Even before I bought a car from Carvana, I spent months poring not just over the cars but the platform and the buying process–plus, reading tons of first-person reviews and watching the inevitable Carvana unboxing YouTubes.
In the end, I bought the car and I love it. I even scored a better deal than I should have through chicanery and a bit of white-hat hacking of their platform. Yet there are aspects of the Carvana car-buying process that I never see mentioned that would give me pause before buying next time.
You Pay For and Insure a Car You Don’t Own. For a Long Time.
With Carvana, registration and title transfer are not seamless, by any stretch of the imagination.
On the one hand, you’ve got to sympathize (if that’s the right word) with this Internet platform trying to mesh with the slow-turning gears of state and local government. On the other hand, it’s the customer who fills in the gap between the two.
When you take delivery of your vehicle, you get a paper license plate (or tab, whatever you like to call it) and temporary registration with some random state. Before this, you’re supposed to insure the car and send in the insurance information to Carvana.
Then, you’re stuck in limbo for weeks or months. Many reviewers complain about how long it takes to get your real state registration. During that time, Carvana may roll you over several times to different states: today Arizona, next time Georgia, next time Tennessee, and so on.
That’s annoying, but one point that gets missed is: You don’t have title during this time. You don’t own your car. Yet you’re insuring this car that someone else owns.
Plus, this car that you don’t own you’ve paid for 100% in advance.
Hotspots Inspection Is Diverting and Misses the Point
Carvana’s rotating 360-degree image of the vehicle shows various hotspots, as they call it: scratches, dings, gouges. Maybe some faint discoloration of the seat covers.
Take note that these are all surface imperfections as if Carvana’s vehicles were completely perfect in all other ways.
Upon delivery, my vehicle had a whine coming from the passenger side of the engine block, just behind the dashboard. This type of thing will not be mentioned in the vehicle write-up. Why? Read on.
For Carvana, 7-Day Return and 100-Day Warranty Replace True Vehicle Disclosures
Combing through Carvana vehicles in their Vehicle Details and 150-Point Inspection Reports, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything like “Pulls to the right, needs alignment,” “Whine in engine block,” “Temperature gauge runs high,” or any of those classic vehicle ailments.
Carvana (much like CarMax) will say something like: Because we don’t sell those types of vehicles.
I’m not so sure of that. This is conjecture but I believe that Carvana full-well knows about all of the real issues with the vehicle, but they rely on the customer to catch the issues and do something about them.
Because Carvana has a 7-day return policy and 100-day warranty with car repair insurance through SilverRock, they can remain blameless. Whatever they sell can theoretically be returned or repaired.
But that’s shifting the responsibility to the customer. For one, if you’re out of market and you paid (non-refundable) to have the vehicle delivered, you’re probably not going to be sending it back. At least, you have a huge motivation to do anything before sending it back.
And that something is their 100-day warranty.
SilverRock’s Repair Facilities Are Numerous But Largely Worthless For Real Repairs
So, you’re within that 100-day warranty period for problems on your vehicle that existed before it even rolled off the car transporter. Now what?
Well, you’ve got car repair insurance through SilverRock. Just find a partner repair facility and get it fixed.
The problem is that there are no true vehicle repair shops, just tire stores, muffler shops, and the like.
In my Metro Seattle area, SilverRock’s repair facilities are Pep Boys, Meineke, and a mobile car repair service, Wrench.com.
Pep Boys and Meineke combined do:
- Heating and cooling
- Brakes
- Steering and suspension
- Belts and hoses
- Diagnostics
- Clutch
- Oil
- Exhaust and mufflers
- Tires and wheels
This isn’t nothing. But it’s not the kind of comprehensive mechanic that can hunt down the cause of any problem and fix it.
I did use Wrench and they were valuable in tracing the source of the engine whine and finding the right GM repair bulletin. That was great for what it is. But these are just small vans with limited sets of tools. They can’t do any real repairs.
Delivery Was Kind of Depressing
Much is made of Carvana’s vending machines. Insert a token into this great glass tower and out comes your car.
That may be true for some people. But if you’re not close to a vending machine, the reality is a car that’s dirty beyond imagination being rolled off of a car transporter in the middle of the night.
Carvana gives you $50 toward a carwash, which does help and is appreciated.
My Experience
But this isn’t a litany of complaints; more a dose of reality.
- I ended up getting the car repairs at a real shop: the local Chevrolet dealer. The dealer dealt directly with SilverRock, and SilverRock/Carvana paid for the repair.
- Though I paid for and insured a car that I didn’t own, nothing went wrong.
- Registration took a couple of months but not the six to eight months that you sometimes hear about.
- The Hotspots cosmetic imperfections were all listed true to form. But there were a number of under-the-hood issues that weren’t highlighted. I fixed a couple of minor things myself.
- Though some issues weren’t highlighted, it did come with a few great things: a full set of new tires, for one.
- It’s often mentioned that customer service reps are helpful. I found this to be true, as well.
