I recently bought a car on driveway.com, my first car loan ever. Didn’t really know how APR financing costs worked so I asked the saleswoman when she gave me the proposal, ’is this the final cost, will any other costs pop up later?’ She said no. Later on in the paper work an additional $8k+ popped up. She outright lied to me. Then, they raised the interest rate from the one that was given to me on the proposal along with the monthly payments also.
If you want to hear about the actual car buying process itself, read on:
The way they communicate the entire delivery process and the process of getting you your tags/title is terrible. Texts/calls/emails from multiple people who aren’t on the same page about anything, and half of it is just outright lies to get you to move forward and send money.
When it finally came time for my delivery, I got a one line email from someone on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving saying “they want to deliver on Friday”. I said ‘OK? They want to? Are they?’ I never heard back. I got a call on Friday while at work from a delivery driver telling me he is on his way and will be at my address in 3 hours.
The guy calls me roughly 3 hours later telling me he’s lost on my road, so I happily agree to walk out there and direct him into my driveway. While I’m walking out I’m on the phone with him and he has his truck parked on the side of my road directly next to my driveway(I live in middle of nowhere with no other driveways near mine for a mile on either side). I clearly get his gist that he just doesn’t want to back his trailer into my driveway or pull in. That’s fine though, whatever
I’m standing near the trailer as he gets his ramps out(tire wide ramps) and he begins talking about how bad electric cars are(I bought a Tesla) and is just a totally unpleasant guy to be around. He puts the ramps on the trailer and gestures to me to pull it off myself. I’ve never reversed a $60k car or ANY car off of a flatbed trailer IN MY LIFE, but I see no other option, I don’t trust him to go anywhere near the car at this point.
As I’m backing the car off, he’s watching me and I see him wince as the front bumper is moving over the ramps. I ask if anything scraped and he wouldn’t say anything. So I wasn’t sure at this point.
I couldn’t really tell if there was damage under the bumper or ANYWHERE on the entire front half of the car because it was COVERED in mud. Big old globs of mud had been tossed into the front of the car from this guys truck as there was zero barrier between his truck’s tires and the trailer/car.
He hands me some papers to sign and asked me to write ‘no damage’ by the signature. Then he says I need to sign on his phone, but he couldn’t get the app open. So he says ’to he with it’, says the paper work is good enough for him. I said ‘as long as it will all work out’. He says “I don’t know if it will, all I care about is the paperwork” and then he left.
I checked the bottom of the front bumper once I got the car home and sure enough, under all the mud there’s a big chunk of paint missing from the car scraping the trailer ramp. It was at this moment I realized the delivery driver knew 100% his trailer wasn’t suited for this car. This goes to show the level of organization and care Driveway.com has when it comes to fundamental aspects of their business.
My 7 day ‘trial period’ has officially begun, and, I can’t even drive the car because I have no temp tags and I have gotten zero communication telling me when I can expect the temp tags. I have talked to other Driveway customers who never even received the temp tags, so I’m really hoping this isn’t going to happen to me.
Even if/when I get the temp tags, it’s likely I’ll have to park the car and leave it sitting in my driveway once they expire because Driveway is telling me it will take 3 months to get the title/tags.
Do yourself a favor, avoid Driveway.com and Driveway Finance Corporation at all costs.