2020 Carvana Reviews: Sell Your Car & Get Financing

Buying a car isn’t the same as it used to be. In the past, people went to several different dealerships. They had to walk around huge lots of cars in search of the one that was right for them. Then there were price negotiations, financing, paperwork and titles, and more. Understanding how much car you can really afford is also part of that process.

That doesn’t work today. That’s why more people turn to the internet to find their next vehicle. It offers a level of convenience you simply don’t get from the old way of car buying. 

Carvana is one of the biggest names in internet car-buying. That’s why we’ve put together this article. We explain what the website does. We also look at the most important features the site offers. Finally, we look at what some of the best general review sites on the web have to say about Carvana. Use this to help decide where you want to get your next car from.

What is Carvana?
Carvana is a very popular website for buying cars. The company began in 2012. They work to make buying a car an easier experience.

The site offers all of the features you need to buy a car. You can do everything that you’d normally do at a dealership online. That means you can find a car, set up a trade in value, and get financing all at the same place.

The financing offers on Carvana benefit consumers because they allow for pre-qualification. That means car buyers can check eligibility with many different lenders. Moreover, pre-qualification doesn’t cause a hard check on your credit.
Pre-qualification doesn’t mean you’ll for sure get the loan. But being able to check your qualification status and likely terms with many creditors at once saves you time. It also helps point you in the direction of the best deal. Once you know who’s offering the best terms, you can fully apply for the loan.

The financing feature is good, but there are other places you can go to check pre-qualification for car loans. We’ve isolated the main key features of Carvana. You should compare these to other places you’re thinking of shopping for your next vehicle. That will help you find the best deal on a car for you.

Key Features of Carvana
Carvana offers four key features. These features are all designed to eliminate the typical insecurities someone might have when buying a car online. That makes them a strong contender to be one of the better options for online car shopping.

Certified Cars Only
Carvana’s first feature is that they only sell certified cars. Every car has a clean accident report. Also, Carvana performs a 150-point certification process on every vehicle it sells.

This promise should go a long way in reducing the anxiety of online car shopping. Many people worry that they’ll get a bad car if they can’t see it and touch it themselves. That makes sense, buying a car is a big decision. The certification process means that consumers can feel good that their vehicle won’t turn out to be a lemon.

The certification looks at all of the vehicle details. That includes ensuring all of the features function. It looks for imperfections. It also checks for safety recalls. As a result, Carvana does a lot of work to assure you that you can trust their vehicle.

Virtual Tours
The next features Carvana offers is virtual tours. They perform a 360-degree tour of every vehicle they sell. These tours show off the features of the car and let you explore every inch of it. That’s not all though. These tours also show you any flaws and imperfections with the car. This helps you fully understand what you’ll be getting.

Everyone knows that sales persons can take photos in a way that hides flaws. Everyone also knows that something that’s too good to be true probably is. The 360 tour gives you an honest evaluation of your vehicle. No one expects a used car to be perfect. Understanding where the minor scratches and blemishes are lets you understand exactly what you’re getting.

The tours are also a great way to explore each individual car. How a car looks on the outside is important. But you’ll spend far more time inside of it than you will spend looking at it. The total tour of the car means that you can clearly see how all the buttons and instruments are laid out. You can see what the dashboard will look like when you check your speed.

This feature also lets you explore other important aspects of the car. You can get a good understanding of how big the trunk is. The same goes for the back seat. That way you can make sure your car meets your needs.

Delivery or Pickup
Another interesting feature for Carvana is their option for delivery or pickup. The company will bring the car directly to you. You can also pick it up from one of their vehicle vending machines. In fact, Carvana will even cover up to $200 of a plane ticket for you to get to the machine your car is in if you pick it up.

This gives you lots of options when it comes to taking possession of the car. Delivery takes some time. If you need a vehicle right away, you can pick the car up and have it sooner. You can also wait and let the car come to you if you don’t need it right away.

The delivery or pickup options allows buyers to get their car on their schedule. That helps the service be convenient. The fact that Carvana is willing to chip in $200 to get you to your car is also pretty neat. It makes a lot of sense. After all, they’d probably spend more than that to ship it to you, even if you covered part of the shipping costs.

7-Day Test Own
The final Carvana key feature is their 7-day test own. The company offers a 7-day money back guarantee on every car they sell.

If we’re honest with ourselves, the hardest part of buying a car online is that you don’t get a chance to test drive it. Even if you’re buying a car just for utility, you still want to make sure it feels right when you drive it.

The internet can do a lot. But it can’t replicate the feeling of actually driving a specific car. The 7-day test own feature means you can see how the car works in your daily life. Then you can decide if it’s the right car for you.

This policy shows that Carvana understands that buying a car online isn’t 100% stress free. Some people might even argue that this is better than a test drive. On a test drive at a dealership, you’re very limited. You drive around the dealership area and try it out. But that doesn’t tell you how it feels every day when you’re using it.
Also, test drives are usually somewhat rushed. It can feel weird to have the salesperson in the car with out while you try out the car. Some people are also nervous. The 7-day test own lets you get a more accurate feel for the car. That means you can be more confident that it’s up to your wants and needs.

Second Opinion: Carvana Reviews from Others
We want to make sure you have all the info you could want when you’re thinking about new and used cars. After all, it’s a big decision. That’s why we put together summaries of some of the top reviewers on the net. This helps you save time. You’re welcome to check these sites on your own as well. But why spend the time when we’ve got the long and short of what they have to say right here.

Better Business Bureau
Carvana has a BBB rating of A+. They’ve been accredited by the BBB since 2015. That means you can trust that Carvana doesn’t use any deceptive advertising. It also means they stick to the terms of their deals. Finally, they respond to customer complaints in a timely manner. Their responses satisfy the standards of the Better Business Bureau.

The BBB also has customer reviews. Carvana has 13 positive reviews, 2 neutral reviews, and 45 negative reviews. That means 22% of reviews are positive, 3% are neutral, and 75% are negative.

That sounds much worse than it is. Most people don’t bother to go to a site like the BBB to leave positive comments. That means the fact that there are any positive reviews is a good sign for Carvana. Therefore, 22% of reviews being positive speaks strongly for them. Moreover, the composite score for the company, based on those reviews, is a 3.99 out of 5.

Yelp
Yelp is an interesting place to look for Carvana reviews. That’s because the company doesn’t review Carvana as a whole. Instead, there are reviews of individual locations. Therefore, the reviews can vary widely.

Most of the negative reviews of Carvana on Yelp focus on issues at a specific dealership. Very few people report issues with the company as a whole. There are some people that had a problem with their specific car. Most of the problems were minor and caused the reviewer to offer an aggressively low score. This makes the reviews look worse than they are.

There are about the same number of positive comments as there are negative comments. This goes for every aspect of the business. Just as many people said that customer service was great as said they had an issue. The same goes for vehicle condition, satisfaction, etc. This speaks well for Carvana, as people are more likely to take the time to review something negatively than positively.

Trustpilot
Trustpilot is one of the biggest general company review sites on the net. They have hundreds of thousands of users. They also have reviews on all kinds of companies. That makes them an excellent place to get a feel for what people are saying about Carvana.

Trustpilot gives Carvana 3 stars out of 5. This is based on 10 reviews. Of those reviews, 40% are excellent, 10% are average, 20% are poor, and 30% are bad.
The score doesn’t do the reviews justice. It’s only made of an average for the stars given. But it doesn’t take the reviewer’s complaint into account.

For example, one person gave them 1 star because they don’t like the business model and the prices weren’t much cheaper than dealerships. They didn’t buy anything from Carvana. Another person was upset that their credit wasn’t good enough to get financing through the site.

These reviews don’t accurately grade the company’s service. Instead, they give an opinion of the company based on something unrelated to buying a car on the site.
The reviews that are good don’t usually have these problems. They explain what they got and why they liked it. They also discuss aspects of the experience working with Carvana. That means they’re more likely to represent what actual customers think.

Final Thoughts
Carvana offers several unique features that make them a good option for buying a car online includnig a great auto finance calculator. The combination of the certified vehicle program, virtual tours, the flexibility of delivery or pickup, and the 7-day test drive goes a long way toward eliminating the fears people have about buying a car online.

We especially like the fact that they offer all of these features, while still accepting your trade in and helping you find financing. They even come and pick up your trade in. As a result, there’s much less hassle to go through.

Buying from Carvana is also reviewed well by others. They have a good reputation with the Better Business Bureau. Like any company, there are some complaints about them. However, the number of negative reviews to positive reviews is actually a strong endorsement for the company. That’s true for all of the general reviewers we looked at.

We encourage you to check out Carvana. They have a wide range of cars and trucks. They offer everything you’d want at a dealership. And they offer it all from the comfort of your own home.

FAQ

The following are frequently asked questions regarding the online-only used car seller Carvana. It is a relatively new start-up that has been really successful. 

Carvana Basics

Carvana is an online company that has a new business model for selling used customers to its customers, this section will explain the basics of the company.

Carvana Financing

Carvana offers financing for customers that are not able to buy the cars in one payment, there are many questions about this process that will be answered in this section.

Other Questions

This section are questions from a variety of topics such as what is Carvana care, their delivery options and fees, test drive options and trade-ins.