The past 6 weeks or so, I have contemplated selling my truck to one of the online car places. With the used vehicle market on fire right now, I think it's a good time to sell. I started with Carvana, who offered me $18k for my Ram. Vroom offered me over $23k and I requested the paperwork to start the transaction.
In the meantime, I started researching these places. Vroom has absolutely terrible reviews and a BBB Rating of "F". Many complaints are people waiting months for their payment. I received a FedEx package yesterday from Vroom that contained a Power of Attorney. If I understand correctly, you give Vroom legal rights to your vehicle when you sign it so they can act on your behalf when dealing with your financial institution. They then send a flatbed truck out, pickup your vehicle and ship it to one of their assessment/holding facilities. They then have a human appraise it and give you a number. It seems like they have you by the short hairs at that point because they could (and possibly will) lowball the hell out of you. If you don't agree to their price, you can back out but they charge you $795 to ship your car back to you. It seems very shady to me and they make money either way.
Does anybody have any experience with selling their vehicle to a place like this? If I could get a good price for my truck using a service like this, I'd do it versus dealing with people or a dealership.
Carvana is picking up my car on Tuesday.
Vroom offered a bit more, but of the reviews I have seen of them 50% are two thumbs up, 50% are 'these guys are shady as berkeley'
Sold my 2018 tacoma to vroom 5 weeks ago
excellent experience
lease buy out 17,800
vroom paid me $23,500
3.5 years ago I paid $22,500 for the truck new they paid $17,800 to toyota
sent me check for balance
few pics and registration is all I sent
smoothest transaction ever
I just sold to Carmax. Carvana was about nine hundred higher but they are frustrating in the lack of ability to interact with a human. I discovered after the process began that you have to be more than 60 days before the end of the lease, so I would have had to extend the lease by two months which negated half of their benefit. I got the Carmax offer over the web, did the prep work, drove it to them where in 20 minutes they did the evaluation and confirmed the offer, then went to the business office to sign the POA, confirm the lease payoff info, and traded keys for a check. Very simple. Who knew three years ago was a perfect time to lease? I got either my upfront money or a year of lease payments back, depending on how you want to look at it.
Stanger, I forgot you are close. This happened at the Carmax in Clearwater on US19.
My boss just sold her mustang to carmax. She said it took less than an hour and she sold it for a good amount more than what she paid in 2019.
Not particularly recent, but sold an Audi A6 to Carmax. They are efficient and professional.
JThw8
UltimaDork
5/14/21 9:10 p.m.
Been a few years now but I sold a car to Vroom. Offered well over what anyone else was paying and much more in line with the value of the car. Transaction was swift and efficient and I had no issues.
So it sounds like Vroom is pretty legit. I was immediately sceptical when they offered $5k more than Carvana.
Just for S&Gs, I tried the KBB instant cash offer. It was less than I owe on the truck and within an hour I had multiple dealers blowing up my phone and email. Ugh no thanks.
It really sucks because I initially contacted Vroom on April 28th and they finally Fedexed the paperwork on May 12th. I got sideswiped in the truck on May 6th (not my fault). I take it to the body shop on Monday to have $1700 worth of bodywork done. It's not too bad; just some scuffs they will buff out and a wheel they will replace.
This is terrible timing because I was literally in the middle of attempting to have Vroom buy my truck from me.
I'm still kinda leery of shipping my truck off to them and then they appraise it. I'm on the hook for return shipping if I don't accept their appraisal numbers. That system seems ripe for shady tactics.
Those that sold a vehicle to Vroom, how close was their appraisal numbers to the initial offer?
Their offer based on pics is exactly what I got 2 days after truck was picked up .
Not $1 changed
In reply to mr2s2000elise :
Excellent. Thank you.
JThw8
UltimaDork
5/16/21 7:31 p.m.
No change from offer to appraisal on mine either. Your situation is a bit different. Since there was an accident in between, if their offer drops then speak to either your insurance or the at fault insurance about diminished value. This will be easy since you can proove the offer before and the adjusted value after. You should be able to have a claim with the insurance for any difference. However diminished value rules vary state to state so check your local info.
That situation is tricky. Not sure about Vroom, but Carvana specifically states that their cars are accident free, so an accident may not be a case of diminished value, they might just cancel their offer.
If your original offer was for a no accident car, it's no longer good.
In reply to JThw8 :
I spoke to my insurance company about diminished value and they stated that I will have to file it through the other party's insurance carrier once the repairs are complete.
And I have proof of their initial offer:
In reply to ProDarwin and Steve Jones:
Thats a good point as well. I'll have to contact them to make sure my truck is still eligible to be sold to them. I'm OK if they need to do another offer since the terms have changed.
ProDarwin said:
That situation is tricky. Not sure about Vroom, but Carvana specifically states that their cars are accident free, so an accident may not be a case of diminished value, they might just cancel their offer.
that is 100% BULLE36 M3...
my buddy got a mistang from Carvana.. realized it had paint issues on the driver side from being resprayed..
They took the car back and then immediately relisted it..
they don't care beyond a carfax.. which does fall into your comment.. but i just wanted to mention they are 100% full of E36 M3 about selling accident free cars.. they only care about the carfax.
^Yeah, but in order to get a diminished value claim he would need to file with insurance, which triggers carfax. Chicken & egg scenario.
Hopefully it all works out.
Sold my Audi to Carvana, easiest sale I've ever had.
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
Not even Carfax, they use AutoCheck.
Sold my WRX to carvana today. My bank holds the funds from the check for 4 business days since they have had issues with Carvana bouncing/returning checks in the past. so we will see
Sold my f80 M3 to Carmax a couple of months ago. Easy process. They paid me $48K for it & listed it for $53998 for 2-3 weeks, then moved it to another location & listed it for $49998 for a couple of weeks, until a week or so ago they had it listed for $47998 ($2 less than they paid me). It hasn't been listed for the past week so I assume they sold it or sent it to auction.
When I sold the car, Carmax offered several hundred dollars more than Vroom and a couple of thousand more than Carvana & $4000 more than KBB instant offer.
Carvana paid me 28.2 which is 1k more than i paid for the car new.
