Tags
#Carvana, #Kia, #Sorento, Auto, car buying, used cars, Web Experience
If you happen to follow this blog, you know I normally I review books, sometimes music or movies and tech (at least when I haven’t had a month-long hiatus of late). I typically don’t review services, and certainly not used cars sales service. This post will be quite different in that regard. By the way, I’m not going review the car; the Kia Sorento seems to fit our needs perfectly, but I’m really not equipped to review it. Rather, I’ll focus on Carvana’s service. So, let me step back a bit. For various reasons, we were looking for a newish, reliable, practical midsized SUV. We first turned to a local used car dealership with whom we’ve had previous dealings. We’ve got to the point where we paid to have a mechanic inspect the car prior to purchasing. It became pretty evident that attention to detail and willingness to negotiate were no longer strong points for that dealership which had changed hands since our last encounter. I continued my search and through that search ran across a car that looked good, met our criteria, was reasonably priced and was with Carvana of whom I’ve never heard. As I dived in a little bit more, I saw that this was a new way to buy used cars. Essentially, you check it out on the Internet through photographs, descriptions, and some data, like data from Carfax. At this point, you can buy the car on-line, and while I didn’t take advantage of this they do offer financing and the ability to trade in on the site. They’ll have it delivered to your home. Now you’re thinking: “Sight unseen? You fool of a Took!” Well, you have seven days and 400 miles to check out the car; even Gandalf could see the wisdom in that. If you don’t like it, you can return it and have your money returned. Alternatively, you can ask for a different car and switch them out (paying/receiving the price difference). Nicely enough for us, the very first car was the car that we wanted to keep. I initiated this process the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend. It was delivered to my door the next Tuesday morning (that is, the next business day) at 10 AM. I believe it came from a location 400 miles away. That’s pretty swift service.
Delivery isn’t just fast. It’s scheduled and done with friendly flare; our driver was a tad early and called about 30 minutes ahead of arriving. The car comes all shined up on a nice, neat truck with a polite and helpful driver (no, I don’t think he’s a Boy Scout). The folks at Carvana are smart enough to have the driver be a notary public so that they can take care of all the registration for you. The only thing you’ll have to do after the fact is pay property tax. Nice. You can have 15 to 20 minutes of driving it before they drive away, but I didn’t take advantage of that either. I really like the idea of having a solid week for a test drive to really get a feel for the automobile. So, from your couch to your doorstep, a vehicle is available with very little hassle. (I did have to get on the phone with Carvana and my bank to let those guys know that funds were available in the account being used, but that was it.)
Here’s a video walkthrough of Carvana’s web experience:
You might think that with this kind of set up, Carvana would be tempted to just fly under the radar for the next seven days so that they make sure you are on the hook for your car. Nope. Day six they gave me a call to verify that everything was looking good and I was happy with it (along with spelling out what to do if it wasn’t). Day eight I got a thank you note from Carvell (the professional, helpful and polite driver) with Carvana Raleigh. This is not your daddy’s used car buying experience. While I am willing to negotiate, this service’s model is similar to Carmax’s without leaving your home (you pay a fixed price), with the bonus of a seven-day trial and without the salesman looking over your shoulder. Oh, and it appears to be about $500 less than most of the places around my area, at least through what I briefly surveyed, including Carmax for similar vehicles (I know it’s a little tough to compare apples to apples with used cars).
So if your time is valuable, you don’t live to haggle, and you like a good deal with the ability to really check out a car before committing, this may well be the service for you. One caveat. They only sell relatively late model cars; it appears that the only go back four model years. So, if you’re looking for an older vehicle, it’s probably not the place for you. It is, however, the experience for me; the next time I need to buy a car, I will be looking at Carvana. I highly recommend the service.