Did not find a thread for this dealer so starting a new one.
I recently bought out my 2019 Honda Civic lease as it was coming to an end in June 22. Since they don’t allow 3rd party dealer buyout, I paid taxes on the residual of course. But looking at the market, it was still the way to go I figured.
In all, I paid $13.7K to buy it out.
Quotes that I got from Vroom, Carvana, Carmax and Autonation ranged from 17K to 19.1K.
I decided to try and sell it private party via Craigslist. As soon as I applied for title transfer, I put up an ad on CL within 2 hours. By the end of the day, I had 7 inquiries. I listed it for 21K. All of them seemed legit and no one haggled. Next morning, I got a call for it (I gave my number to one of the email inquiries) . He said he is a wholesale dealer. Asked a few basic questions about car’s condition. And then asked if I could go down to 20K. I politely declined considering I had 6 other interested parties.
He agreed to 21K. Offered to transfer $500 deposit via Zelle right away and requested that I take the ad down on CL. Received deposit in 10 minutes, took down the ad.
This was on 3/30 noon. He said he would send someone to pick up the car on Monday since I was still waiting for my title to come in via mail. He said we can meet at a bank near my house so that we both feel safe. Sounds good to me!
We exchanged a few texts between then and now. I told him on Saturday that I still had not received title and if we should delay the pick up. He said its fine. He will give me prepaid Fedex to mail it once I receive it.
Today morning, got text from person picking up that he is about to board flight from Dallas and will let me know once he reaches the bank. Once we met up before noon, he checked the car out (it was dirty with rain and pollen), did not find issues. I had forgotten to bring with me the title application and receipts so went back home together so he can take a picture of it.
We ended up finishing the transaction at home (cash). He did ask if I want to go back to bank so that they can put the bills thru the machine to verify for counterfeits. Against best judgement, I decided not to. So we finished up, signed the bill of sale and odo verification. And then he left.
Only thing I have to worry about is having received any counterfeits (that’s a risk I took on, not the dealer’s fault) and then I need to mail the title once I receive it.
All in all, I don’t think I have had better car related experience in the past. I have sold one to Vroom before and was happy with it but this was extremely smooth and quick with no gotchas.
The dealer is called Texas Auto Value. Seems to have tons of 5 star reviews on Google (always fishy but can be genuine too right?)
Thought I would share so folks can check with them along with the other known dealers when its time to sell.
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