Carvana Reviews - How It Works, Warranty, Financing, Returns

I gave Carvana a couple of chances. I am sure their upper management let them down.

The first car I bought they told me there was a problem with the engine and I had to wait almost two weeks to get it (the car was a 2009 Audi TTS). I then ordered a 2016 BMW 228 I with 3k miles on it. After having it and pondering over it, I took it back a day later after investigating the peeling of the paint and finding out where the car came from, it looked like it had been involved in a hail storm and was hastily fixed. The paint was peeling, there was residue paint on the sunroof plastic, and you could see trash all over where the paint was resprayed. It was a shame as I really liked the car and thought I was getting a great deal.

The second car I got I didn’t even leave the Cemding machine with it, a 2014 BMW M235 I Silver. The pictures on the web looked good, except the wheels looked dirty. When I ordered it I asked for the car to be clean when I picked it up. The car was dirty and smelled foul, I really wanted to buy this car, but it had more scratches on the car than advertised. The scratches that were fixed were actually spotted in with a different color paint, and they stood out. The engine was burning oil, and the transmission was slipping. I really think the car had the stuffing knocked out of it. It had pretty low miles but was seriously molested, in my opinion. The tires were lucky if they had 2000 miles left on them. It was a poor representation of a nice car.

Everyone I spoke to was really nice. The staff at the vending machine in Charlotte were awesome. I really wanted this to work out as they were giving me $2k more for my trade in. I just didn’t have a warm fuzzy feeling.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I had my car delivered yesterday. Wonderful experience up to that point. However, I noticed that the GPS did not work this morning. Called Carvana and was greeted by two condescending "advocates." I learned it might be under warranty, but I'm on my own to find a repair shop and have it fixed. Their solution was to return or trade the car if I didn't want it repaired. WHAT AN INCONVENIENCE! I would never use Carvana again, and my husband and I are both executive level professionals. You had better believe that I will shout out to as many people as possible that this company is fret with bad customer service and too many employees who don't value their customers!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I purchased a car on Carvana on July 8, 2018, paid the full amount in CASH, no financing, the money was transferred five days later, all documents have been verified, and I signed the contract.

Until this day, no one is able to tell me when and if I am ever going to get my car, despite the fact that one supervisor (I will keep her name off the records for now, unless they deny that this took place) told me that the deadline for them to have my car delivered is today, the 24th of July. They will say that I live outside their standard market coverage - this is not my problem, they knew all that when I entered my ZIP code. Secondly, they are offering me to drive either nine hours one way or fly for two hours to get my car - if I wanted to do that I could have bought the car straight from a dealership.

Despite many calls and attempts to get any constructive and close to the exact delivery date of my car, NOTHING!

I could not get through to talk to their senior managers, customer advocate director, and a member of their "so-called" Executive Resolution Team, had me on hold for 30 minutes? Doing what, I do not have a clue.

…to be continued.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

After my car was flooded two weeks ago and it had to be totaled, I was compelled to plunge into the cesspool of used car sales. I say that because of the extreme variability in information, not a step by step procedure that anyone can follow. I "progressed" from the worst of the worst (Craigslist for sale by owner) to for sale by dealer to several dealers, one of which must have thought that I was a moron to decline absurd financing parameters. Was there any way to prequalify with financing for a specific amount and then try to find the right car?

That was when I found Carvana, and it was the smoothest experience I have EVER had buying a car. From what I can tell over the last few years they have continuously improved over time and my experience yesterday was just great! I must not be the only one who feels that way since they have received a lot of funding to expand. There is no need to suffer through local used car processes when you can find the car you want at the right price!

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

WORST buying experience ever!!! I went through the process the week before and told the gentleman over the phone that I would not sign the Arbitration agreement. He said I could send in a registered letter, opting out, which I then did, but I told him I still would not sign the arbitration agreement and he understood, or claimed he understood why I would not sign.

I had financing set up and sat there while the gentleman talked to my bank, and I went ahead and got the vehicle on my insurance in addition to spending $6.50 to send the registered letter.

The following week, the driver calls me from the road to tell me she will be there shortly, but I still needed to go online and sign the contract. I went online and found the contract did not go through because I would not sign the part with the arbitration agreement. I then called Carvana and after a gentleman tried to talk me into signing, he then said just to let the driver know, and it should still be ok and I could get the car.

The car shows up in front of my house, and the driver tells me I cannot have the car without signing. The FREAKING car is sitting in front of my house! She then calls Atlanta, and the guy gets on the phone with me saying I cannot have the car without signing the arbitration agreement. He explains once again that I can opt out of it, which I understand, but I am not signing something I don't agree to. I told the gentleman that I had a printed copy of the contract and could give it to the driver, but he refused, saying it had to be done online.

It is ridiculous that I said from the very beginning that I would not sign the arbitration agreement and they went ahead and sent me the car. It should have never gotten that far. I can only assume that Carvana thought I would want the car so badly that I would go ahead and sign the arbitration agreement. Tacky, tacky Carvana!

My feeling is if you can opt out of the arbitration agreement, why don't they have a contract online without the arbitration agreement for those of us who will not sign it? I'm sure Carvana feels most people are not going to go to the trouble of writing out the letter and going to the Post Office to send it.

I also find it interesting that Carvana's Review page is closed, so I cannot share my experience there, but you can bet it will share it everywhere else I can!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I canceled my purchase with this company.

It's a good concept that could be better. I hate buying cars and will negotiate down to the last dollar. Carvana's prices are good when you compare the cost/benefit of spending hours negotiating prices. I didn't want to spend the time negotiating this time around and felt the price was fair.

The purchase got held up because their contract had the first line or two of each page obstructed by the DocuSign ID. I asked them via email to fix it and was told it would take weeks. I called and said that's dumb, your contract is in MS word, it should take five seconds to change fix it, here's how you do it. That took two days.

My loan officer also had paperwork wrong which took a day and a half to fix, not Carvana's fault.

At this point, I was getting threatening emails that the delivery would be delayed if the loan wasn't funded by 3 pm. Our delivery date was pretty time sensitive, so this was an issue. The delivery date was 11 days from the time I clicked purchase, so it's not like I wanted a car to magically show up in a day or so. At the time of cancellation, it was still five days and four hours from the delivery date/time.

At 2:55 pm I received an email saying the delivery had to be rescheduled (even though cutoff was 3 pm). I called and spoke to Ambrosia who could not have cared less. Purchase canceled. The conversation was less than a minute, apparently, customer retention isn't their thing.

My loan officer told me that he funded the loan before their cutoff and even had to call in to tell them. The account was supposedly notated, but Carvana didn't care. He even called Carvana and tried to get the situation fixed to no avail.

So. If you will blindly sign your contract or don't care about delivery times, go for it. For me, it just didn't work out.

And really, it was disappointing because I wanted it to work. But it does seem like their "click, click, click, done" model wasn't accurate. For me, it was a weeklong headache that required a lot of followup on my end instead of four hours in a dealership and driving away with a car.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

The application process was surprisingly easy, selected my SUV on Sunday, submitted paystubs, ID, and selected a Friday delivery date. They had earlier dates but preferred Friday according to my schedule. On Monday the rep called me to confirm details of the car, financing, and delivery date. Throughout the week I received text messages keeping me up to date on the vehicle.

On Friday the driver called to let me know he was on the way with an ETA which was right where I scheduled it. Finally, the driver arrived right on time, very friendly, and walked me through the vehicle and details. He asked me to take my time inspecting the vehicle and test driving it while he waited back in his truck, this was great because I was not rushed or pressured with anything he said take all the time you need.

After I took it for a spin and thorough inspection I noticed everything was just as pictured except one thing, the bumper had a scratch that was not on the picture. He immediately took a picture, confirmed it was not on the original pictures and said a rep would call me within 48 hours to have it fixed.

Carvana has definitely been the best car buying experience I've had ever. The entire process was simple, hassle-free, and customer service including the delivery driver, was very friendly, patient, and explained everything to make sure I was satisfied. I would absolutely use them again. The best of all is I have 7 days to drive and get a feel for the vehicle, and it arrived clean inside and out. Dealers have a lot to learn from the service Carvana gave me.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

Please take a note from my experience with Carvana. Do NOT finance through them. Their financing company, Bridgecrest, is horrible.

I paid off my loan with them on June 2, 2018, and on July 12, 2018, I still have not received my title. And now, the financing company is blaming Carvana for losing the title. I was told today that since they have not received the title yet that they are going to do a lost title, duplicate request, which will take three to eight weeks to process.

I do not know who is to blame for this, but take this as an example to steer far away from Carvana or Bridgecrest if you plan on buying a vehicle. They are terrible.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I was very unpleased with this experience! I recently purchased a 2014 Ford Focus and when I got it the transmission started skipping the FIRST DAY! Luckily it was under warranty and we took it to the Ford Dealership to fix the problem. When getting it back from the shop, the transmission started skipping again so we decided to trade the car for a 2013 Honda Civic. It was supposed to arrive at 12 pm on that Tuesday and by 2 pm there was no show and they didn't have the courtesy to call!

We eventually reached out to them and they said it would be here by 5pm and they still didn't show. Then they said 7pm and it's 8 now and I still haven't received my car! For any future Carvana customers I would recommend going to a dealership at least you would have your car and know nothing is wrong with it.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I recently had a very bad experience with Carvana. I was looking at buying a BMW car and found a great deal with Carvana. The features listed on the car included M-Sport package, blind spot warning, lane departure warning and the exact color of car I was looking for. But having test driven some of these cars before, I quickly realized something was off. Firstly the M-Sport package wasn't actually in the car, and the customer care rep confirmed that for me. This made me suspicious of what else may be wrong and soon realized the car had none of the features they had listed. Even the color of the car was listed wrong. And they blamed "human error" for this. I went from actually buying the car to not because I don't think I can trust what's on their website. So beware of the features they list on the car and make sure you contact them before buying your car before you get your hopes up.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I had a polarizing experience in buying from Carvana for the first time. There were parts I loved and parts I was very unimpressed with in my experience.

Here are the things that I was impressed with and did enjoy about my experience. I am a huge fan of convenience and prefer not to deal with people directly as most of them are not intelligent enough or are too incentivized by their own agenda to sell me a car. So the "convenience" aspect of Carvana ranked very high with me. The online process of looking at and purchasing a vehicle sight unseen can be unsettling. But their online chat feature and the one time I did have to speak live to an associate it was excellent. All questions were answered, they were extremely knowledgeable and the assurance of a 7-day basic "test drive" with a no-questions-asked return policy was phenomenal. All cars should be afforded this length of time to consider.

I did start to discover a few problems when the car was to be delivered to my front door. The Carvana carrier truck apparently broke down that day, so I had to take an Uber to their Carvana facility in Frisco. Inconvenient and a little odd that they didn't have another carrier, but they even paid for the Uber ride. So, no big deal. I received the car, and it was spotless. The gal that helped me was super nice and the paperwork to sign for the vehicle took less than 2 minutes. I could have been out in 5 minutes if I chose. And I did. So, I now have this car in my possession, and the 7-day clock has started.

I noticed some cosmetic things that weren't disclosed on the website on this vehicle. An interior feature button was broken, a cosmetic small piece of trim on the door fell off, there was a big scratch on the rear bumper under the hatch not disclosed, and that was about it. I called into Carvana and told them the problems. They asked me to email in photos of the issues and that they would get back to me shortly. In 3 days I did get an email response, and I was impressed that they offered me a $350 check to cover the costs to fix everything. Perfect! No negotiating, no backing away from their responsibility, they (Carvana) just did the right thing. So, A+ for that experience.

Two days later (realize I'm still in my 7-day grace period), I am in a massive rainstorm in Oklahoma. Time to flip on my wipers for the first time. Now was not a good time to learn that the wipers were so worn out that they were stripping away from their housing. They were like spaghetti noodles going over my windshield. In fact, the metal housing scratched the windshield in the process. So I had to drive with them off, which was not fun. I immediately went and got them replaced myself. Remember, this company claims a 150-point "rigorous" inspection of all their vehicles before selling them. Yet they missed windshield wiper blades so destroyed you couldn't miss it if you just turned them on. Doesn't add up. So, this caused me to question just how thorough this alleged inspection was by Carvana. Moving on...

Later that day, I am running through all the diagnostic reports this car provides as it is thorough being a Porsche Cayenne. I pull up the oil level on the vehicle, and it shows the level to be critically low. Additionally, the car is telling me that the oil needs to be changed immediately. Carvana assured me that this car had received an oil change just before it was delivered. Now the car is saying otherwise. I call Carvana and ask about this and they claim that the vehicle settings just need to be re-set by a Porsche dealership noting that the oil had been changed. I would have bought that explanation except that the actual "oil levels" on the car are showing critically LOW. Doesn't add up... again. So I press Carvana on this issue and they agree to pay for a Porsche Dealership to change the oil in the vehicle. Hmmmm...I guess that I am happy they agreed to do that but does it not imply guilt? Who knows?

So, I am going to write that "yes" I would recommend Carvana as the benefits far outweigh the challenges. It is a pre-owned vehicle I purchased so there are going to be things NOT perfect about the car. I get that. But if you are going to CLAIM that you do such a rigorous investigation of the vehicle, there shouldn't be much that is obvious that is missed (like wiper blades falling off).

From a post-purchase perspective, they have been great. No debating and TWICE after going back to them to fix stuff, they have agreed to the right thing and just pay me. They don't want the car back, and I don't want to give it back. So, they make it easy/clean and simple which is smart.

If you are considering buying from Carvana, ask to SEE a report of the 150-point inspection FIRST. Then when you get the car, go over that list or consider taking it to a dealership so they can do it for you. It won't be free, but it will give you leverage to go back to Carvana.

All told, I would buy from them again.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend