Leased Car, selling to CarMax

Flyct said:

LeftieBiker said:

The accident was in a parking lot and may not show up. I'll do a history check soon.

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If the door was replaced it’s likely that not only was the door painted but the fender and other door was also blend painted. That will show up with a paint gauge. Every commercial used car buyer uses one of these to check for repairs. I even have one I use when I was buying a car for my daughter when she was in college. https://www.amazon.com/Thickness-Coating-Automatic-Ferrous-Non-Ferrous/dp/B07W3YMM2Z/ref=asc_df_B07W3YMM2Z/

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Thanks. As I said, I will mention the damage when I bring it to them. I'll still be surprised if they don't want to pay me for the car. It's over three years old, and looks more like three months old. The odometer agrees with that, too.

I'm not sure how Leftie's repair was handled but it may be the the body shop simply bought a door that was painted by the factory and then bolted it in. I agree that if it was painted by the body shop that wouldn't be 100% identical to a factory painted door but since this car isn't 'collectable' I can't imagine who would care.

I don’t think there are any issues here, Leftie said he will disclose.

Another poster stated that they will go around the car with a gauge and check the paint depth, so if they do that, they would see the paint on the door is different than the rest of the car. Now perhaps some Carmax facilities are different, but when they did walk around my car, they did not check for paint depth. In fact, it was a very basic walk around, I was a little surprised how brief it was.

Leftie, Carmax will buy the car, the question is how much? I have always known them to be fair. Good luck.

I have gotten the dealership interested in buying the car, instead of just grounding the lease, as part of a new lease deal. I wanted to make the lease 4 years instead of three, but that actually costs more per month. I also wanted the Protection Package and a cargo cover (if none present), so I'm going to offer the car to them, in exchange for the same monthly payment for 4 years as for 3, the Protection Package, and the cargo cover. No cash for me, but I'd save myself a LOT of hassle, and all parties should be satisfied. That's generally what I try for when I make deals.

And yes, I will disclose the door issue to the dealership.

Leftie, as far as getting a good deal from the dealer, don’t hold your breath.
They will say and do anything to get you to come into their showroom where they will reneg on any verbal stuff they said to you. Carmax is a straight shooter. Good luck.

The Nissan dealership and salesman I deal with (Lia Nissan of Colonie NY, David Seacord) are both unusually honest. I was able to negotiate a great deal, entirely over email, on my housemate's SV+ with them, that included giving her $10k in trade for her worth-maybe-$6k PIP. This was negotiated after* a deal that included $10,650.00 in incentives. They will honor whatever terms we mutually agree to over email.

* Never mention a trade-in until after you have negotiated a deal without one. This prevents a dealership from crafting a deal that appears to give you a lot for the trade, but actually gives you little or nothing. Also, always try to negotiate a deal at the end of a month, when dealerships and salespeople are scrambling to boost their sales figures.

I am not clear on a previous post. Your current lease is 3 years, and you want to extend it one more year to 4 years at the same price you pay now per month?

Once again: my lease on the 2018 SL is ending next week. I did get a 3 month extension on it, but won't be using it. I am now leasing a 2021 Brilliant Silver SV40 with Tech and Protection packages. The dealership agreed to my terms, so just for selling the SL to them rather than turning it in, I will be getting a 4 year lease at the price per month ($276) of a 3 year lease, plus free Protection Package and cargo cover. Also a free wheel swap. First payment down only. I estimate that I'm getting about $1500.00 in equity from the dealership, rather than a possible $1212.00 from Carmax.

Well, I wish you good luck, I do not follow what you are doing, but please don’t be mad at me, I was born this way, can’t help it. Good luck.

Within the next 2 weeks I will be taking delivery of my 2021 LR AWD Tesla Model 3, so I will be wishing all the contributors on this site who have helped me over the past 2 1/2 years, good health and good luck.

What Carmax and companies like them are doing is breaking some of the power of the leasing companies like NMAC. Now when you have a nice, low mileage leased car, with a reasonable residual, you actually have some equity in it. I was able to use Carmax's mere existence to leverage the Nissan dealership to in effect pay me to buy my SL, instead of just getting it for free (or me having to pay them $400) when I turned it in. A few weeks ago I didn't know anything about this. Now I'm getting ~$1500 for my leased car. I'm grateful for this topic!

Baltneu said:

Well, I wish you good luck, I do not follow what you are doing, but please don’t be mad at me, I was born this way, can’t help it. Good luck.

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That makes two of us.

I *think* Leftie is saying that his car (and specifically his residual) is in demand by dealerships so they compete to buy it.

It's a little complicated, but not very much so. The dealership had likely been expecting to buy my car from NMAC to resell it, because of the ultra low mileage and near-pristine condition. When I told them I'd be offering it to Carmax, the salesman said that he'd look into giving me some "equity" (credit) for the car, to be applied to my new lease, if I grounded (ended) the 2018 lease there. I then told him what I would like in return as that equity: a lowering of the payments for the 4 year lease to be the same as the more subsidized 3 year lease payments. I also asked for the Protection Package for free, and a free cargo cover. Total value of those concessions/gifts was about $1554.00. What he then came back with was: I'd get everything I wanted, with the only change being that they would buy the car from me, rather than grounding the lease for NMAC. That has no effect on me. I had originally offered to bring the car over there tomorrow, to show them the lovely door replacement, but when he requested photos of documents, I also sent 5 or 6 photos of the door and surrounding area. That sufficed. Next week I bring the car in, with the Summer tires on the OEM wheels loaded in the back. I'll then sign some papers, and will drive home with a 2021 SV 40kwh, with Tech and Protection packages, and a cargo cover. The wheels with Winter tires will be in the back of that.

I could have spent another $90 a month or so for a Scarlet Ember (my favorite color) SV+ with Tech Package, but having driven both versions of the Gen II Leaf, I prefer the way the 40kwh cars accelerate and handle. They are more 'toss-able', less ponderous, and at everything less than WFO, they accelerate more quickly. That extra 50HP or so sounds great, but you only get it after a couple of seconds of flooring it, and they always feel like they are at least the 200lbs heavier that they in fact are. One Plus in the family is enough. The Brilliant Silver makes the Leaf II look more like a British luxury sports car, and I'd prefer the car handle more like one.

I just happened to be looking at Carmax and here is my car I sold to them for $17,400. I have to wonder if they are going to get their asking price. Does Carmax deal?

https://www.carmax.com/car/20402462

Baltneu said:

Does Carmax deal?

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Not so far as I know, but nothing stops them from changing the sticker price.

It looks like I picked the right time to do this transaction: there is a growing shortage of new cars because of the chip shortage, and to a lesser extent because of rental companies buying lots of new cars, after dumping their fleets during the pandemic's early stages. This has also pushed prices up in the used car market, and I think that this partially explains why I was able to get about $1500 for my leased car.

LeftieBiker said:

It looks like I picked the right time to do this transaction: there is a growing shortage on new cars because of the chip shortage, and to a lesser extent because of rental companies buying lots of new cars, after dumping their fleets during the pandemic's early stages. This has also pushed prices up in the used car market, and I think that this partially explains why I was able to get about $1500 for my leased car.

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Carvana last week offered me $10,000 more than I paid for my 2019 F-150 in December 2019.

Prices are crazy.

Deleted due to fat fingers.

First post!

I got a call from the local Nissan dealership asking if I wanted take advantage of their lease buyback. I said sure, why not, let’s see what they have to offer. After some research, there really is a shortage. A few months ago I got a quote from Carvana and Vroom and I had to pay them $1,300 just to get out of my lease (this is before I found out that NMAC doesn’t allow 3rd party buyouts; I hadn’t checked CarMax though).

Anyway, I figured I get a quote from Carvana again, and wow, they were offering me 6k! Went to the dealership to see what they would offer...they said we can take your car right now and waive all the fees and give you a check for $500. I said no thanks and walked out.

My payoff is $13,681.59, and Carvana is offering $19,843, profit $6,161, which includes a ding in the door trim. I plan on going in this week to pay it off.

Good deal. Great deal!

That’s a great deal, indeed! Hope to get a good offer from Carvana too.
I want to sell my old Nissan and look for a new car of a higher class. I am ready to add some money to the sum, but it would also be cool to get a good offer for the old car because it’s in good shape and I took good care of it. I’ve placed an ad on jdmbuysell.com and hope to get a good offer for my NISSAN 180SX type G RPS13 1996.
I didn’t set the final price, and I’m ready to negotiate it with the buyer, but I won't agree to a price less than $10K. The car’s rare and in perfect shape, so I can ask for that much.