I’m not going to include this review in my IOTMT category of blog posts, so I guess it’s a story to tell.

In the evening on August 13th, my wife and I bought a car on the internet. I wrote this post, later that same night, as an initial response to the experience, and it posted the next day.

Since that point in time, many people have asked us about the experience, to which I’ve often replied, “I will write a blog post in the future, summarizing the experience.”

I guess today is that day.

We bought a three-year-old car, off of a thirty-six month lease with its first owner, with low miles and a very competitive price tag. We ended up choosing Carvana because the options available on Carvana are probably going to best all but the most massive of car dealerships. We knew what we wanted, and we knew what we wanted to pay, and the choice that ticked off all of those boxes was on the Carvana website.

Which isn’t to say that we wouldn’t have purchased from a dealership, had we found what we were looking for at a dealership.

When I tell people, “We bought a car from Carvana”, they usually say, “Is that where you put a coin in and the car comes out of the vending machine?” That’s not the way it worked for us; it only works that way if you travel to one of the car-vending-machine locations. The nearest one to us is in the Chicagoland area, which isn’t exactly around the corner.

Rather, our Carvana car came to our house on a flat-bed truck.

The man who dropped it off to us that night, August 19th, had test-driven the vehicle when he picked it up, as part of an inspection process. During that inspection, Dave (not his real name) said that he found some issues, and he was concerned that the car didn’t meet his level of expectations. Dave told us, when he dropped off the vehicle at our house, that he’d already started a process for rectifying these problems. Dave said that he didn’t like that the tires were so low on tread. Dave also said that the A/C wasn’t working. Finally, Dave also didn’t like a couple of the scratches that he’d found in the paint on the vehicle.

By the time we were done with Dave, I already had information in my email inbox about the mechanical case (tires and A/C) and the cosmetic case (paint scratches), along with the steps that Carvana was going to take to repair the issues.

Now, I have to admit, when I heard Dave say, “The A/C isn’t working”, my heart dropped. I got that sinking feeling that I was being bamboozled. I was already trying, at that point in time, to remember what I’d read about the return policy.

At this point, I should say that Carvana purchases have a seven-day return policy on them. We had seven days, from the day that Dave dropped off our vehicle, to decide if we wanted to send the vehicle back to Carvana, for any reason. It’s kind of a security net.

Dave and I signed the papers on the delivery as Jennie and the kids went for a test-drive in the vehicle. Once all of that was done, Dave left. And we had a vehicle, newly in our possession, with issues.

Now, let’s talk about how that’s all worked out.

* * *

Jennie and I, almost immediately (later in the evening on the 19th), had a conversation about whether or not to turn the vehicle back in to Carvana –> “If it has issues, do we really want to deal with those issues?” we asked ourselves. In fact, we went to the CARFAX report that was included in the information that Carvana had to offer on the car. That’s when we noticed something that maybe we should have noticed before…

The car was put up for sale by Carvana in January, and then again in May.

Now, whether or not this is an actual indication that someone bought the car from Carvana early this year and then turned it back in (presumably for an existing A/C issue), it’s hard to say. Additionally, the Carvana report on the car said that it passed a 150-point inspection, one of those points being an A/C inspection, so there’s that.

Since Jennie and I were in love with several of the key aspects of the new vehicle, and we were also in a position to be able to try to work with Carvana to get the problems fixed, rather than just bailing on the whole ball of wax, we decided that we were going to commit to seeing it through. We decided early on (within the first couple of days) that we would not turn the vehicle back in to Carvana.

A couple of key components of the purchase were working in our favor, as we made the choice we made. For starters, we bought a vehicle with remaining manufacturer warranties, and I’ll explain in a minute why that’s important.

But, beside the remaining manufacturer warranties, Carvana covers all of their vehicles with a warranty of their own. This warranty, which is administered by a third-party, is meant to cover mechanical issues for 100 days after the purchase of the vehicle.

The mechanical and cosmetic issues that Dave identified as problems were going to be fixed by the warranty company (at the time of this writing, the warranty company is SilverRock).

SilverRock has ‘recommended shops’ that they prefer to work with, but you can use anyone you want. If you choose your own shop, you have to pay a deductible on each issue. We decided to use the SilverRock recommended shop, to avoid having to pay. This local shop worked with SilverRock to get us $600 worth of new tires. YAY!

From what we understand by speaking with other people about the subject, having a warranty company buy you a new set of four brand-name tires is pretty unusual. But, Carvana and SilverRock did it.

But, when we got to the place where SilverRock was going to be faced with paying for the A/C repair, SilverRock said to us, and to the repair shop that was working on the issue, “You’ve got some remaining manufacturer warranty, so you should take it to a dealership.”

Now, because our vehicle has remaining manufacturer warranty, SilverRock was totally within their rights to expect that Buick should take care of the issue. And, come to find out, the issue that needed to be addressed was a known issue to Buick, so they immediately understood what needed to be done.

* * *

We are now about ten days after the delivery of the vehicle. Both of the mechanical issues (tires and A/C) have been repaired, at no cost to us. Jennie is still deciding whether or not she wants to hand Eleanor (the vehicle’s name is Eleanor) over to a third repair shop to have these minor scratches addressed. By and large, we have been happy with the Carvana experience. We have been EXTREMELY happy with the warranty coverage by SilverRock.

Carvana is in the process of filing the registration paperwork for the new vehicle with the state of Michigan, so we should be getting our new plates for the vehicle in the mail. Until then, the car has a temp. license plate from Georgia (where Carvana is headquartered) which is good until the first week of October.

Let me finish with a shameless plug –> if you are thinking about using Carvana to buy a car, and you mention our names (Phil and Jennie Brackett), you can get $500 knocked off the price of your car, and we will get a kick-back, as well.

Finally, if you have any questions you’d like to ask, let me know.