Spoiler: They picked it up in my driveway!
The used car market is at an all-time high and I did what any American would do and tried to take advantage of it. My daily driver has been a 2018 Jeep Wrangler (4-door) for the last 46 months. While I always like to shop around for my next vehicle, there hasn’t been much I was excited about. I usually keep my vehicles for two to three years before I get bored and trade them in on the new hotness. This Jeep has been an exception and might be the longest I’ve ever driven one continuous vehicle. Selling to Driveway wasn’t my first choice, but they were the highest bidder.
I made a YouTube video on the top 10 reasons why I’m selling my Wrangler.
You’ve probably seen all the online companies emerging that want to buy your car and pick it up for you. The popular ones being Carvana, Vroom, and Carmax, but I decided I was going to get prices from all of them. It’s an easy process to get a quote on selling your car. You just give them information about it and they give you a price instantly. Most of the time they honor that initial price throughout the buying process.
Last year I saw the announcement of the Ford F-150 Lightning, all electric pickup truck, and I was immediately enthralled with an electric truck. Ford took “pre-orders” of the Lightning models only to announce later that they wouldn’t be able to make that many quickly. Recently this year, Ford let me know that I won’t be getting a Lightning in the next 12 months. While sad about that, I was excited by the thought of having a truck, so I started looking at my options. All the while I was keeping an eye on what the value of my Jeep was. I never thought that I would sell it to a 3rd-party, but more likely would trade it to a dealer on a new car/truck.
In February of this year I told myself my next vehicle was going to be a truck, so I decided to actually keep tabs on my Wrangler price. Since then, the prices haven’t changed much, but I was pretty much going with the highest bidder. I found the prices to be all over the place and didn’t expect Driveway to be the leader. When I got quotes from each of these vendors I used the same information and options to make it fair across the board. I also used fake contact information because I didn’t want bothered and just wanted to see the price.
| Service | Price |
| Driveway | $40,477 |
| Carmax | $38,500 |
| WeBuyAnyCar | $37,045 |
| KelleyBlueBook | $35,550 |
| Carvana | $33,280 |
| Vroom | $32,479 |
| CarBrain | $26,730 |
| Peddle | $18,745 |
You can see how close the big names are, but hilariously CarBrain and Peddle are very low and not sure who would actually take that price. In my research I also learned about all the different companies that will offer to buy your car. Prior to this I didn’t know Carmax and KBB did the online buying thing. Additionally I also learned about services I’ve never heard of like CarBrain and Peddle.
There are some out there that I didn’t bother looking at mainly because they didn’t offer instant quotes online without talking to someone. My time is worth more than what you’re probably going to offer me. Initially I thought Vroom or Carvana would be one of the companies buying the Jeep, but Driveway surprised me.
I recently got word that my truck of choice was on it’s way from the factory to a dealer near me. This meant it was ‘go-time’ for me to sell the Wrangler to Driveway. I went through the online quote process with my real information and somehow it was lower (by $1,000) than the previous number I had. This was fine so I completed all the additional information requested. Shortly after, I was texted by a person from Driveway confirming details. Here’s where it starts to get shaky… this is the timeline of what happened next.
Thursday March 31st – Text conversation from John at Driveway: “Hello Ben, this is John from Driveway.com. I’m reaching out regarding your 2018 Jeep All-New Wrangler. We sent you an offer of $40,477. Are you interested in moving forward with selling that vehicle?” Why yes John, I am. “Can I call you to explain the process?”
Over an hour later John called me and talked me through what would happen next. I had made an appointment online for the next week to meet someone at a dealer near me to inspect the vehicle. Then they would schedule a date to come pick it up later. I asked a few questions about logistics and timing because I didn’t yet have a replacement vehicle. He assured me they were backed up and it would be 1-2 weeks before they came to get it.
“So… the person we had scheduled to pick up your Jeep next week can’t drive a stick shift”
Friday April 1st – Phone call from Jamie at Driveway: “We need to get approval from you, for your bank to release the payoff information on your car loan.” I was on the phone with Jamie for a while before we concluded that the bank might be closed for the day so we’d try again next week. Jamie also informed me that it might be too soon for them to get me a check for next week’s appointment. This is when I found out that the “inspection” appointment I made was the pickup my vehicle and take it away, appointment. I told her this was too soon and I needed to reschedule. So she was able to get my appointment rescheduled for the week after next.
Monday April 4th – Phone call from Susan at Driveway: “So… the person we had scheduled to pickup your Jeep next week can’t drive a stick shift, so we need to schedule someone who can drive a stick shift.” Susan even made me chuckle by calling it a “millennial anti-theft device” and I agreed, even though I’m a millennial.
Tuesday April 5th – Phone call from Susan again: We rescheduled the pickup and I had some more questions answered, because at this point basically everything changed. We scheduled the pickup on Monday April 11th and instead of it being at a nearby dealer, it was at my house. I told her that previously I thought it was somewhere else and she didn’t have record of that same information. No big deal, home is better for me. I asked about the payoff information and she said it looked good. She told me that they would provide me a check on Monday with the difference between the purchase price and my loan payoff, even though I thought I was getting a wire transfer. I also asked her to confirm the price. Susan said they had a lower price than my initial offer, but she was able to see that John mentioned the higher one, so they were going to honor that.
Tuesday April 5th – Phone call from Susan again: “Hi Ben, I have the bank on the line to confirm your information.” I talked to a representative from the bank I financed the Jeep through and confirmed everything. So now maybe we were actually ready and set for Monday.
Sunday April 10th – I received a reminder email from Driveway about my appointment on Monday. This was the first time I had an official appointment notice for the updated day/time. It was nice to know it was still happening. The email stated I needed to have my driver’s license, registration, keys, and all persons named on the title/registration needed to be present. Luckily that’s all me so I was ready.
I did some last minute gathering of all my personal belongings and left a few presents behind for the next owner. I didn’t bother cleaning the interior or exterior of the Jeep. I learned a long time ago that spending your own personal time cleaning a vehicle for trade/sell doesn’t actually return any additional value. I also left all my stickers/decals on the exterior. They can remove those.
I learned a long time ago that spending your own personal time cleaning a vehicle for trade/sell doesn’t actually return any additional value.
Monday April 11th – I got a call around 10am from Brian at Driveway. He was confirming some details and times. I told him I was able to meet earlier and so we planned for 11am. Shortly after 11, he arrived via Uber and greeted me.
The entire process took less than 15 minutes. He started the car, took some photos, looked around, and then gave me the check. He opted not to do a test drive since he was happy with what he saw. I had to sign some power of attorney documents (standard for vehicle sell/trade) and the sales documents. He removed my license plate and attached a dealer plate, then drove it away.
That deal is now done. They’re going to payoff the remainder of my loan and deal with my bank directly. The check I received is a difference between the sale amount and the payoff.
I had a lot of hesitation going into this process as I’ve never sold a car to anyone but a local buyer or dealer. Selling your car to an online service can be scary, but Driveway made it mostly easy the entire time. There were a few hiccups of scheduling, pricing, and information, but in the end it worked out. I can honestly say I would do this again tomorrow if I needed to. The only thing I lost in the deal was the tax benefit of trading in the Jeep at the same time of buying a new vehicle. The tax savings was about half of the difference Driveway offered, so still worth it to me.