Where to sell Prius Prime for the best price?

Vroom

 

In the past I found CarMax to be fair. Things may have changed. Not a lot of demand here unfortunately.

 

cali should have the highest resale values i would think

 

What is the actual mileage on the car? 5 miles a week would be less than 1000 miles total. I would clean and shine the car, take a few good pictures, and list it on Craigslist at what you owe. That listing is free, and will give you an idea of what the market really is at this time. Be aware, you may attract a few flakes, but that is life nowadays.

 

I'm surprised Carvana offered less than $17K. They paid me $14,890 for my 2014 Plug-In Prius with 28.5K miles on Tuesday, Jan 12. It seemed too good to be true because we ended up paying less than $20K OTD for the car after tax incentives and rebates almost 7 years ago. Vroom and the dealerships offered significantly less.

 

Regardless of what you owe, you need to consider that one can get a brand new 2021 Prime XLE for <$25K + tax - $4502 (federal tax credit) =< $23K. I happened to sell my 4-month old 2020 XLE (<3K miles) for almost $23K to Carvana 3 weeks back (picked up this week). I originally appraised the car in December with Carvana and each time I would reappraise, the offer would be lower. As others suggested, putting it on craigslist or ebay should hopefully net you higher than $17K. I put mine on craigslist locally here but no offers, so sold to Carvana. I should have tried ebay in retrospect. GLWS!

EDIT: Being in a big city like Chicago, craigslist and other online services such as cars.com, cargurus.com, etc., should work well for you.

 

In my area, Carvana gave the best price. It gave me the KBB price for the trade-in. That being said, 16K for 2018 PP Premium is probably about right for trade-in. I just sold the 2020 PP LE, 10 months old ~4kmiles on it for $22.5K to Carvana. Your problem is the 23K owed to the car. That means you paid more than that for the car when you bought it. My OTD price of both 2017 PP Premium and 2020 PP LE were less than $20K after subtracting the full tax credit.

 

Just curious, did you negotiate with Carvana for the KBB price after the initial appraisal? I got only 500 more for the 2020 XLE.

 

How do you negotiate with Carvana? Everything was an online and an instant offer. There was no one to interact with.

 

That's what I thought, but just wanted to double check.

 

Or money owed on the prior car was rolled into the financing on this one. That's a terrible practice auto dealers use to sell cars. Or the financing is way too long and the down payment was way too low.

 

I would look up KBB Private Party value and go for something around the median price. If it was $20k I would price it at $21.5 realizing any private party expects a discount. Then I would take great pictures, write an excellent description explaining the car (not everybody knows what it is) and then be prepared to show it over the next few weeks if necessary. In the Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Ebay ads, be sure to start out with "Private Party Owner". Most of those ads are flippers and dealers regardless of what it looks like.

Obviously you have a payoff that will require you to make up the difference and the big retailers' offers are designed so they can make several thousand when they resell it. In some cases, buying a new car and rolling in your debt may be the only "easy" way out but means you stay upside down forever. As does long duration car loans.

 

My initial Carvana offer was $22,386. I did not save the offer at that time and went back to the site and got a new offer a few days later, and the offer went down to $22,361. Again I did not save the offer at that time. After getting offers from 4 different dealers on a trade-in deal, the best was $22,000 and the worst was $20,000. Then I did an appraisal again at Carvana. To my surprise, this time the offer went up to $22,415. I then saved this offer and scheduled a drop-off. There is no Carvana hub in my state, so I had to drive down to Boston to do the drop-off. The good thing is that Carvana gives a 1000miles allowance from the time of appraisal. If they had pick-up service in my region it would have been even easier, but still, it was the easiest way to sell a car.

 

Have you tried reverse engineering the price? Try calling around for exact same car as a buyer.
Then factor in RISK any buyer is taking by forking out lots of cash for a late model used car that you bought new but are dumping because why?
I only buy used cars if there is a real good reason for them selling, like the owner died or they just had a baby so the sports coup got to go because only one parking space, etc.

PS-last I checked KKB was a scam based on MSRP and not any real value or known sales.
I bought a 1989 Toyota Truck for $5995 and a year later with 20K its KKB value was over $9000 for same features.

 

@srivenkat, do you really have a 2021 Prime? I can't even get local dealers (Pittsburgh, PA) to admit they even EXIST!

 

Similar scenario where I live; got a 2020 XLE from Buffalo last year and a 2021 XLE from Catonsville, MD early this month. I had a great experience with Sam Rhee at Heritage Toyota, Catonsville.

 

I've had weak moments when I've thought of selling my 2020 Prime XLE for another 4Runner or Tacoma. I was able to get an offer for only $23,000 from a dealer. Plus, every time I start thinking of ride quality, driving dynamics, fuel economy, etc., I realize I really like this little car. If only it could tow 5,000 lbs... lol.

 

Can't you rent an SUV for when you need to tow something?

 

i had a friend who used carvana and they said they had a good experience. they gave the best price and they took it immediately.