Where did you find your most recent pre-owned vehicle?

[FreddieDB]

Cargurus

[mjr24]

cars.com.....I feel autotrader had a very small number of listings compared to cars.

[Humdizzle]

usually use autotrader / cars.com / autotempest. i'll check BaT just to see what the market is like and what people are willing to pay.

Originally Posted by StradaRedlands

I don't get that... why do so many people list cars as manuals? The few DCTs out there I sort of will let pass, but everything else... not even close!

to drive up traffic. most sports cars are auto and enthusiasts will shut out alot of dealer inventory by clicking the manual filter option. by making the listing for a manual they might sway a few people "well the car is really nice, maybe dct isn't so bad".

[StradaRedlands]

Originally Posted by Humdizzle

usually use autotrader / cars.com / autotempest. i'll check BaT just to see what the market is like and what people are willing to pay.




to drive up traffic. most sports cars are auto and enthusiasts will shut out alot of dealer inventory by clicking the manual filter option. by making the listing for a manual they might sway a few people "well the car is really nice, maybe dct isn't so bad".

I thought that as well, but it just seems random on cars that definitely never had nor will have a MT. It's either that or some people are just kinda' dumb.

[Our03z4]

Carvana baby! Only place that had exactly what I wanted. Paid a fair price and all went smoothly, love the car and got a perfect PPI ta boot. Have owned it for a year now.

[spammysammich]

One of my close friends is a BMW/Mini master tech who had been working on the car for the original owner for many years before he bought in 2019. After doing maintenance and mods he decided to move on to other projects, saving me thousands in parts and labor and knuckle skin. He even threw in 7 extra BMW ignition coils he had laying around the shop. Truth be told, he admitted to having huge anxiety about owning it in a place where he couldn't always have it garaged and being surrounded by sketchy neighbors and terrible drivers. It was a big driving factor in him getting rid of it, also downsizing his monthly nut.

[Theruleslawyer]

Cargurus I used the most for searching. Autotempest as well. When I sold my car I got the most leads off facebook marketplace by far.

I actually bought it at a carmax. If you're buying a used car and want to search out of market they have really favorable policies with returns and so on. I didn't want to fly across the country and do a PPI there to find the seller had lied and hoped I'd buy it since I had sunk cost.

[bwood20]

I was doing a combination of auto trader and dealer CPO searches. I caught the listing for my 2017 440i GC right when they put it up on the dealer site(no pics, hadn’t decided if they were going to certify it yet, and hadn’t even been washed yet). I messaged a salesman I had spoken to previously, test drove it that night and told them I would purchase if they decided to certify it and fix a couple of cosmetic things. They did me a favor and didn’t raise the price after it was certified and I picked it up maybe a week later.

[FinalLe]

Usually browse autotempest and fb marketplace. fb is annoying to search on though.

[jmg]

I purchased a Carvana car a few months ago and had a horrible experience with them trying to put lipstick on a pig. They were totally incompetent. I eventually figured out that they do not have staff mechanics. Repairs are outsourced to independent shops and so they have no incentive to get the repairs done in a timely manner. The shop found an aftermarket part they ahd to replace, and it was backordered. Instead of completing the inspection, they waited two weeks for the part to arrive before they inspected the rest of the car and discovered it needed a new clutch. I canceled my order.

I think you CAN get a decent car from Carvana, but if you hit any snags, they suck. I will say that every single CS rep I spoke to were very nice. They just had very little oversight on the process, so they were there to basically help with paperwork and were as lost as I was when things went south.

[///MPhatic]

I literally went to google, typed in 2018 BMW M2, then clicked on images. I was just looking for pictures of Long Beach Blue cars, but one of the first pictures I found was a car for sale that happened to be manual, slick top, executive package, and low miles.

I made a call and that was that.

[Theruleslawyer]

Originally Posted by jmg

I purchased a Carvana car a few months ago and had a horrible experience with them trying to put lipstick on a pig. They were totally incompetent. I eventually figured out that they do not have staff mechanics. Repairs are outsourced to independent shops and so they have no incentive to get the repairs done in a timely manner. The shop found an aftermarket part they ahd to replace, and it was backordered. Instead of completing the inspection, they waited two weeks for the part to arrive before they inspected the rest of the car and discovered it needed a new clutch. I canceled my order.

I think you CAN get a decent car from Carvana, but if you hit any snags, they suck. I will say that every single CS rep I spoke to were very nice. They just had very little oversight on the process, so they were there to basically help with paperwork and were as lost as I was when things went south.

The issue with Carvana and other online only vendors is they do no inspection on pick up. People have been using them as a dumping ground for problem cars. While there are good cars on there I think all the online dealers run a higher risk allowing a customer to return the seems to be their QA.

[M-technik-3]

FB Marketplace for my E91, the E90 M sport was here and the newest car.

[Darth One]

Cargurus/auto trader/cars.com are kinda all the same to me. Just different UI. Search ‘em all or just use a search aggregator like auto tempest. You still have to reach out to the dealer and end up with the typical dealer experience. Although to be fair i haven’t used any of their add-ons like financing or inspection, maybe there’s some differentiation there.

My car buying is almost always opportunistic - I’m never really looking (or more accurately, ALWAYS kinda looking ) and i just come across stuff. Of my purchases over the last 5 years, it’s either finding a vehicle at my dealer i fall in love with, or checking in with my SA’s and randomly getting offered an allocation for something i can’t pass up. The only exception is when i decided i really wanted a McLaren - i searched every single site and found the car i eventually bought on both cargurus and Mclaren’s dealer inventory locator.

I also won my E46 M3 on BaT and that was the most exhilarating purchasing experience of my life

[allinon72]

Originally Posted by Theruleslawyer

The issue with Carvana and other online only vendors is they do no inspection on pick up. People have been using them as a dumping ground for problem cars. While there are good cars on there I think all the online dealers run a higher risk allowing a customer to return the seems to be their QA.

To expand on this, they've set up big reconditioning centers to address any issues. They've made the calculation that they can simply accept any car with little due diligence, recondition it, and resell it while the new buyer is none the wiser, and if there's issues they fall back on their 7 day return policy. I can only imagine what the "reconditioning" process amounts to in terms of the quality of the repairs.

Carvana is literally a roulette wheel, if you must have a car from there I would look it over VERY closely.

[Our03z4]

Originally Posted by allinon72

To expand on this, they've set up big reconditioning centers to address any issues. They've made the calculation that they can simply accept any car with little due diligence, recondition it, and resell it while the new buyer is none the wiser, and if there's issues they fall back on their 7 day return policy. I can only imagine what the "reconditioning" process amounts to in terms of the quality of the repairs.

Carvana is literally a roulette wheel, if you must have a car from there I would look it over VERY closely.

You do get a 3 month warranty. Had two issues fixed with no questions asked and at the indy shop I prefer. Total would have been $2600 (water pump and thermostat, was only an O-ring seeping but they approved total replacement with OEM parts)

The key with carvana is to get them to put everything in writing when the car shows up, any thing wrong at all. I had a small scrape on the back bumper they didn't declare. Had them note it and it was approved the next day for repairs ($1,100). Get a PPI done, if something isn't right in the 7days return it. I had mine scheduled for the day after it showed up. I also used all 400 miles they allow to make sure I liked it.

Car previous to them I bought at a BMW/Volvo dealer and I got royally screwed. Took them 4 months for paper work to even be able to get a tag. Not to mention all the issues the car had with only 40k miles on it.

It sucks so many other people have had issues. My whole experience was perfect, wouldn't hesitate using them again. I think it's the safer way to buy.

[stevenopoly]

https://shift.com

[chassis]

Questions on listings:

1. What does it mean when a car has been on cargurus for a long time, more than 6 months? Examples include vehicles with clean title, average or low price (for the spec) and mainstream color combination.

2. What are car dealers signaling (to each other?) when price is an unusual value, for example $xx,911 or $xx,777?

[Theruleslawyer]

Originally Posted by chassis

Questions on listings:

1. What does it mean when a car has been on cargurus for a long time, more than 6 months? Examples include vehicles with clean title, average or low price (for the spec) and mainstream color combination.

2. What are car dealers signaling (to each other?) when price is an unusual value, for example $xx,911 or $xx,777?

1) Check the price history. Its there too. Could be the car is just in kinda rough shape in ways that doesn't show up in photos. Some dealers also have super scammy listings where the advertised price is basically unobtainable. NY and NJ dealers are horrible about this.

2) I know inventory state is sometimes included in prices, but it might be more simple. They might be using real time pricing from recent sales, which could result in odd numbers. I know ive talked to a few that claimed this.

[surbrar]

BMW Certified website - has thousands of listing with filters for model, mileage, year, etc. : https://www.bmwusa.com/certified-pre....html#/results

[ppointer]

Originally Posted by chassis

Questions on listings:

1. What does it mean when a car has been on cargurus for a long time, more than 6 months? Examples include vehicles with clean title, average or low price (for the spec) and mainstream color combination.

2. What are car dealers signaling (to each other?) when price is an unusual value, for example $xx,911 or $xx,777?

One other thing I have not seen mentioned on this thread are alerts. You can set up alerts in Autotrader based on specific searches you construct. Carvana will also allow you to request daily updates on your search criteria. An Autotrader alert is how found my 17k mile 2012 335is earlier this year.

[Darth One]

I think the $xx,911 pricing is kind of an inside joke/sellers or bidders just being bored.

Like on BaT people will bid $100,993 on a 993 Porsche just to be funny and get likes.