Not sure what you mean. What are “old license plates”?
In California, the plate goes with the car, not the owner. You may end up having to notify DMV that you don’t have the car, but you surely don’t have to visit them with plates in hand.
Someone has a wire crossed.
Yeah, Carvana emailed me to have the following:
“Please make sure that your plates have been removed so you can
notify the DMV that you have sold your vehicle.”
I’ve returned or sold 4 vehicles in 5 years in California and left the license plates on every time.
I think they’re mixed up or just send generic emails to everyone.
Thx for your input. I’ll follow up this thread with what happens.
If your car has generic CA plates on it, leave them on. If they’re out of state plates, you need to check with the DMV in that state. If they’re personalized plates, you need to remove them and either reserve them for later use or surrender them to DMV. CA DMV can guide you on this.
Assuming the car has CA plates on it, it wouldn’t hurt to go to CA DMV’s website and fill out the “Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability” form online. Print a copy before you submit it, as I don’t think you can print it afterwards.
Make sure VW Credit isn’t charging any tax on the payoff that Carvana is making, or you’ll be losing that money (unless you apply for a refund with CA State BOE, an unnecessary hassle).
I sold my leased VW to Carvana a few months ago. The plates go with the car. As stated by @KD6-3.7 you need to fill out the DMV release form within 5 days of the sale: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/online/nrl/welcome
Call VW Credit a few days after pickup to verify that the lease is no longer in your name. They messed up on my transfer by short-paying the buyout amount (VW gives a buyout amount for the lesee and a higher one for dealers). I was not confident that Carvana fully knew what they were doing with VW Credit since they stumbled their way through the transaction. Hopefully they are better now. See my post:
Per above it’s a good idea to verify what the (tax free) payoff will be to a third party such as Carvana.
Do you happen to remember how much more the dealer buyout was compared to the lessee buyout? My GTI is due back in a few weeks and I’m hoping to squeeze some equity out of it by selling to Vroom or Carvana.
Just call VW Credit and ask them what the payoff is for you, a VW dealer, and a third party dealer. Confirm that they’re not adding tax to any of the payoffs.
It sounds like Carvana is giving generic advice. Turning plates in would be pertinent in my state with the incentive being a pro-rated refund of property tax already paid.
Ok so I called dmv and carvana and straightened it out. In California, the plates stay on the car. After they pickup the vw they will then provide me with paperwork that I use to notify the DMV.
I’ll update this thread after the car pickup.
I did just that. I don’t know why, but they refused to give me any figures, even my own payoff. They told me I would have to talk to a VW dealer to get my payoff and any dealer I was considering trading/selling to would have to call for their own number.
Dealer payoff was about about 9% higher than my buyout.
Are you calling the right people (VW credit, 800-428-4034)? Is the lease in your name?
Yeah, I’ve called and spoken to them twice now. They just say a dealer needs to call and request a payoff packet and they give some BS excuses for why they can’t share that number over the phone with me. They won’t even give me my own payoff amount and instead say I need to talk to a VW dealer to get that. Thanks for sharing the 9% figure though. 
I’m having Carvana pickup my car today at 10am. I’m in Florida, the car is a lease, and they told me to remove the plates. I’m pretty pissed, I’m leaving them w/about a full tank of gas. I sure wish I knew how to siphon gas.
Car was paid off about a week after they picked it up. There is some time for carvana to send the payment, have vw process it, and then have vw send the title to carvana. Make sure if you have autopay setup on your payments to factor in it takes vw up to 5 business days to turn off autopay even if done online, vw gives you a 10 day payment grace period after due date, and that vw will receive your final payoff from carvana about a week after pickup.
LOL. Thats awesome. So less than an hour before pickup, Carvana calls me and tells me that they don’t have the check cut for me and that I have to reschedule. Not the greatest of first impressions. They booked me for 3pm tomorrow, only to contact me again and reschedule for 10am tomorrow.
You still have enough time to get this pump or drive around for about 6 hours.