[clyde]

Originally Posted by Alan

AWESOME !!! Congrats and looking forward to the details !

Careful what you wish for.

Carvana's payment hit my account today, so I guess we're far enough along to post this. AFAIK, they have not paid the balance on my note (and may not initiate payment until as late as Wednesday). Hopefully, there will be no follow up story.

RECAP ON HOW WE GOT HERE:
(not interested? Jump to "Sell! Sell! Sell!)

My ideal plan had been to trade the turbo Camaro in on the next car for several reasons. A big one was to save on sales tax (MD is one of the states that does not charge you sales/excise tax on the portion of a vehicle sale paid with a trade since you presumably paid the tax on that vehicle). At 6% and an expected trade value of $15-$17k, the savings would probably be in the $900-$1000 range.

I used Carvana as a benchmark for the car's value since their offers are supposed to be real, transactions simple, and the values they offer (on problem-free, non-niche luxury, late model cars) are on the high side of trade offers compared to traditional dealers and are reportedly often slightly higher than Carmax offers…but don't need a trip to Carmax to get them.

When I was first getting serious about making a deal somewhere in January, the Carvana offers were in the mid $16s. The offers I was getting from Chevy dealers were between $14,000-$14,500. The mid-February week when I got a $16,000 Carmax offer, Carvana's offers ranged from $16,199-$16,514. When I would mention those offers to dealers, some would get close enough to consider, but most would say something along the lines of, "Wow! No one I can get close to that. You should sell to them. We know it will take a few days for that to happen and a few more for payment to clear, so we'll be happy to take a post-dated check…"

As we all know, I didn't find a car by the COVID disruptions. In the week before the bottom fell out on March 23, the Carvana offers had crept back up to $17k. On March 23, the morning offer was $16.4 and dropped to $12.x in the afternoon. I started experimenting in trying to retrieve browser tokens from past offers and was able to proceed on one for $17,015. I followed instructions to upload docs (title, payoff letter, registration, license, etc). Their website said it takes 1-2 days to review and approve docs. On day three or four I was notified they were no longer buying cars and cancelled my deal.

Shortly after that, Carvana said they would take cars on trade for the values offered in areas where they could deliver cars. The stay at home orders, shutdowns and whether car sales fell into "essential" services varied state to state. I continued tracking their offers on a daily basis. In the immediate aftermath of the $12.x low, it recovered to high $14s and into the low $15s in early April. From there, it slowly slid to mid $14s in early May. On May 11, they started buying again and offered $15,333 for my car. I knew I wasn't buying anything anytime soon and new and used car markets were nuts, so I didn't feel compelled. Without knowing what was in the future, I had set a mental line that if they offered $16,500, I'd take it and bank it until I bought something. Between $16,000-$16499, I'd think hard about taking it. Over the next few weeks as things became a little more clear about inventories, I found myself content to keep waiting when Carvana got to $16,000 and even $16,500. By the time their offer crossed the $17k line in mid-June, I had decided to sit tight until the value started dropping…assuming I wasn't finding anything to buy.

I figured I had nothing to lose. The Carvana offers were good for 7 days and as long as I saved each new higher one or the following day's unchanged offer, I'd always have 7 days to act. What I didn't realize until later is that 7 days period is from the time you accept the offer until they pick up the car. If they don't pick up, your car will get reappraised and whatever that number is is what they will give you if you still want to sell. It could be higher, could be lower. I also didn't know that it's taking them longer to review/approve documents than their pre-COVID 1-2 days. It can now take 3-4 and if they need something more, it can take even longer. Then, once approved, you have to schedule pick up which can take a couple more days. If you or Carvana has to reschedule for some reason, add at least another day.

SELL! SELL! SELL!

Anyway, on July 21st, the morning offer of $19,012 dropped to $18,202 in the evening and I thought "it might be time to act." I was going to see what happened the next day which brought similar offers. On the third day, I initiated the sale by uploading documents…and then the offers came back up and I started second guessing myself while also trying to get the sale done so I wouldn't be able to overthink it and miss an opportunity to sell it for more than I paid for it.

So, that seven day clock…let's look at that a little. We'll modify my timeline a little to pretend I started to sell the day I got the offer. In reality, it was already Day 3 when I pulled trigger. If you are logged into the site, have an offer on a car, and have it reappraised, you automatically accept the new offer (but they don't tell you that before you do it) and restart the 7 day clock.

HOW A SALE TO CARVANA HAPPENS

• Day 1: Get an offer accept. Upload my documents. Read on the screen "We'll review your documents and let you know if we need anything else. This usually takes 1-2 days."
• Day 2: Wait and nothing.
• Day 3: Wait and nothing. Do some additional research and find a number of people relating experiences in the past couple weeks that this step can take up to 4 days. Part of this included the weekend. Maybe not as bad during the week?
• Day 4: Get an email/text midday that they need additional info. It sounds like they need verbal confirmation from my lender that the payoff is what I said it was, but it's unclear. Call, hear that estimated wait time is over 30 minutes, enter phone number for a call back. Call back happens several hours later, explain what's going on, be told we need a 3 way call with lender so they can get that info, and the call drops. I wait a couple minutes, they don't call back, so I call again. Enter number for a call back. That call back comes at near 8:00pm while I cannot take the call. I call them again and the message is basically, "we're closed, call back at 8:00am tomorrow."
• Day 5: Call at 8:00am. Estimated wait time is under 5 minutes. After 30 minutes on hold, enter phone number for call back. I get a call back around 11:00am and repeat to the 3 way call part. We have the 3 way, the lender exits the call and the Carvana rep says "okay, I'm going to put you on hold and get the deal approved and come back and get your info on how you want to be paid and schedule your pick up." After being on hold 10 minutes, the call drops. Wait a couple minutes, no call back. Call them again and enter my number. They call back at 6:00pm…and I miss the call. Semi-fume about it for a few minutes and give them a call. Estimated wait time "under five minutes" and I'm speaking to someone in about four minutes. I tell her what happened earlier. She says everything's good and wait for them to let me know next steps. Could take two days.
• Day 6: Nothing.
• Day 7: Wake up to an email/text that they need payoff info from my lender. Call at 8:00am, estimated wait time is over 30 minutes, enter my phone number for a call back. Call back happens around noon. I explain what's happened so far. The rep says the earlier people should have called me back when the calls dropped and promises that he will if our call drops. Call my lender on conference again, get the payoff info again, he puts me on hold to get the deal approved, comes back, runs through payment options (paper check, ACH transfer, or transfer to a debit card). I say ACH and he has me go on the Carvana website and enter my bank info so I don't give the routing and account numbers on the phone line. We then schedule pick up for the next day.
• Day 8: Car is picked up and ACH transfer is initiated.
• Day 11: ACH transfer shows up in my account (Days 9 and 10 were weekend, so maybe not so long during the week?)

What's shown as Day 8 was really Day 10 from the original offer that I decided to move on.

As you may see, that's a really, really tight 7 day clock and nothing at all like I initially thought. From what I've been told and found through scouring the internet, it's not so bad during normal times. The document review rarely takes more than a day and wait times when calling are very short. Right now, all of their customer service staff are WFH, they are very understaffed, and their systems intended to support staff in a single location are strained under the current dispersed conditions.

NOTES TO KEEP IN MIND

Up until the point the deal is "approved," you can have them reappraise your car which also restarts the seven day clock. By the time I spoke to the guy on Day 7 and my deal was approved, the value had increased from $19,012 to $19,127 and again to $19,144 which is where we finished. The $19,144 offer was earlier that morning, so when the deal was approved, I had a newly set 7 days to schedule pickup. Subsequent to that call, after the deal was approved and pickup scheduled, I could not take advantage of the $19,237 offer I got when entering the car info into the website while not logged in.

Lesson – When you decide to sell a car to Carvana, sell it. In normal times, pricing isn't so volatile. When I started checking almost daily in September through mid-March, the offers rarely changed more than $200/day. Changes were gradual. You have enough flexibility to take their offer and use it as leverage, but if you can't get something done in a few days, you can probably still sell it to Carvana for about the same figure. Right now, and until things get to be more normal and predictable, I don't think that holds. OTOH, values still seem to be rising, so delays are likely to net you a couple more bucks, but that will stop sooner or later. I'd expect that to be on the sooner-ish side, but

THE PICKUP

Pickup was smooth. The driver called about 25 minutes before scheduled pickup time and said he would arrive about 10 minutes later than the scheduled pickup time. The way it's normally supposed to work is the driver arrives with a Carvana branded hauler (or in an Uber, in which case, they intend on driving the car off). After greeting, the driver gives you documents to review while taking the car for a quick trip around the block. Upon return, the driver takes photos of the car, you sign documents, give them the title and keys, they give you copies, you or they remove your tags, and they load the car (or get in) and drive off.

COVID modifications for their touchless pickup are that you are supposed to leave the title, your license, and keys in the car. The driver is supposed to call you for communication while you never get anywhere near each other. They put the papers and your license on the windshield, you retrieve them, sign them somewhere else, and return them to the windshield.

Reality in my case, a really friendly kid in his mid 20s did the pickup with a hauler. We stood outside, masked, and about 10 feet from each other when talking. Throughout the process, he kept asking if I had any questions and provided quality answers when I did.

I had the car backed into the driveway and he backed the hauler right in. (I did not ask him why he wasn't taking it for a drive on the theory that there was no benefit to me. I'm not sure if it was because it was raining, the car is a stick, COVID, something else, a judgement call/ corner-cut on his part, or a combination.)

I went outside, he introduced himself, I showed my license, he described the process, checked the VIN, and we started reviewing docs at the back of the hauler. I signed. He took photos of the car and made some entries. I got a text notification from Carvana that they were initiating an ACH transfer. We took the tags off. I got some boards from the garage to help get the car on the hauler without him being afraid of scraping. He secured it. I took some photos. He left with the car.

It took about 20 minutes from arrival to departure. I had no complaints and was actually rather impressed. If I could make one recommendation, it would be for Carvana to include the documents you will sign in your account so you could review beforehand. It was drizzling a bit and threating to rain the entire time. Dealing with paper…not the best feeling. Also, in coronavirus times, any low effort thing that can reduce exposure time should be done. But, pickup was a very positive (too soon?) experience.

Thus concludes the "what to expect" portion. We also talked a bit as he was doing stuff. A couple things I thought were interesting:

Like I said, the guy was pretty young. It sounded like he's been working there for about two years and it's his first job out of school. I asked how many pickups and deliveries he does a day and he said it varies, but usually 6-7 day and it's a full day. Partly depends on where the pickups and deliveries are located since his team covers a pretty wide area. They do their best to schedule pick ups near deliveries (that aren't trading in at the same time) so the driver goes out and back to HQ in one trip, but the needs of the day don't always allow. It sounds like they have as much work now as pre-COVID.

Manual transmissions also make things tough for them. The guy that picked up my car said he does nearly all the manual pick ups and deliveries because he can drive a stick without issue. He suggested that everyone on his team is about his age and he's taught them all how to drive a stick well enough to "make them move," but they send him for the sticks because he can actually drive them. I got the impression that loading/unloading incidents are what the company is concerned about avoiding. After he left, I took a look at Carvana's website. Of the 15k cars available, only 640 (~4%) of them are sticks. (Remember, Carvana is a car sales site for Millennials that don't really want cars.)

Thus concludes (payoff notwithstanding) the get rid of the old car portion of this "what next?" thread. Soon, we will return to the "what next?" theme.