Buy a car from a vending machine?

Gofirstclass

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,670
Tri Cities, WA
Boat Info
Boatless in WA
Engines
No motor
Recently I've seen more and more ads on TV about companies wanting to sell you a car online. Carvana temps you with its car vending machine and offers to buy your car from you, all while you enjoy surfing online at home.

This whole scheme seems to be aimed at Millennials. That's the age group they show in their ads. People lying around in their pajamas with their laptop in front of them. They all seem so happy and pleased to be able to buy a car from the comfort of their own home.

My question to you is, would you buy a car online?
 
Nope.
 
I wouldn't but one of my wifes former students that she still keeps in touch with did a few weeks ago from Carvana. For them it wouldn't have mattered if they had looked at it in person. Not sure either one even knows how to put air in the tires. I might be willing to buy brand new online but not used
 
Nope. No way.

Just bought a used car for my son. Drove all over the place to look and drive them. I dont care about the 7 day return policy, no way I would but without driving first, and I want to be able to negotiate price.
 
Recently I've seen more and more ads on TV about companies wanting to sell you a car online. Carvana temps you with its car vending machine and offers to buy your car from you, all while you enjoy surfing online at home.

This whole scheme seems to be aimed at Millennials. That's the age group they show in their ads. People lying around in their pajamas with their laptop in front of them. They all seem so happy and pleased to be able to buy a car from the comfort of their own home.

My question to you is, would you buy a car online?

I wouldn’t run out and invest in Carvana stock. Millennials don’t buy cars or houses. Just sayin.
 
I will just stick with my 200k+ 95 ford 4x4 f150 pickup until it totally dies. It runs like a clock.
 
No way, I have to see it, touch it, drive it. Plus, the last time I bought a CPO used car there were still some minor issues that I would have never gotten resolved if I had paid for the car first. A couple of the young folks at work have bought from Carvana, but like mentioned above, they would not notice or care if the car had minor defects. They see a car as strictly transportation, as long as it get's them where they want to go they don't care.

The other thing with Carvana, Carmax, even some dealers - I am old school and when it comes to cars, I just can't bring myself to just pay the "no haggle" price. I'm no great negotiator, but in my opinion any big ticket item is negotiable. I have never walked into a car dealership and left with a new car that day - I just don't work that way.
 
You're darn right Carvana is aimed at the "do nothing's" who just stare into their phones for everything. For the obvious reasons I seriously doubt you'll see Millennial's boating either!
 
Nope, couldn’t do that.
And what’s the deal with service? Do they have a service dept. is it convenient?
 
Over the years we've bought (transportation-only) cars from Carmax. only turned one away when it came from an out of state Carmax and had considerable road rash. No hassle. They refunded my transport costs too. These cars were for our kids and one for my wife to have as an extra for snow days. I would consider buying a nice car there but not without hands on and a drive. We are looking presently for a nice (read expensive) car for my wife. So far just looking at dealers but when looking on line at Mercedes dealers they rarely have the cars posted. Its always: " oh, we just sold that one! Can we help find another for you?"
 
Certified car-lover and non-millennial here. I certainly have been skeptical of Carvana. However, I had a transaction with them has made me feel more comfortable about buying from them.

My wife needed a new car and to dispose of her old one. We were purchasing the car from a dealer several hours away and didn't want to deal with trade-in "stuff". We used Carvana's car buying service. It was extremely easy, and we got more for her old car than we expected. The process is: enter your license plate, confirm vehicle details, confirm car condition on a 3 point scale, and get an offer that's good for 7 days. If you like it, they schedule a time to get the car. They hand you a check and take the car.

Based on the very good interaction with selling a car to Cavana, I would consider buying from them. Especially if I already knew what I wanted or were buying for my kids. Their online photos tend to be very very detailed. I take comfort from their return policy that if you don't like it they will take the car back. Surely it's non-traditional, but it may work. It gives you access to more vehicles than what's on a local lot and not have to deal with a stereo-typical "used car salesman". I'll note that I see a LOT of cars in my area with Carvana license plate brackets.

As for mechanical service from Carvana, I don't care. They deal in used cars, not new ones with a factory warranty. I have a trusted independent mechanic that I use for maintenance and repairs anyway.
 
This is funny.

I'm on a car forum where folks buy expensive cars w/o touching them 1st and I think that's just the weirdest thing. Even if it was new I'm going to fly to where ever and look feel and drive my purchase.

Now with that said I did buy a car off of e-bay for $3,000 and drove 10 hours to pick it up and drive it back........ I have to say I found Jesus along the way home .... and I still have the car 12 years later. :D
 
Last edited:
[QUOTE="b_arrington, post: 1101959,As for mechanical service from Carvana, I don't care. They deal in used cars, not new ones with a factory warranty. I have a trusted independent mechanic that I use for maintenance and repairs anyway.[/QUOTE]
Didn’t realize it’s used cars only.
I buy new and drive them until they’re auction material or sell them to a friend.
So I most likely wouldn’t be a candidate for carvanna , but that answers my service question.
 
This is funny.

I'm on a car forum where folks buy expensive cars w/o touching them 1st and I think that's just the weirdest thing. Even if it was new I'm going to fly to where ever and look feel and drive my purchase.

I don't know how people buy a new car without having some type of test drive or ability to return it. My wife's boss is a millionaire several times over. He drove a Lexus LS and sight unseen bought the next model which had a total redesign. He repeatedly complained to the dealer about it's ride, saying there was problem with the suspension. Long story short there wasn't a problem with the car. The ride was different due to the redesign and he didn't like it. Which he would have known had he conducted a test drive.

You find out a lot of things just by sitting in a car for a few moments. I've been playing around the edges of getting a Tesla. I thought I would vastly prefer the Model S over the model 3 due to it's larger size and more traditional controls. After only a few moments in each I found that I vastly preferred the Model 3 for a variety of reasons, and that the center display was not an issue.

That said, I have been looking at Teslas on Carvana. You can reserve a car that will be available soon on Carvana; the Teslas tend to be snapped up quickly.
 
That said, I have been looking at Teslas on Carvana. You can reserve a car that will be available soon on Carvana; the Teslas tend to be snapped up quickly.

I was just talking to a Model 3 owner and man could he sell the car. I'm glad there are folks that get as excited about the cars they drive like I do. He drives long distance and the car does all the monitoring and indicates when a stop is needed and finds its own charging station along the route being driven. And while you are grabbing lunch or a quick coffee the car is charging ....... I find that pretty neat. He has never felt inconvenienced during his trips when needing a 10-15 minute fast charge.
 
I'm not sure I could ever buy a used car from a Carvana-type place. When we were looking for a small SUV for my wife I told her it was her car so her decision on what she wanted. She liked the looks of the Ford Escape so we went to the local Ford dealer to test drive one. Once we sat in it, it just didn't "feel" right. We took it for a test drive and confirmed we didn't like it. Onward and Upward.

I did buy her a new Infiniti G35x over the phone from a dealer in Sacramento. They had the car with the right options and in the right color. No negotiations. He offered the car at invoice price so I agreed. We faxed paperwork back and forth, they shipped it to me on a convoy truck and I surprised her with it at Christmas.
 
I have bought several cars over the phone, fax, and internet. They were all brand new with a strict option package that I required. The local dealers didn't want to play ball so I have gone out of state, flown to the other side of Washington state, etc. When you are comparing apples to apples it is a lot easier to see how far these dealers are willing to go to make a deal...
 
I have bought many cars online and boats as well. My 340DA came from Nevada because I was looking for a fresh water low hour boat. I put it under agreement and then flew out to look at it during the survey.
All of the cars have been toys such as an my current BMW M5 came out of Chicago. With the toys I am always looking for a specific color and options so in order to get that in a used car I need to look all over the country.
As long as I have some sort of an out either by 7 day money back guarantee or I see the car before I sign the paperwork then I am ok with it.
 
I have become increasingly agitated with the car dealership experience. I hate spending 3 hours getting brow beaten. I may consider it at some point.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
112,950
Messages
1,422,890
Members
60,933
Latest member
juliediane
Back
Top