Thanks for info. My Lincoln lease is up Xmas '21. I had just checked to make sure local Autonation was Ford, then checked leasehackr, and saw your post. That may be my last chance. I have read my lease contract top to bottom, and back up again, and see nothing prohibiting 3rd party sales. Ford holds all the cards I guess.
Sold my Audi to Autonation at the end of my 6 month lease extension period. Their online quote was $2k higher than any of the other usual online suspects (at their peaks) as well as what a semi-local Audi dealer was offering. Autonation’s quote also held steady for ~6 weeks while Carvana/Vroom dropped throughout July, so it was more like a $4k difference when I ultimately pulled the trigger. Ended up with 5 figures of equity.
I did have to drop it off at an Autonation Audi dealer to get the payoff at my AFS RV instead of the significantly inflated third party purchase price AFS was asking from the third party dealers (but yet on my settlement invoice AFS sent to close out the account they claimed that the wholesale FMV was only $500 above the RV), which involved a 3 hour drive. The local Autonation dealers either could not buy it out through one of their sister dealers or didn’t want to go through the effort. Was a quick and easy process once at the Audi dealer, where they honored the online quote without issue after a brief inspection and sent me a check for the equity after they received the title from AFS.
Based on the dealer’s website, they immediately marked the car up $5k without even washing it for the pictures they posted and sold it the very first weekend (presumably at full ask per the Autonation used car pricing policy). Seems like everyone won (other than the original dealer who wanted me to just turn in the lease and let him realize 100% of the upside).
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Buyout 61k, initial offer from AN was 64.
For 2 weeks, went shopping with Carvana, GMTV, Vroom Carmax BMW Lexus Mazda and Driveway were all under 64. Local dealer offered 65 and went back and forth for 2 weeks between AN and local dealer. Got the evil eye a few times for “shopping them”. Got them up to 66.2.
Finally called AN up and they said bring me your car and I will beat the offer. He wouldn’t give me a number—well played.
I drive over after work and am ready to accept 66.3 just to close the deal. My next months payment is coming up; need new rear tires, and saw Mercedes closed their lease buyout to 3P dealers recently. I sit down at the AN guys desk and ask him, what’s the number. He says “67”. I start thinking of where I’m taking my gf for dinner and the next toy I buy, after socking away half the profit. Thanks LH (and Shark Tank)
BTW: I initially wanted to exclude MSDs so I could get the money back from BMWFS (mainly because it’s my first lease buyout and general mistrust of dealers), but the payoff included it. So I rolled with it and just took a fat check home. Hopefully it doesn’t come back to get me. I am just relieved to be without that ticking time-bomb.
Autonation was the highest for me as well. Traded in my 21 Acadia and they gave me $40.3k for it when the other highest was Carvana at $38.8k
Sold my wife’s old Chrysler 200 to autonation. Submitted the online quote , and drove 45mins to the dealership . They glanced over the vehicle and then gave us a check . In n out in an hour .
Here are other offers for reference
|Carvana -8,666|
|Vroom - 5,589|
|Enterprise -11,997|
|Algo - 10,100|
|Givemethevin - 7,557-9,557|
|Carmax - 9,4000|
|Automation - 10,300|
I’m very sorry for her that she had to experience a Chrysler 200.
Ha yea she hated it 
she’s got a 4xe now
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Ha! Amazing FCA was able to keep you loyal. The power of brands.
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I blame it on the peer pressure of this forum to grab a 4xe
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Thanks for giving me the idea of going to autonation for a quote. I had basically given up on a third party payoff since every quote was under my payoff but autonation actually gives me a little positive equity. They offered me at least $3k more than any other quote. I’m not quite sure I understand how all of this works though so I would appreciate all the info I can get.
I have a 2018 BMW 340i that matures in March. My Jeep 4xe was built a lot sooner than I expected so I’m trying to figure out what to do with my current car. I’m currently around 4,000 miles under allowance which is why I decided to explore a third party buyout.
Here are the details:
I was able to generate a dealer payoff quote from BMWFS before Oct 1 so I can have a third party payoff the remaining amount. My third party payoff amount is $36,036.77 and that was generated on 9/27 and it’s good until 10/28. My current personal payoff amount is actually $35,565.17 (reflects the most recent payment I made on 10/1). The quote I got from Autonation is for $35,960. Here are my questions:
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There is a BMW Autonation dealer not far from me. Will the process be like taking this to just any other BMW dealership? The quote I got was an Autonation quote but I figure it’ll be like a BMW dealership dealing with BMWFS. Is that correct?
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Will there be an issue with the dealer payoff quote I got from BMWFS since the payoff they generated on 9/27 is actually different from what my current payoff is?
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From what I’ve read, it seems like the personal payoff amount does not include taxes I would have to pay if I were to payoff the car myself. So if the dealer is offering $35,960 vs my personal payoff of $35,565, would the dealer pay BMW the payoff and cut me a check for the rest? Or will BMW issue a check for the difference? Is the dealer or BMWFS responsible for writing a check for the MSDs?
Doesn’t seem like a whole lot of money but up until now I was stuck with a car where payoff was higher than the RV. Now it looks like I can pocket $395 + save on the $350 disposition fee. Does all this seem to add up?
How does AutoNation work on buying leases? They seem to have all brands all across the country, so are they all connected where any of their dealers can buy any brand, or would I specifically need to deal with “AutoNation Nissan” for a Nissan lease if Nissan isn’t allowing 3rd party buyouts? The closest Nissan they have is down in Georgia (I’m in DE). The closest they have is Chevy/GMC and Subaru over in MD.
That might not work, usually the Autonation has to be near if not AT where you are.
The guy who emailed me my appraisal amount is checking with one of his Nissan stores to see if they can. Might be pointless anyway, because it was one of the lowest offers I got and they want me to come in person to see if they can give more, but even the closest location is 90 minutes away.
Got an appraisal “Certificate” from Autonation for 39.5k for my Camaro. They asked me to bring it in to see if they could give me more. After having me wait around for 1 hr, they come back to me and offer me 37k!! I mentioned the Certificate amount and they act like they had no clue they had previously provided me one. Be careful with bait and switch.
The certificate they emailed me wouldn’t even open, the download link was broken. He told me the amount in another email.
Overall, not feeling so great about this one especially when it’s over $4000 less than CarMax and even way under what the dealer I’m leasing from is offering.
– deleted.
It’s been about 8 business days since I sold my car and my loan hasn’t been paid off yet. They entered the wrong payoff address in the paperwork but apparently corrected it the day after.
Has anyone else experience a long wait for loan payoff?
When I sold my previous car to ALGO, the loan was paid off in about 2 days…
8 days isn’t a long wait for a loan payoff generally. Carvana took a good month+ on my Hyundai a few months back.
Mine took nearly 3 weeks to get paid off.
Another switch up on Autonation. Got an appraisal on my 4XE for $56k. Thought I’d call the store and confirm before heading in. They confirmed actual offer is $50k.