[Aditya]

Cars24 has moved the process of buying used cars entirely online. The company is offering home delivery in a branded delivery truck, a warranty of 6 months, and a no-questions-asked 7-day return policy, much like buying any other product online.



The company claims to have built an assortment of over 10,000 cars. Buyers can find the exact model in the exact condition and exact colour they want.

Cars24 owns and fully reconditions used cars at its workshop. It is also investing in technology-based refurbishment centres. In 2021, the brand plans to set up 7 refurbishment facilities across 50 acres of land in top Indian metro cities. Around 20,000 cars will be refurbished at these facilities every month.



Over the past few months, Cars24 has made huge investments in cataloging cars. Buyers can inspect high quality, 360-degree images of the vehicles they would like to purchase. As part of this investment, 20 car studios across 10+ locations in the country are operational, cataloging 400 cars a day.

The company claims to ensure each car that is listed on the platform for sale has passed a 140-point inspection and it does not list any car which does not pass. The company is also providing customised financing options, which is a fully contactless process with video KYC and near real-time processing of loans.

Link to Team-BHP News Article

[CafeRacer16]

Not sure about their assortment of 10000 vehicles, but in Bengaluru nowadays I certainly see very few choices & those too atrociously priced in Cars24 if someone is looking for a sedan, SUV or compact SUV.

[JishD]

Really curious to know how this 7 day return policy works

If you return the car after 7 days , who bears the insurance and registration costs ? Also, will Cars 24 bear the depreciation cost , since it then becomes a 3rd owner car technically ?

[GTO]

Buying used cars in a hassle-free manner has hit off big time in the USA with players like Carmax, Caravan & Vroom. The latter two offer home delivery & are relatively new in the market, while Carmax has been around since the 90s and built a stellar reputation for itself.

All of these companies offer hassle free purchase experiences + curated inventory + returns + extended warranty. In turn, they charge a premium, non-negotiable fixed price. The business model has been a runaway success. It sure has potential in India because a vetted used car with a 10% premium is still significantly cheaper than a new car. Too many people want to buy used cars, but they don't have any knowledge to audit the cars, or time to search and are afraid of being scammed.

[anjan_c2007]

The proprietors M/s Vikram Chopra, Mehul Agrawal, Gajendra Jangid and Ruchit Agarwal must be dreaming big. They sell nearly 150,000 cars a year. They also offer end-to-end transactions that includes transfer of ownership, which is an Achilles heel for the many sellers, as these days many buy and do not transfer vehicles in their names.

There are some Amazon like features offered by them too:-

(1) No questions asked seven days return policy (Amazon representatives sometimes ask questions even for returnable laptops too)

(2) Free home delivery.

(3) "Entirely online" means that buyer does'nt see the car but offers to buy. That's another Amazon like feature.

The six month warranty and also the 120-140 point inspections/ checks are offered by some other organised car selling platforms too.

But prospective buyers must be careful with the fine print in their finance offers, as loans on used cars usually have a higher interest component vis a vis new cars.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by CafeRacer16

Not sure about their assortment of 10000 vehicles, but in Bengaluru nowadays I certainly see very few choices & those too atrociously priced in Cars24 if someone is looking for a sedan, SUV or compact SUV.

It's not just with Cars24; high prices in the used market is going to be the norm until the economy opens up again. It remains a seller's market due to mismatch of demand and supply. I have written about this on the forum before in April 2021 - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ml#post5042460 (The "USED" Car Price Check Thread)

I'm seeing an overall decrease in the numbers and variety of used cars out there at least in Chennai. I've seen the used car supply/demand mismatch occur before in the US in the aftermath of the 2008 financial debacle. People tend to hold on to their cars while not buying newer ones in the aftermath of recessions. It's happening here already in India most probably. Used cars are simply not going to be available, or they will be in short supply, thereby jacking up prices.

It's a seller's market now. If you're mulling over selling a car right now, go for it. Anything will sell and that too at a premium.

It's of course not a buyer's market now. To make matters worse, the pandemic has made a lot of people pursue used cars and so there are probably that many more competitors wooing the same sellers that you would be talking to. You'd best wait for some sort of supply event to take shape before plunging into the used car market; what I mean is, the used market might pick up for buyers perhaps if there's an uptick in new car sales (if the old car recycling initiative actually helps in pushing the sales of new cars), or if there is a sudden alternate source of supply - let's say Zoomcar and Revv go bankrupt and auction off lots of cars....that's hypothetical, but you get my drift!

All in all, I'm seeing ample evidence of the used car market having dried up here in Chennai. I'm a guy that scrolls through used car listings daily for no reason and I've been doing this for the past 3 years - trust me when I say I haven't seen such a dry market until now. So I've advised my brother-in-law to hold off on his used car hunt for a year or more. What's your take on the situation?

Note: The used car market in the US was kept sustained even in its dry phases via the periodic auctioning off of ex-lease vehicles. The leased car market is pretty sizeable over there and a bulk of them would get auctioned off by dealers daily, as and when their 3 year/36,000 mile leased cars became freed of their leases. My very own Nissan Rogue came off such a lease to my trusted dealer's lot, before I picked it up in a dry used car market in November 2013. I wish there were something akin to this in India to keep the used car market ticking!

Originally Posted by GTO

Buying used cars in a hassle-free manner has hit off big time in the USA with players like Carmax, Caravan & Vroom. The latter two offer home delivery & are relatively new in the market, while Carmax has been around since the 90s and built a stellar reputation for itself.

You'd be surprised with the level of corruption in the organized used market even in the US. I became thick buddies with a small used car dealer in the North Eastern US; he opened up and showed me the online auction portal where he and other dealers get to procure stock. As per law, the portal has to declare what physical damage history each car has; my guy showed me examples that were declared to have Grade 1 & Grade 2 structural damages (basically the equivalent of having been totaled - a tree fell on the car, head-on collision etc.). Next, my guy opened his Carfax portal (where he has a dealer's level of unlimited access) and showed those same cars (matched by VINs) having zero damage history. He told us that Carmax would target these damaged cars since there's a clean Carfax report to back it up; they would get the cars dirt cheap in the auction, haul them off to some dark garage, repair them back to mint condition in secret and sell them at high prices to unsuspecting customers on the basis of the "clean" Carfax reports. (For Carfax reports to work flawlessly for the American customers, the dealer and mechanic community has to report vehicle information to Carfax, which many don't, if it suits them.)

In a legalistic society such as the US, with supposed transparency across the board since this is the situation, I wouldn't fully trust any Indian used car business at all. I'd trust but verify with the services of my trusted mechanic. The other services they provide - viz., RC transfer etc is still worth it to buy from an organized player. Besides, my very first car purchase was from TruValue in 2011; they cunningly sold me a car with an accident history and with 3 defective tyres and a defective gear-shaft. I'll never trust any of these players ever again. And since then, because I've availed my mechanic's help in evaluating used cars, no other purchase has gone wrong for me!

OT: Totaled cars with a record on Carfax are mended and shipped off to the African continent apparently. Stolen cars are also shipped off from the New Jersey port...

[jithin23]

It's a great business model and kudos to the founders for treading in a new path. The only downsides user are the RC/Insurance transfer process and inter state registration transfer because the inventory can be from anywhere in India and some places like Delhi and Mumbai, used cars cost less. In Bangalore and Kerala, used cars are priced atrociously high.

Also they need to keep a robust check for clean vehicle record history such as accidents, service records and if the car's odo isn't tampered because tampered ODO and pending loans on the cars are a challenge.

One of my relatives had bought a used car for 5.x L in Bangalore and I had told him to check the vehicle records. I checked the records and it showed that there was a pending loan on the car and he was shocked to know about this. He had to bear the loan cost too on learning this fact. Hope cars24 irons out all these issues, which can in turn change people's perception on used cars.

[PrasannaDhana]

While Cars24 do good inspection of the used cars, evaluate them and specify the condition of individual areas of the vehicle, their portal is royally messed up oflate.

If you search for cars city-wise, you will still end up looking at a list of cars nationwide. A few months back, I could narrow down to even tier II cities and see cars listed from that city. Now it's just not useful at all.

[ninjatalli]

When one looks at a car record on Cars24, the site shows some 140 points checkup report which says “passed” for all of them (haven’t seen any failed parameters yet). Except for tires condition which gives a percentage life value for each tire.

How does one determine a “pass” value for doors and panels? What about scratches or dents that are not visible in pics?

What does one make of engine sound as “pass”? My Vento tdi as it aged started sounding more and more like a tractor, but I could still give it a “pass”.

And last of all, no details of service records. Zero. Zilch. Hoping that’s something that comes up as a next step if one chooses a car and initiates the discussion on that car.


Overall I have purchased and sold a car in the US leveraging a CARMAX report. Which has a lot more details, but I won’t be going this route for sure.

[Surprise]

Originally Posted by PrasannaDhana

While Cars24 do good inspection of the used cars, evaluate them and specify the condition of individual areas of the vehicle, their portal is royally messed up oflate.

If you search for cars city-wise, you will still end up looking at a list of cars nationwide. A few months back, I could narrow down to even tier II cities and see cars listed from that city. Now it's just not useful at all.

Very true. OLX is much better and have lots of entries. I wish they (olx) have the filtering option of Individual/dealers

[JithinR]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

And last of all, no details of service records. Zero. Zilch. Hoping that’s something that comes up as a next step if one chooses a car and initiates the discussion on that car.

When I enquired with them a few times on service records they just get around the question by saying that they have already checked the service records and that we can go ahead and verify it ourselves (This is in Bengaluru..not sure if their other centers are the same).

Contrast that with their competitor Spinny, who seems to have at least some of the service records (in one case they had the service records of Honda Brio AT that was interested in for the past 9 years) and do share them with us promptly.

But one thing I have noticed is that, all these guys expect us to just fall for their '[Insert some random number] checkpoint' list thing and be at ease with that.

One you start digging into the car condition/history you see mileage records that don't tally up (Diesel car which came in for 60k service in 2018 being listed as 55k run in 2021) or stuff in the car that just doesn't work(window winder motor failure..not sure how that got past their checklist).

At the end of the day they feel more like our usual car dealers with spruced-up websites (that just maybe don't sell accidental cars but only if they can catch that during their review process).

[shivmarwaha]

My experience with car24 was bad. Their employees try to make extra moolah by calling you from other numbers and trying to strike a deal at a lower price. Even the amount is not consistent. They fluctuated the value of my car from 2.8 to 3.2 lakhs. And different people call at different times and you don’t know who is the real one. Finally sold my car to spinny. Very professional and everything done in 24 hours.

[VJ05]

The most important aspect of car buying whether pre-owned or new is TEST DRIVE and I don't think they are offering it. For people who are not much car literate and zeroed down on a particular make/model, it may prove to be a good service, just click and buy. However, for people like us who can't buy a car without test driving, this service will be of not much use.

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by JishD

Really curious to know how this 7 day return policy works

If you return the car after 7 days , who bears the insurance and registration costs ? Also, will Cars 24 bear the depreciation cost , since it then becomes a 3rd owner car technically ?

Adding to this, what if the car has unfortunately met with an accident or broken down during the 7 day return period. If the car is in the garage for more than the specified return period, what will be the next course of action. These things do have legal recurpssions and this can be a problem for both Cars24 and the potential buyer. Our government machinery is sadly very rigid with its own ways of functioning and making a simple solution seem very complicated despite the digital era. Let's hope that Cars24 brings a new dimension to these dinosaur type conventions.

[TrackDay]

I know a lot of people who are interested in saving money by going the used car routine but don't have the time or energy to deal with such things. The only option for them so far was the True Value option from Maruti, but then that is restricted mainly to cars from their brand. This will be a welcome move for such folks who are looking outside the Maruti stable.

The used car business is a tricky one anywhere in the world. The fear of the unknown and horror stories that are often circulated rarely does any good for this type of business. The best way to go ahead would be refurbished cars with a genuine business model. The used car market is still largely unorganized in our country and needs to go to the next level. Hoping this is the beginning of such a move