CarMax
No emails or phone calls are involved in the selling process. Car owners must visit the office in person for physical inspection and a firm appraisal with an offer will be issued and printed after the inspection. The offer only lasts for 7 days. An extension for a few days is possible but re-visiting the office to obtain a new document is required. The inspection is about 30-40 minutes while extension could be around 15 minutes. If the offer is accepted, CarMax will issue a bank draft that guarantees the fund is ready for collection. The bank draft definitely provides peace of minds to people who leave the states or return to their countries. They can ensure that the money is available and waiting for them to collect when they are out of the states. After the selling process, you have to arrange your own transportation home.
IQ Auto Buyers
IQ Auto Buyers purchase cars nationwide and offers field inspection. But recently they have their policies changed without notifying their customers. They don't offer free inspection in the field until you are willing to drop off your vehicle to their local office. For the details, see this post. Thus, what the process advertised in their site is slightly different from what they promise. They will issue a company check to you if you accept their offer.
copart.com
copart.com originally bought salvaged/totaled vehicles that were still running and then sold parts to car dealers. And now they become a well known online auto auction site. They are also a publicly traded company, NASDAQ:CPRT. They do buy cars directly from owners. Their processing service is very simply and their response is very fast. There is no physical or visual inspection. Everything is based on your description of your car conditions. They take your words for it. Because of this, their offer is ridiculously low. It looks like you are selling them a salvaged car. Towing fee is not included. It means if you accept their offer, you have to pay the fee and they will arrange the service for you to tow your car to their office.
512SellCar.com
It is a brand new online office of Continental Automotive Group (CAG) which manages all online nationwide transactions. 512SellCar.com is less than 6 months old in the market. Every auto dealership belonging to CAG is currently based in Austin, Texas. As soon as you submit a request via their site or talk to them over the phone, they will send you an email to confirm your request accepted along with the sale agent information. The email will also go with the local dealership logo instead of 512SellCar.com. The domain name used in the email address is from some place else (currently motosnap.com). It looks like a spam mail! Then two subsequent follow-up emails will be sent within the next 4 days. The sale agent will contact you in a day or two. A verbal quote is usually given over the phone based on your description and the basic information collected from your VIN number so that you have a rough idea how much your vehicle is worth. If you persuade further, a visual inspection is required. You either visit their local dealership office or meet the sale agent somewhere for appraisal. Unlike CarMax, no written appraisal document is issued unless you ask for. Their offer currently is valid for 2 weeks. If you decide to sell your car to them, the local dealership will write you a company check right away. Unlike CarMax, no sale document is issued in print saying that your car is sold to them. The only proof document is your receipt of the check; it has a brief description of the purchase by them. The sale agent will then give you a ride home if needed. Currently the service provided by 512SellCar.com is as good as CarMax. The process is a lot simpler. The price may beat CarMax
Personal Experience
In some cities or states, certain types/models of vehicles are overstocked or cannot be sold. Thus, if you walk in a local small dealership and they tell you that they have # of vehicles like yours, they are not interested in having your car. They just put their words in a polite way and hint you out. The price for cash or trade-in offered by them is definitely unreasonable and low. You should walk away. I am unfortunate living in those cities or states. I tried to lower my price, nothing helped. AutoTrader.com isn't helpful either. Indeed, it is wasting subscription fee. I conclude that the problem is not the price but if there is someone who is interested in your car. In my case, I put a trade-in price offered by a well-reputable dealership for more than a month in my ads. I didn't receive a single query. Then I changed my price to what I cashed out from a dealership. The same situation remains unchanged. Therefore, if you can't hear any response from your ad for some time, you have to do some research and reach out some other options.
Summary
There is no doubt that it will be awesome if you can cash your car from a private party. But in some occasions, it may be impossible, especially for people who would like to get rid of their vehicle in certain time frame. To them, selling a car to a private party may not be a good option. In addition, nowadays it is very difficult to sell a car unless you own a decent Japanese car that everyone wants.
Depending on where you live, if CarMax is located in your city, it will be your last resort. For sure, they are happy to take your car regardless of its condition. Indeed, they issue a bank draft instead of a company check, which really gives everyone peace of mind. Before doing so, you should try other options first.
512SellCar.com is new. They are as good as CarMax but they may not have their local dealership or office to where you live. Since they just start the Internet service and still provide field inspection, you may consider giving them a call for details.
You may want to talk to IQ Auto Buyers if they have an office in your location. Otherwise, you can simply forget about it because they no longer provide inspection in the field unless you don't mind driving hundreds miles away to their office.
You should forget about selling your car to copart direct if you have a decent car because their price doesn't make any sense.
Good luck to everyone who is trying to sell his car.
Caveat Emptor - Carmax does NOT stand behind what they sell. EVEN if you buy thier "72 month 75,000 warranty." I've been burned and will not be back!
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My experience so far with copart is quite the opposite of your report. I called the three large companies with sponsored listings on Google for the term "cash for your vehicle", and was offered $400 by the first, $275 by the second, and $500 by copart, for a non running 92 toyota pickup, and they all assured me they would pick it up at no charge. Copart says they will come out whenever I am ready with a Bank of America cashier's check.
ReplyDeleteIf your report is accurate, it means they will have to get me to agree to let them kill the original promised deal, drop the price dramatically, and pay for the towing; hard to imagine they would make many deals that way.
Therefore, it seems most likely the deal will happen as they said, and your report on them is the opposite of the reality. I have to guess that you simply made it up or reported what someone told you, and that person either had no clue or lied to you. You might want to do your homework if you want this site to be considered a useful resource.
BTW, my name is Greg Vinson, from Seattle; the only reason I am posting as anonymous is to save the time of creating another profile.
With all due respect, Greg, I am not making it up. It was my personal experience in 2011. Not sure when you sold yours. At that time, a lot of people (including me) had hard time to sell their vehicles unless their cars were type of Japanese. Everyone wanted Japanese car. I wish I could have one like yours. I would have not sold them to dealers but would rather cash more from private owners as possible.
ReplyDeleteNow the market is a lot of better than 2 years ago. Japanese cars still hold more values than American's with similar types. Things change from time to time. My report may not be current forever but it serves as a reference. Who knows that your deal could have included all hidden costs without your knowledge; the bottom line is that you are happy with your deal, like mine. Thank you for your sharing though.
As there are uncountable companies in worldwide, it became difficult to judge the organization's originality and fakeness.
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