Selling minivan — timing question

[Anonymous]

We’ve decided to sell our old Honda Odyssey, and purchase a new one. Have a quote from Carmax already, which is good and one we’d like to accept. In this situation, should we sell to Carmax and then buy the new one? The alternative is to buy the new one, and then sell the old one (which guarantees no lapse in having the vehicle), but I feel it may be easier to transfer old license plates to new car, etc. if we’ve already sold the old car. Thoughts? I’ve never actually sold or traded in a car before.

[Anonymous]

I would go to the dealer with your CarMax quote and ask them to match. How old is the van? Are we talking about couple thousand dollars? I don’t think you would be able to transfer plates if you sell it to one dealer and then buy from another. On the other hand, why even bother? The dealer can get new plates for you. You are not saving much on transferring

[Anonymous]

Have you received a quote from the dealer where you intend to buy your new car? Often, the dealer will give more for the trade in than the Carmax offer.

[Anonymous]

Why would you want to transfer plate? I could see all kinds of downsides but no upsides even if it’s possible (which I don’t think you can).

[Anonymous]

You can transfer plates at least when trading in a car with Virginia plates to a Virginia dealer. The upside is that you skip the temporary plates and also save plates/registration fees

[Anonymous]

Thank you! This is helpful. I spoke with a couple dealers today. It turns out they will honor the Carmax quote as a trade in, so we’ll likely do it that way. Would love to keep our old plates if possible. (Currently have various online quotes from Carmax and Carvana for about $12-14K for the old van.)