So you think you want to buy a used electric vehicle? There are many reasons as to why you would want to do this. The old car died, want to do your part for the environment, dont want to wait a year for a new EV, dont want to pay the current added fees to a new EV and more.
I have bought four used EVs since October 2021 which breaks most of the current rules and prevailing wisdom of today. According to common wisdom, prices are too high. You can’t find good used cars. EVs are bad to buy used and so on. Since 2021, I have bought a Pacifica Hybrid, two Tesla Model 3s, a BMW i3 and a GM Bolt. And one new Model Y but that doesn’t apply here.
My journey to having four EVs in the household was unexpected. We had an OK 2015 Chrysler mini van along with a 2016 Audi A3 and that was all we needed. And both were paid for so why the heck did I buy used EVs?
The drive to EVs started with the spectacular transmission failure of our 2015 mini van. It involved a 100-mile tow back home and a four-month wrangling session with the extended warranty company. Add in the dealer Service writer changing 3 times in four months and it was an “interesting” time. They kept testing and there was foot dragging from the warranty company. Not having our van got very old despite renting a few times from Turo.
After 90 days of no van, my wife and I had been discussing replacements. We decided we wanted to dip our toes into the whole EV thing with a hybrid. A “Hybrid” in this sense is a plug in hybrid. Not all Hybrids are created equal. Many cars call themselves hybrids. I would call them a half ass attempt. This was the case back in 2017 and it’s still true today. They were built to use the word “Hybrid” and meet a compliance goal. They were primarily powered by gas and only used batteries to get the car rolling off the light. I wanted a real hybrid and the Pacifica fit the bill. It had 30 miles of real range and modified gas engine. The wya it worked was the vna would default to electric motor first and until it was out of battery. The it rolls to the gas engine.
My original intent was to lease a new one. However, in Oct 2021, ANY new car was scarce due to the Covid lock down and supply chain issues. It was virtually impossible to get a new one. Then when they had them, the dealers were tacking on 10K or more to the MSRP. I found a very clean used 2017 van at Carmax. It had just been turned into Carmax an hour before I was there poking around.
Which brings us to my first point. Do your homework ahead of time. Make sure you can move fast. Have cash ready or a pre-approved loan. When this van appeared in the CarMax computer, my salesperson called me. I was on the way home from looking at the existing stock of hybrids which had been two beat up vans. We agreed while on the freeway driving home to have the van shipped from Palm Springs to Orange County at no cost to us. We would inspect it the night it arrived. Which brings to a key point, the wisdom and it’s good, never inspect a car at night. The night hides many issues and you always want to see the car in the bright daylight. In this case, the hold was free for 3 days so we had a time line. And my night inspection was for major issues, not piddling issues like paint scratches and the like. This is one key advantage of using Carmax vs normal dealers or no-name dealers. Free shipping to us and 3 days for us to inspect at no cost.
The van arrived at Carmax, we inspected it, said we would take it and pulled out our pre-approved loan. Easy right? Almost 🙂
Second point. This is where having some cash and approved loan AND a good credit rating can really pay off. Carmax wanted the sale.. right then and they want to get the financing business too. This is where they make their money, financing, not the actual sale. I was able to work a deal with them to knock 1.5 points off my pre-approved loan rate to finance through them. that 1.5 points translated into something like 5K I didnt need to put down in cash to keep the same payment. Win/Win. Since everything was in house at that point, it was a fast deal of about 2 hours start to finish.
Third point and I should make it #2. Inspect EVERYTHING. Companies like CarMax and Carvana do not mind if you look at every single thing. In fact, they encourage it in a few ways. One is plenty of time to test drive and poke around. Another is a generous return policy of 7 days without questions assuming you are not abusing it. Most conventional dealers are not that willing to let you examine the used car thoroughly. They are even less willing to let you return it once you drive off the lot. Keep in mind, if you are selling a car to Carmax, for example, you cannot be present during their inspection. You must stay away from the car.
EVs require you to do some homework before you get there. You need to learn how to pull up any details on the car’s high voltage battery. You want to ensure it has most of the stated capacity. You can deduce this from any range shown. Alternatively, pull up information on the car from the console. Some cars like my BMW i3 had a “hidden” menu. This menu provided very geeky details about the condition of the battery.
Check your tires! EVs tend to be on the heavy side. They also have extreme torque on take off and regen braking. If you don’t take care of the tires, they wear out faster than normal. Some cars, like the Tesla Model 3, need a high load rated tire. This is partly because the car weighs 4,500 lbs or more. Its also due in part to a aggressive alignment. If you don’t see good tires, or see the wrong tires, plan on spending at least 1,000 dollars for replacements. Use that as a leverage point. Carmax put four new tires on my van. It was worth over a thousand dollars if I had to do it. The van had only 36K miles on it. It looked to have been well cared for when I examined it. The CarFax report also confirmed its good condition.
Fourth item. Get a carfax when you are serious about the car. You will see how many owners, how many miles driven under each owner and often times, dealer repair records. In the case of the van, we were able to see recalls done, things like oil changes ( its a hybrid) and a few other things.
NOTE: Carfax is of very little use with Tesla other than verifying number of owners and any transfers of ownership. Virtually nothing else shows up.
When I bought our BMW i3 from Carvana which is a Carmax competitor, it was a bit different. I literally bought the car using my phone while waiting in the parking lot for my kids at school. I used Carvana pictures and CarFax to make my decision. I also used a copy of the original window sticker. This helped me decipher what the car really was and what features were really there. Do NOT trust the dealers to know any of this. Do your own homework. One thing that few of the dealers show is the HV battery health. Most are clueless even how to get that info. In Carvana’s case, there is a 7 day grace period. You can take the car and then give it back. This is done “no questions asked’. I didnt have to do that, so I dont know how well that part works. What I did was drive, charge, and scan the car. I used a good scanner ( Foxwell 510 Elite ODBCII). I was able to check and clear all error codes for a clean start when I started to drive it. I was also able to pull out what the battery says it is vs the dash at 100%.. In my case, the battery is at 73% capacity when car thinks it’s fully charged. Its low but within BMW spec. A special note.. In CA and a few other states, EV batteries are warrantied for 10 years or 150,000 miles. This is regardless of what the factory states. BMW is 8 years but the CA state law takes over and adds two more years to the i3.
Traditional Dealer Woes
I bought my 2019 Model 3 from a local dealer. I wanted a very specific configuration for the Tesla and it was very hard to find at a “reasonable” price. I almost got into trouble because I did not do my homework well enough when I bought the Tesla.. more on that shortly.
I found the car on the internet at a local dealership with “special internet pricing”. yeah. sure.. whatever. It was reasonable and was what i thought was the config I wanted. I got a pre-qualified loan app done.. pinged the dealer and then fun began. It started with the dealer wanting to deliver the car to my house that day. I pushed back and said i wanted to see/drive the car first. 15 mins of back and forth and we set up a time that afternoon. The dealer really didnt want that, they wanted to delivery it with paperwork done over the phone. That was first red flag.
Now I arrive at the dealership and the car is outside and looking good. This is a high end dealer and they deal in high cars. So appearance matters to them and it showed with how the car was prepped. But, things fell apart with the saleman. What I got was a young kid who had been there a few weeks because he knew the most about Teslas which as it turns out, wasn’t very much. This is where my own lack of specific knowledge on Tesla bit me. The car was supposed to be a “long range” Tesla. Supposedly. I drove it which was good, the car itself look really good. Nothing gave away any hint of repainting, damage, accidents etc. We went in to talk money. They started with the wrong price.. I told them as much and produced a printed copy of the internet ad. Their faces fell on that. Then it was “lets evaluate the trade in”.. they came back and tried to low ball me by 3K.. I produced my CarMax buy offer. They balked about it. I took my keys back and got half way to the door before the manager came running and matched the trade in.. Then it was 2,500 extra for “paint protection” which they do to every car and I didnt ask for.. 30 mins later we got to about 1K for that crap.. ::sigh::. this turned into a 5 hour visit. And it only gets better.
We took the car home. The next day I had the manual in hand. I went through all the different menu settings and more. I saw where I could pull up details for the car.. and this I should have done at the dealer but didn’t know how.. Guess what.. my long range car is really a Standard range plus.. Wrote a letter to the dealer.. short conversation with the owner and a check was written that day so I would go away. If I had checked that at the dealer, a lot of heartache and stress could have been avoided. Additionally, a few weeks later I noticed a crack in the overhead glass roof that I didnt see when I bought it. It only was seen with an extremely low angle of the sun hitting it just right. If I had seen that at the dealer, I could have pushed to had it fixed on their dime, not mine.
After all was said and done, the comparisons between CarMax, Carvana and the dealership could not be more blatant. My desire to use a “dealer” for any more cars is zero.. Buying a car from a dealer should be a last resort. This is what I suggest in today’s world. And I promptly broke that promise about 3 years later.
The take away? Know what you are buying . Dont trust the dealer to know anything at all about EVs because most do not know a thing about EVs. Be prepared to do some work on your own during the grace period. This effort will get you detailed data about the health of your potential car. Run the VIN and verify what the dealer says the car is, is in fact the truth. My Tesla VIN came up with possibly 3 different matches. I had to go into the car’s menus to get the information. Have cash and loan ready to go right then. Be flexible as to the loan. Sometimes you can get a better deal overall by using their loans. Then you can refinance it next month for a better rate. Get two keys!!! replacement keys today are expensive except for the Tesla. Compared 300 USD for the BMW i3 vs 25USD for the Tesla. Or for Tesla, just use your phone.
My third EV was a used Tesla Model 3 bought from Tesla directly. This one of their lease returns that they turn around. It was not the absolute cheapest M3. However, it did come with new tires and new wheels. It had an almost new interior and just a few minor marks on the outside paint. And it had an one year extended warranty. And the best part, I bought and paid for it entirely online. I showed up at the Tesla service center, signed a few papers and walked out 15 minutes later all completed. I walked over to the car. My Tesla app had already been set up remotely for the car. All I had to do was accept it.
My final used EV was just over a year ago when I bought a 2021 Chevy Bolt. Again, I was able to find it and pretty much set everything up online with a local Chevy dealership. Yes, the nasty dealers got me back inside again. But, GM has a special program called Car Bravo” which mimics much of the Tesla experience for select used cars. I was able to do most of the dealing online via email. I did a test drive, unlike the Model 3. We had some minor paperwork to do at the dealer. It was not anything like the dealer where I bought my first Model 3 and I would recommend this dealership to a friend.
Today: After four used EVs, I broke down and bought a brand new Tesla Model Y about two years ago. Again, the Tesla model for selling cars made it absolutely painless and 99% was completed online. I sold my Model 3 to Carmax and picked up the Model Y for .99% on a seven year loan. I could not afford to pass up that deal. Buying a new or used EV online can be very successful. You must do your homework as you would for any used car. The biggest thing is there are far fewer parts on an EV to wear out. This is unlike an ICE car with a gas motor, transmission, and fun stuff like smog equipment.
I would not hesitate to buy a used EV today at all. I would look for a low mileage EV because high miles means things like shocks may need to be replaced. Its rare for brakes to be replaced on an EV because of the reg braking or “one pedal” braking. But you want to look to be sure. You want to make sure the car doesn’t have corrosion issues if it’s been in a high salt environment. And you definitely want the battery state checked out. But there isnt that much to go wrong with the EV.
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