I’m new to the forums and am looking to sell my 2019 VW Atlas for some equity to get something else. I’ve tried to trade my car in to some local Ford dealerships and all of them tell me that they can’t take it. I also reached out to Carvana, Driveway and AutoNation. So far Carvana and Driveway have both offered me $32k (my payoff is $26k and change).
It was recommended on another forum to try taking it to a VW dealership so I did today. He went out and looked at the car and then came back and said, good news, we’ll buy it. You’ll be free and clear like it never happened, we’ll take care of all taxes and fees and the remaining balance. I asked him about the positivity equity and he said there is none. I said I have a $32k offer from Carvana and he told me that they can’t buy it, their payoff would be $37k (he showed me on his computer). I almost laughed in his face and told him I was just going to keep it then or try to buy the lease myself and sell it privately.
He called me about an hour later saying that if I bought the lease, after taxes and fees if I sold the car for $32k that I would have about $2k in profit. He said he talked to the manager and they could do that for me so I would give them my car, they would pay it off and I would walk away with 2k. My question is, if I sell the car to a dealership like that, especially VW, do the taxes get paid like that? Am I really losing that much in equity?
If I sell to something like Carvana, Driveway or Autonation, is that the same case? I was under the impression that if they gave me $32k for my car I would get a check for $5k or so.
Please let me know if there is any more info I can give or questions I can answer.
It was on his computer, he showed me what the payoff was for a vw dealership then some other number that said 37k for dealers with/without some word that I can’t remember. He said if Carvana tries to buy the car they would have to pay that much and I’d have to pay the $5k difference.
Only dealerships in the VW Credit network (VW, Audi, etc.) will have a payoff similar to yours. That’s the best route to maximizing equity without paying TTL. Talk to multiple VW and Audi dealers to see what equity they’ll offer you. Also Autonation and Carshop (since they own dealerships) and the LH brokers listed in this thread.
VW Credit will charge “estimation of fair market value” to everyone else. So your equity basically evaporates going that route.
But I mean, am I getting swindled when he says that he’ll give me 2k? Trade in on the car for KBB is like $33k. Should I be trying to negotiate this better? Should I be walking away with like $4-5k? I’m just trying to set the correct expectations for myself.
Ok awesome, thank you so much. There is an AutoNation here about 25 minutes from me so I’m going to call them tomorrow. The problem is that all these places want to see the car and I don’t really have time to go drive to all of them. I’ll try calling a few tomorrow and see what I can get.
As far as selling to like AutoNation, will I have to pay taxes that way too or no because they might own VW dealerships?
Did you click on the link I posted? Autonation and several others don’t require to see the car. They make an offer virtually, obviously the offer is going to be contingent on the car being in good shape.
Taxes have nothing to do with the situation here. No dealership has to pay taxes when buying a car. You never have to pay sales tax when selling a car.
The difference between Autonation/Carshop/LH Broker buying your car vs Carmax/Vroom/Carvana/etc is that the former can run the payment through a VW or Audi dealer, and will only have to pay 26 and change to VW Credit.
auction value transaction list for you car , recently sold on the auction, indicates the price dealers look at that when they are buying your car they check recent transaction on those auctions , so just in case if they will not sell on their lot they will wholesaled it to the auction
Oh thank you! I don’t know if it helps or changes anything but mine is a 2019 Atlas SE 4Motion w/tech with sunroof, tow package, homelink and captain’s chairs. 22k miles.
So to get this straight, this is what the dealers are selling to the auction or this is what cars are being sold at auction that they base their prices off of? So I should easily be able to get 32-34k for my car then?
Knowing the MMR is more of a research tool to make sure your offers are in the ballpark rather than a negotiation tool.
Trying to negotiate by saying you know the MMR is X when they only offered you Y will rarely get you anywhere, IME.
Any decent used car manager at the dealership is already going to know the MMRs. Dealer offers are based on a number of factors, only one of which is auction values, if an offer is low just move on to the next dealer.
The #1 thing you can do to get the best offer is just get quotes from a lot of dealers.
