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I Sold My Car to Driveway.com

April 11, 2022 by Ben Beard

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

My price tracking from the nine services I contacted

driveway promo image — Promo image from Driveway.com showing how easy it is to hand someone your keys

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.

Introducing: Double B Garage

What is a Stream Deck?

January 17, 2022 by Ben Beard

You may have seen something like this on technology blogs (like this one!), YouTube videos, or even your favorite Twitch streamer, but what actually is this Stream Deck thing everyone is talking about?

I’ve always thought a Stream Deck was a command station for streamers and YouTubers that can control their streamy stuff and play stupid sound effects. While I wasn’t wrong, the Stream Deck platform is open and friendly to those of us who are into automation and scripting.

Like a lot of people, I took advantage of holiday season sales to purchase a Stream Deck by Elgato. The device is a very simple piece of hardware. At it’s core, it’s a USB keyboard that stands upright on your desk. The version I have has a five by three grid of clear buttons that each have an LCD screen under them. I opted for the mk.2 version that was released in the summer of 2021. (What are the differences?) The ability to have anything on the screen under the buttons make the Stream Deck very fun to play with and to use!

I’m going to go into very technical detail of how my Stream Desk is set up and what I use it for. Hold on to your butts!

The first button is a simple date/time display with my custom background color applied. No action occurs when this button is pressed.
Time plugin by Krabs.

Moving from left to right, the next button is a stock ticker display. Currently I have it set to show $AAPL. When you press this button it retrieves an update on the stock price, outside of its schedule update.
Stocks plugin by exension

When I walk away from my computer, I want to just put up the screensaver until is goes to sleep. This button, when pressed, runs a custom AppleScript to start the screensaver. At the same time, the Stream Deck goes into screen saver mode.
Custom icon featuring a green iMac, by me.
RunAppleScript plugin by mushoo.

tell application "System Events" 
    start current screen saver
end tell

The next two buttons are the same, except the left one is for on, and the right is for off. They both run an AppleScript that runs a Shortcut. The macOS Shortcut turns on/off the lights in my office I use for video calls. This consists of a Nanoleaf essentials light strip in front of my face, Nanoleaf shapes on the wall behind me, and a Govee RGBIC light strip on my Kallax unit behind me.
Custom lightbulb icons by me.
RunAppleScript plugin by mushoo.

--on
tell application "Shortcuts Events"
	run shortcut "Office Lights On"
end tell
--off
tell application "Shortcuts Events"
	run shortcut "Office Lights Off"
end tell

The first icon in the second row is another AppleScript button that I call ‘Start Working’. This is usually the first thing I do when I start working from home. It opens all the URLs I like to look at (e.g. Amazon, BlipShift, Woot) and work related web pages. It also opens all the applications I use daily like Outlook, Slack, Teams, NewsExplorer, LastPass, and Music.
Custom briefcase icon by me.
RunAppleScript plugin by mushoo.

The next button is another display only button that really doesn’t do much when pressed. This is called Octodeck and is a plugin that talks to my 3D printer server, Octoprint. This displays the percentage complete of an active 3D print job. I added a couple lines to the original creator’s code to include the time left, one line under the percentage.
Octodeck plugin by cpeuschel.

This center button is kind of a playground of what’s possible. I was testing Keyboard Maestro and its Stream Deck integration and came up with this. In Keyboard Maestro I have a timed macro that runs every 1 minute and grabs the song info from the Music app and pushes it to the Stream Deck button. Also, if you press the button, it will update the info outside of the one minute interval.
Keyboard Maestro plugin by Stairways Software.

Another mostly info-only button, displays the album art of the currently playing song in Music. When not playing it shows a play button that can be used to start playing music. This is a simple one, but I like having the album art displayed on my Stream Deck.
Apple Music plugin Elgato – available in the Stream Deck app.

The last button in this row, is a simple ‘next track’ button for Apple Music. When pressed this will skip to the next song when music is playing. I like having this button on Stream Deck as well as on my Apple keyboard.
Custom icon made by me.
Apple Music plugin Elgato – available in the Stream Deck app.

In the third row, we start with two folders. The first folder holding sound effects that can be triggered with the push of a button. I also have a button in this folder to switch to my Zoom profile as I’m usually triggering these sounds while on a Zoom call.

The second folder is for all my lighting controls. I can go into this folder and adjust my office lighting as needed outside of my normal on/off functions on the main screen. In this folder I can change the scene on my Nanoleaf shapes, adjust my Govee light strip, and set all lights to red (when I’m angry).

Kallax and red icons by me, others by plugin.
Nanoleaf-Tiles plugin by fSoft ltd.
Govee plugin by me – release TBD

Another folder in the third row houses my quick access commands for Slack. All of these buttons use a hotkey command to make changes to text in Slack. The middle button with the slack logo, when pressed, opens Slack or brings the application into focus.

Phone – /call – starts a call in Slack channel
Giphy – /giphy – prefix for sending a random GIF
ThumbsUp – ???????? – types and send thumbs up emoji
Quotes – shift+⌘+9 – formats the selected text as a block quote
</> – shift+⌘+C – formats the selected text as code
</> block – option+shift+⌘+C – formats the selected text as code block
Strike – shift+⌘+X – formats the selected text with strikethrough
Custom icons by me.
System Hotkey plugin by Elgato – available in the Stream Deck app

Next to last, is a mute button. When pressed, this mutes all sounds on the computer connected to the Stream Deck. I usually use this when I receive a phone call or need to quickly hear something not in my office.
Custom mute icon by me.
System Multimedia plugin by Elgato – available in the Stream Deck app.

The last button is a microphone mute toggle. This is a system-wide button that when pressed either mutes or unmutes the computer microphone. Useful for when I’m using a video chat app that’s not Zoom or Teams.
Custom mic icon by me.
Mic Mute Toggle plugin by Fred Emmott.

Stream Deck Profiles

The Stream deck can support multiple profiles that will display specific pages based on the application you’re using. I’m using three profiles in addition to the default profile, outlined above.

When I’m using Photoshop I like to have quick actions in front of me instead of trying to remember the keyboard shortcuts. As I use this profile more with Photoshop, I’m sure I’ll add more commands.
The icons used in this profile were provided by SideShowFX.

While on a Zoom call, I like to have a button to press to mute my microphone, as everyone should. (and remember to unmute it) I found a Zoom plugin that gives you more than just mute, but also camera control and some other useful buttons. The center button with the Zoom logo does nothing other than let me know which profile I’m in at a glance. The button in the very bottom-right corner switches me back to my default profile where I can access light controls and sounds. If I click out the Zoom app and then go back to Zoom, the Zoom Stream Deck profile reactivates.
Zoom plugin and icons by LostDomain.

Lastly, I have a Teams profile which is similar to the Zoom profile, but there is no plugin I’ve found as of writing this. I’m using hotkey buttons to trigger actions in Teams, like mute/unmute and show/hide camera. The Teams logo in the middle acts as a profile switch to go back to the default profile.

Should you buy a Stream Deck?

Overall I think the Stream Deck is a fun toy and can be helpful with repetitive tasks. Would I be lost without one? No, but I’ve already gotten comfortable with the buttons/display I have setup that I would buy a replacement if mine was stolen.

Should you buy one? That’s a difficult question because everyone’s needs/wants are different. If you’re into tinkering, scripting, and/or automation I think you should give Stream Deck a try. If you’re not, you may struggle with what to do with your new Stream Deck. It can always be used to add a wow factor to your desk setup.

Things to Note

The Stream Deck currently only works on a Windows or Mac computer. The Stream Deck community has it running in Linux, but is not officially supported.
The Stream Deck device must always be plugged into the computer to work, there’s no wireless option.
In order to get the auto-switching profiles for specific applications, the Stream Deck software has to be running, but not currently have any windows open. If you have any Stream Deck application windows open, in the background or not, the automatic switching will not work. This is somewhat annoying and hard to determine on macOS as the application does not show up in the application switcher or dock.
The Stream Deck software has to be running for the device to work. If you quit the app, the Stream Deck goes into screensaver mode and does not function.
If you have more than one computer, you have to transfer/re-install your plugins, icons, etc. on each computer. Currently there’s no cloud syncing between devices. Same goes if you have multiple Stream Decks.

Stream Deck GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY — image from Giphy

Fun Tips & Tricks

You can set the icon of any button to an animated GIF
Any button can have a custom icon – you can make your own or download them
You can take a single image and chop it up into a grid and set that as your button icons
The mk.1 and mk.2 Stream Deck are vey similar with the exception of the mk.2 having USB-C (at the Stream Deck end only), longer cable, solid stand, and interchangeable faceplate (not included)
There are currently three sizes of Stream Deck, mini 3×2, regular 5×3, and XL 8×4
The Stream Deck SDK is very friendly and anyone can make their own plugins for free using Javascript, python, html, or c#
Elgato’s software is free and you don’t need a device to play with Stream Deck configurations

Let me know on Twitter if you also have a Stream Deck and the different things you do with it.

This is not sponsored content. Elgato is not affiliated nor has influenced this post.