Taking advantage of the tax rebate to buy a new Clarity every year

I currently have a 2019 Clarity base with about 18K miles
Purchased 4/19 for $18,900 net cost after tax credits and rebates

$21,660 offer to purchase from Vroom

Purchased a 2020 Honda Clarity base this past weekend.
$25,883 - Discounted Price
$368. - Pre-installed dealer add-ons
$29,220 - OTD price with TTL

-$7500 Federal Tax credit
-$800 Utility Rebate
----------
$20,920 net cost

$740 profit after all is said and done

 

Clearly it is of no concern to you, but I have to wonder what price Vroom expects to get for a used car with 18K miles, when a new model can be purchased for the same price or less?

Perhaps they will transport the vehicle to a state where the Honda incentive is not available or look for a buyer who is not eligible for the Fed credit.

 

From what I understand, they will either bring it to Texas (where they are based) and sell it themselves or send it straight to auction.

 

Typically companies like Vroom, Carvana, CarMax mark up the car 15% from the price they paid. They do put some work into reconditioning the car, but on the other hand they also make a significant amount on buyer financing.


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Is this your car?


https://www.vroom.com/inventory/honda-clarity-plug-in-hybrid-2019-JHMZC5F13KC000487

Listed for $24k


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Well hey, there it is. Carrier will pick it up some time next week

 

I wonder what they’d pay for your 2020?

$24,300 seems like a tough sell for a nearly 2 year old car with 18K miles, when a new one can be had for ~$26K.

It has to be a specific buyer in a specific market, and these cars aren’t exactly selling like hot cakes.

 

Carrier picked up today and said he was bringing it straight to the local car auction lot. Vroom listing is still up, but maybe they'll remove once auctioned?

 

Ok, I'll bite - what dealer?

 

Purchased the 2020 from Walnut Creek Honda. But a few others have had better deals elsewhere this past week

 

Well some of you are getting better deals than we are but we're in the middle of purchasing a 2020 Clarity Touring right now. The dealers are accepting low ball offers. In our case, simply trading in our 2018 (purchased Dec 2017) Crimson model for a White model will cost us about $8K but that is a pretty good deal for us and I'm going for it. I could sell the car outright but I just don't want the hassle so I'll eat a bit of loss to make this swap.

We had a series of white cars before the Clarity. We just wanted a change. But the darker color shows dirt much faster than the white. It also shows small scratches. We get to start over with a brand new car with close to zero miles.

 

Did you get a quote from one of the online purchasing services like Carvana or Vroom? Their offers were much higher than the trade-in offer I got from the dealer. You could use it as leverage or just end up selling to one of them. The process is very easy

 

There are likely a number of ways I could have done this deal. I choose the easy way and I know it's going to cost me a bit extra. Nothing new. I paid full price when I bought the first Clarity. We love this car and the PHEV with 47+ miles is perfect for us. So far there is nothing else on the market that compares to the Clarity.

 

The $8,000 includes the $7,500 tax credit and $1,000 rebate from the state of California.

 

I'm pleased with this deal. The first Clarity only cost me $16,000 out of pocket. This one only $8K. Not bad for a new car for me.

 

Have you traded the car in yet? If not, I would also recommend Carvana. They gave me $4,500 more than what a couple dealers would pay for my 2018 Pacifica Hybrid. Once I agreed on their trade in price, I uploaded my title, driver's license, and odometer reading. After less than 24 hours, I was approved and it let me make an appointment to either drop the car off or they pick it up. I chose to let them pick it up. They come and gave me a few documents to sign, get the title and keys, and gave me a check. They took pictures of my car and put the keys in a lockbox on the window. A few hours later a tow truck came to get my car.

Just take a couple of minutes to appraise your car through Carvana and you could save some serious money.

 

Carvana and Shift and Vroom


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You can add also ALGo, or https://autolendersgo.com/ if you are on the East Coast

 

So this is annoying, I have a 2020 base model and curious about the sale value but neither Carvana nor Shift have loaded in the 2020 Clarity PHEV into their websites so I can’t actually get an offer!


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