Selling RDX Buying CPO MDX Type S on Driveway.com
 

I sold my FWD TECH RDX 2020 with ~40k miles at retail price through Driveway.com around 5 weeks ago. It was crazy because they bought my car for $26100 (I noticed dealerships near me were selling similar RDXs for around $26k). Carmax offered $24600 and Carvana $23800.

My buying experience was simply sorting the car from lowest to highest price for a CPO MDX Type S and excluding dealerships with less than 4 stars on yelp or Google. At the end, I bought a 2022 MDX Type S from Tustin Acura due to their positive reviews.

In contrast, my local Acura dealer offered me $23,000 for my RDX and only had 1 2024 CPO MDX Type S available at a higher price with low mileage. The price difference with trade-in and higher cost MDX Type S was at least $14k. So the value proposition for Driveway.com won out significantly since a higher mileage CPO Acura with good Carfax doesn't scare me.

However, the experience wasn't perfect. Car was shipped without plates/tags and floor mats (all CPO Acuras has to come with floor mats). Contacting Driveway.com was totally useless. The call center reps are a mixture of people from Texas and Oregon. Each of the reps do not know the local regulations or proper channel to escalate concerns. Luckily, I found Tustin Acura sales manager info online, JeffreyOstergaard@dchusa.com and contacted him directly. I got my plates/tags overnight shipped and the floormats a week later due to Jeffrey.

The only recommendation I have is if you do Driveway.com, they will try to push their in-house finance company at 3-4% interest rates higher than a local credit union. If you bargain, they will cut it down to near competitive rates (0.5%-1% higher than your local credit union).

Overall, would I recommend Driveway.com for an Acura trade-in or purchase? Kind of, only if the dealer you are buying from is reliable. Because, Driveway.com is a loose confederation of Lithia dealerships and isn't centralized like Carmax or Carvana. There are car dealers with bad and good Google/yelp reviews on Driveway.com.... It worked out for me, because I bought from a reputable dealership. However, I can imagine the experience becoming scary if I chose a dealership with a sales manger that wasn't willing to respond to my e-mails or phone calls.

It took me a while to write this review because I wanted to make sure the car ran smooth. It's immaculate, and I probably would reuse Driveway.com in the future despite some of the flaws.