Even Used EVs Are Cheaper At Costco. Here’s How To Get A Deal

• Costco has a long history of offering national discounts to new vehicle shoppers. 
• Yet if you want a used vehicle, those deals varied based on pre-negotiated rates with individual dealers.
• Now, though, Costco and Volvo are breaking the mold with a nation-wide discount on certain certified pre-owned vehicles, including the Volvo EX30 and EX90 EVs.

If you’re a Costco member, you’ve probably heard of the Costco Auto Program. For those who aren’t, it’s a service where Costco offers pre-negotiated discounts on vehicles for its members.

And while the best manufacturer-backed deals are typically only available on new cars, Costco and Volvo are tweaking the formula. They’re now rolling out a nation-wide discount on select certified pre-owned Volvo models, including both the electric EX30 and EX90 crossovers.

Costco says executive members get up to $1,250 off a qualifying car (standard members get $1,000 off). That’s not anything insane, as with Volvo EV sales struggling, you can certainly find deals. But the reason it’s so valuable is that it stacks with any other deals you can negotiate. So when I got my Blazer EV using a $1,000 discount from the Auto Program, that came from a separate tranche of money than the dealer and manufacturer discounts I secured independently.  

The Volvo EX90 is a beautiful and compelling EV, but it’s been plagued with quality and software issues.

Photo by: Volvo

That’s why this being a national deal matters. When Costco negotiates deals with separate dealers, that’s money that is coming off the dealer’s bottom line. Any further discounts may become harder to negotiate. But since this is a Volvo-backed program, you can take advantage of the best strategy: Drive your hardest, fullest bargain with the dealer on price, and then tell them you are a Costco member who would like to apply a $1,000 or $1,250 discount. That should land you in a far better position than you’d be in without a club card.

Frankly, it may just be the best way to get an EX30 or EX90, full-stop. Both cars have seen an absurd number of software issues, and I wrote in my first drive of the EX90 that the product remained unfinished. Over a year later, we’re still hearing those reports. Yet the car itself is lovely to drive, great to look at and extremely practical. A certified pre-owned model, therefore, may be the sweet spot. 

When Volvo announced the EX30, it said the electric crossover would start at around $35,000 in the U.S.

Tariffs torpedo’d that price point, but you can find used EX30s with under 2,000 miles for under $40,000. Add in the Costco discount and you get pretty close.

Photo by: Patrick George

EX30s and EX90s are both depreciating quickly, so you can find almost-new examples for far, far less than MSRP. You can already find Volvo Certified EX90s for around $68,000 with under 5,000 miles. That’s $13,000 less than a base model EX90 costs new, even before you add the Costco discounts and anything else you can negotiate.

That’s a solid deal when you consider that Certified Volvos get an extra 12 months and 12,000 miles of bumper-to-bumper warranty coverage, atop the standard 5-year/60,000-mile warranty Volvo includes. The battery gets its own 8-year/100,000-mile warranty. 

If that’s not enough peace of mind, you can use some of the savings to extend your bumper-to-bumper coverage even further. Volvo says you can get up to five years of additional comprehensive warranty coverage. Play your cards right and you could get a barely used EX90 with over nine years of bumper-to-bumper warranty coverage for $15,000 less than its sticker price. 

To put that in terms Costco fans will understand: That’s enough to buy 10,000 all-beef hot dog combos. Hot dog indeed.

Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.