Buying a Used Car on Clutch.CA

March 2025 Update

REFERRAL UPDATE: My referral link is active again as of March 11, 2025

https://www.clutch.ca/?referral=A6SOR8LK

October 2024 UPDATE

REFERRAL UPDATE: Clutch's referral program has changed to the following (received via email in June 2024)

The following changes will take effect July 2, 2024:

• Customers who are referred will receive $200 off their first car purchase or have $200 added to their first car sale

• Past customers who refer friends or family will receive $100 once the transaction is completed

• Referral codes can be used up to 5 times within a 12-month period, starting from the date the code is issued

Apologies to those who have tried my code and it did not work. They have restricted the referral policy which is such a shame. It appears to affect when the link is available and there is no clarity from their team on it.

RETURN POLICY UPDATE: Additionally, it appears Clutch has also changed their return policy. Interested buyers need to pay extra for the ability to return a car. How unfortunate of their company to make this decision. It's positioned as Basic Package (no return) or other packages (ability to return). Simply put, you need to pay more money if you want the flexibility to return a car you bought online.

Here's a breakdown of the cost impact for a similar vehicle listed on their website. It will be $3,740 more than the listed priced to get the service we received back in 2023. It's a bit of false advertising IMO but they do say "Starting at" for their listed price. Don't love the practice but can see the business rationale.

CAR UPDATE: Our Subaru Forester is still running like a champ. The leather in the driver's seat did start to come apart at the seams and when we looked at the Clutch photos, we noticed there was a slight water stain that we had not noticed before. It's cosmetic so not a big deal. Otherwise, no complaints.

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Original Blog below

My experience buying a car on Clutch.ca was such a breeze that I had doubts they were a legitimate business. It felt too good to be true.​

The Clutch.ca listing page

After spending around a year looking for new and used car inventory, my partner sent me a link to check out a car on Clutch.ca. Unfortunately, the car that he linked was already reserved. At this point, I did not know what "reserved" meant on this website. I decided to browse their inventory and stumbled across a 2017 Subaru Forester that I thought was a good deal given the crazy used car market we're currently in.

It only cost $100 to put down a fully refundable deposit to "hold" the car while we reviewed the car information in depth. Clutch provided over 40 photos of the vehicle, including 360 shots that allowed us to explore both the interior and exterior of the car. They also shared close up photos of any blemishes, dings, dents on the vehicle. Of course, they also provided a CarFax report for the car which gave us much of the most important information we needed and this was all readily available on the car listing.

Once again, it sounded too good to be true - how can I buy a car online, sight unseen, and be comfortable with such a large purchase? This isn't just a Amazon Prime purchase that I can easily return, right? Well, let me breakdown the main reasons we went ahead with our purchase and what happened throughout the process. I stumbled across reviews on Reddit but couldn't find a proper blog post reviewing Clutch.ca.

$200 Delivery

The car listing offered $200 flat rate delivery to London, Ontario or alternatively, we could have picked up the vehicle from their location in Etobicoke, just outside of downtown Toronto. There was no way I wanted to make the drive myself from London to Toronto to check out a potential car and then drive 2 cars back to London all in the same day. Thus, the delivery felt almost like a steal.

Our car arrived on a small flatbed truck conveniently delivered to our driveway.

10 Day No Questions Asked Return Period

As of today, we're past the 10 day return window. But Clutch offers a 10-Day Money-Back Guarantee which meant that we could return or exchange the car without question in the first 10 days or first 750km driven - whichever comes first. This gave me peace of mind when initiating the purchase.

Minimal Financial Losses In event of Return

Of course, there are some financial losses if we decided to return the car. I've listed them out below:

• Licensing (non taxable) - $59
• OMVIC - $10 + tax 
• Delivery fee - $200 + tax
• Local mechanic car inspection - $105 + tax (highly recommend getting any used car inspected before completing the purchase)

The roughly $400 loss was worth it to me since it is such a small % of the overall car purchase. I did not mind losing that amount, especially to avoid the drive from London to Toronto and back!

This loss was also somewhat negated by a referral discount of $400 - more on that down below.

Extensive photos

Clutch.ca provides a ton of detailed and high quality images for each vehicle, highlighting everything including dings, dents, and scratches that may not be obvious from afar. This continued to provide peace of mind with a clean CarFax report in hand.

Superb Customer Service

Upon registering an account to delivery, everyone I dealt with at Clutch was extremely friendly and to the point. There was NOOOOO upselling or negotiating which is incredible for a car purchase. I am weary of car dealerships and their negotiation tactics so I was very happy to see a fair price (in this shoddy market) and get it. I had one call from a representative who encouraged purchasing an extended warranty (which we did not) but it was never pushy. Plus, much of the communication was conducted via email, text, and phone. I only had 2 phone calls - one immediate follow up after I reserved my car and another to schedule the delivery. As an introvert, this is very much ideal and honestly, quite efficient.

Other bonuses include a sparkling clean car upon arrival. I kid you not, they did a great job detailing the vehicle.

Clutch.Ca $400 Referral Code / Referral Discount

I received a $400 discount which effectively negated any of my potential financial losses mentioned above. I'd love to pass that along to anyone considering buying a car from Clutch.ca

Use this link here - https://clutch.ca?referral=A6SOR8LK

Or you can call Clutch.ca to apply the referral code A6SOR8LK to save $400 off your next car purchase or sale.

(Clutch may ask for the name and email associated with the code: Kimberly Te and [email protected])

So far, we're pretty happy with our purchase. Will update if there are any issues.

End to End process

1. Find the car you want
2. Click "Start purchase" and put a $100 deposit
3. Provide your delivery or pickup details - We had to call the next day to arrange delivery because the website only offered pickup when checking out
4. Send them photos of your driver's license(s)
5. Get car insurance
6. Get a bank draft or certified cheque if you are paying in cash and not financing - We did not finance so I don't know what that is like here
7. Sign the bill of sale
8. Car is delivered and you can take it for a test drive - We test drove the car for about 40 minutes in our neighborhood while the delivery guy hung out in our driveway/in his truck
9. Decide whether you return the car or keep it
10. That's it!!