Some of these questions are pretty elementary. You should be able to tell us if you have the title.
<Spoiler: You don’t>
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I think OP needs to start all over from high school math and work up to leases …
I suggest OP goes to a community college and enroll in a basic financial course since OP seems to not understand many fundamentals …
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So how does selling it to Carmax/Vroom work then?
I apologize for my beginners ignorance.
The reason why it is that high is cause at the time I was thinking of buying it in total.
Also because I had no credit. And cause I didn’t know any better. I know. not an excuse. but trying to figure it all out.
You don’t have to apologize for your ignorance but do you not have a friend, colleague, relative or parent who can explain these things to you or walk you through a transaction?
In the meantime, you have come to the right place to learn but it is going to take time. So why not put your plans on hold, peruse this site for a few months, see and work on some sample deals and in a few months you will be good to go. If you try to get a deal in your current state, I am afraid you will most likely get steam-rolled …
Carmax will ask you your payoff. If you leased your Civic from Honda Financial Services, you can login to your account and find that number. The payoff is how much you owe on the car if you decide to buy it outright today.
Let’s say, for example, your payoff is $12,000 and Carmax appraises it for $14,000. If you decide to do that deal, you sign a few papers and Carmax will send Honda Financial a check for $12,000 to pay off the car. Once Honda Financial gets the money and sends Carmax the title, Carmax will send you a check in the mail for your positive equity, which in this scenario would be $2000.
The process can take anywhere from a week to a month. I recently outright sold my Accord Touring to a Honda dealer and it took me 40 days to get my positive equity check in the mail.
Here’s a simple answer I googled about your other question:
In a nutshell, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) views all personal vehicles as capital assets. If you sell it for less than the original purchase price, it’s considered a capital loss. This means you do not have to report it on your tax return.
This is upside down IMO. Don’t tell them the payoff, at least till AFTER they make an offer. Otherwise they’ll magically come in $200 over payoff.
Make an appointment. Go to Carmax. Sit back for an hour or less while they appraise your ride. They’ll present you a written offer.
Two choices: walk away or walk to the business office and sell. It’s that simple.
Should you opt for the latter, they’ll call your lease company and have you authorize them to give Carmax payoff details.
If it’s less than their quote, you get a check. If it’s more, you’d have to cut them a check to cover the delta if you want to compete the deal.
It literally cannot be easier than getting a quote at carmax, other than surrendering an hour of your time.
You’re absolutely right. I typically tell them I’ll find my payoff by the time they come back with the appraisal. Never tell them the payoff beforehand. Everything is negotiable.
I just found out that my payoff is 14k.
Fucking vroom just offered me 14k.
This fucking lease cost me like 15k more than what it should have. Holy fuck.
Seven stages of grief 
You are at 3 …
- SHOCK & DENIAL - You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. …
- PAIN & GUILT - …
- ANGER & BARGAINING - …
- " DEPRESSION ", REFLECTION, LONELINESS- …
- THE UPWARD TURN- …
- RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH- …
- ACCEPTANCE & HOPE -
If I were you, I would go to a Honda dealer and show them the offer from Vroom. They might be able to match it. That way, since you plan on buying another car, you’ll get tax credits towards the new car because you’re trading one in.
Example: I want to buy a new Civic (A) for $20k and I’m trading in my old Civic (B), appraised at $14k. The taxes at 6.25% on A are $1250. Since B was appraised at $14k, I get $14k in tax credits, which is $875.
Total taxes I’ll pay on my new car = $1250 - $875 = $375.
Breaking even is not bad. Don’t forget, you get to disregard:
- Turn in fee
- Maintenance issues (tires etc that you may have to replace to give back to Honda)
- Setting foot in enemy territory (aka the Dealership) where you can bet they have their own best interests in mind
Depends what state you’re in how easy Vroom etc are. They were essentially incompatible with my lease in CA as Nissan requires transaction go through a dealer.
Dig in, make phone calls to the companies themselves. But based on your experience thus far, keep in mind Vroom isn’t “set it and forget it”
They send documents, you return them, they schedule pickup (in the interval you’re paying insurance on the car waiting for them to come pick it up. You have to arrange pickup. Lots of little stuff.
It’s not rocket science, but it ain’t Carmax easy, either.
Don’t send this 
into the lion’s den, man.
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Hey man, just trying to help out!!
I’m in Austin, Texas and they are in Houston, Texas – about 2 hours away from here.
They say they would pick it up in the next 10 days. But now I am so fuckin paranoid to lease a car because of my last one.
I know I won’t do the same mistakes again, but hot damn this thing just fired me up. I knew this whole time that I was being screwed but I didn’t know by how much.
This is my plan of action. Go to Carmax see what they offer, once they offer something, I will try to negotiate higher/lower.
After that I’ll probably also go to Carvana to see what they offer.
At the end of the day I’ll have to make a decision.
The worst thing I could possibly do is buy this car, and that’s what I am trying to avoid.
- Then when I start thinking about leasing a new car, I will just try to get the best lease possible somehow. Without a trade in. I think that without a trade in I will be able to get a better lease than with it.
Let’s see what carmax offers for the car. Hopefully I’lll be able to get at least 15k from them since the current car is in very good shape.
You don’t think they would match the Vroom offer or what ?
They’re different animals.
Carmax is one stop shopping. It’s over in an hour.
Vroom is great, but it isn’t one hour. It’s emails. It’s phone calls. It’s sending and receiving documents. In other words, what I call hassle.
I place (perhaps an unreasonably) high value on my time. Going back and forth and having the car sit and paying insurance etc are all places Carmax beats the other groups.
Even if there’s a $200-500 delta on the offers, the convenience takes it for me. Now if we’re talking a grand, I’ll start listening.
YMMV.
By the way, I will add that if you don’t know most of the basics about car purchasing/leasing/trading, which is obvious at this point, you’re prone to being the customer who gets easily pressured into doing what the dealer says. You have to be able to understand every part of the process to truly get a good deal.
I would highly recommend you continue doing research and learning, or go through a middleman if you need something sooner. And try to figure out the money factor for your specific credit score, because the ones you see advertised are for excellent credit.
Btw, Carmax doesn’t negotiate their appraisals. Try going to the used car section of dealerships and tell them you want to sell your car outright. Dealerships also buy cars. I sold my Accord to a Honda dealership without buying a car from them. They offered me $2k more than the Honda dealer down the road and Carmax. Find a dealer that has little to no inventory of your Civic trim.
Stop with the profanity, else you will be banned.
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