
Thank you for the article.
I think one of the reasons this process can work is that cars—in general—are pretty good these days. I don't mean they're all exciting and soul-stirring, but more that one Camry is pretty much as good and reliable as any other Camry. When I buy a computer, I don't scour the inventory for a particular example. I order one with the specs I want and assume it's going to be as good as any other computer with those specs. Cars are getting very close to those levels of reliability and standardization.
MyOtherCar said:You mentioned that you would be unsure about buying a "specialty vehicle" this way. I went all in and did just that at the beginning of March. I bought a C7 Grand Sport from Carvana that I will be campaigning in SSR this year. (SCCA Autocross)
The front splitter was damaged during delivery, but they are paying to have it replaced. Other than that minor inconvenience, I had the same great experience you did, and got the exact car I wanted at a very competitive price, from the comfort of my desk chair. Their financing rate was better than any I was able to secure from a 3rd party as well.
I would definitely buy from them again. It was the easiest and least stressful car buying experience I've ever had.
I think the "not being comfortable buying a specialty car this way" feeling is more me wanting the process of buying a "fun" car to be more engaging and personal. But, yeah, in most cases one GS is going to be as good as the next GS. If I was looking for anything modern like that I'd definitely feel this was a viable option.
Shopping for a '68 Camaro, though? Not sure. I think the Carvana model works great for modern cars which are generally built to a higher standard and level of reliability than at any other time in history. I'd be really interested to see if this model could be adapted for the collector/enthusiast market.
AngryCorvair said:4 new users since this article was posted, and their only posts are in this thread. fascinating.
Yeah this has definitely ruffled some feathers. Not sure I'd have ever believed that people would stan so hard for the traditional car dealership model, but here we are...
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Carvana? PFFTTT...Pretty soon only way to buy a car is via Amazon with drone delivery.
Seriously, in our information driven society/shop from phone/service industry world I think the traditional dealership or even used car entities are on their way out. Or at least waning.
Case in point on a smaller scale in different industry. Even in my little small suburban community I'm amazed at the number of carry out food delivery services (grub hub, et al) in restaurants is proliferating.
AngryCorvair said:4 new users since this article was posted, and their only posts are in this thread. fascinating.
Without posting Robbie's nautical picture, I thought that was interesting, too.
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