Carvana, the Good, the Bad and the Delightful

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would share our Carvana buying exprience; and it was an experience! My sweet, but pretty particular and specific, husband has been considering buying a new car since before we started dating.  He has looked at various brands and models but just couldn't decide what he wanted, until he did.  When he did, he knew exactly what brand, model, color, specific engine, and options he wanted.  Little did he know when he made up his mind, he would be looking for an elusive needle in a haystack.  A friend of ours looked for the same car for over a year so I think we actually lucked up in that it only took a couple of months for us to find.  There are lots of the model he was looking for but not lots with the engine he wanted.  So this is where Carvana comes in. Carvana actually had the car he was looking for exactly, except in color, so after much debate he decided to go with the color they had (yeah!)

I would like to say the process was seamless but it was not.  My husband put a contract on the car around the first of Septmber.  There was no financing invovled so you would think it would have been the smoothest, quickest purchase possible...well, nah.  Not to say that it was all bad and Carvana was holding up the process to insure every detail of the car was perfect before deliving it which was a GREAT thing.

The 2 worst hiccups with  the process was the day they actually brought the car and because we didn't have an insurance card  that specifically lised the new car (our insurance has a rider that covers new purchasse for 14 days) they took it back!!!! Now, remember there was no financing on this car so they had nothing to cover there and the insurance policy stated new purchases were covered.  Unfortuntally, no one mentioned this little nugget.  It was like getting up on Christmas Morning and there being the coolest bike ever by the Christmas tree and your eyes light up just in time for your parents to say, "Oh that is little Timmy's, from down the street, his parents are coming to pick it up to surprise him."  So, seeing them drive away pinched a little bit.

The second hiccup came almost a month after the initial contract and the day before the car was scheduled to be delivered for the 4th time. We decided to add the Carvanna Extended Warranty.  The problem was if we decided to add it the day before delivery,...the delivery would be delayed by another week.  Now THAT was frustrating.  Needless to say we did not invest in the Carvanna Extended Warranty.  Sooo....

We finally got the car.  My sweet man was extremely happy and Carvana left a very nice gift certificate to Target to apologize for all the delays.  The gentleman who delivered the car was extremely polite and professional and the car was everything we were looking for.  I still wish we could have gone and gotten it out of the giant vending maching!!!

Image not my own

So, my feeling on our Carvana experience is pretty much neutral...the delays were tedious (but I am glad they wanted everything perfect), the paperwork was more bothersome than it should have been on a cash purchase and not being able to add the warranty was very annoying. The truly redeeming quality that kept it from being a negative experience were the kind customer service personnel and getting a car that my man is in love with.

Would we buy from Carvana again?  I am not sure, as I am a big fan of shopping local; not to mention we should not need another car for quite a while!