I’m currently driving a car with 135,000 miles on it, and am finally embracing the idea of getting something else.
I hate hate hate buying cars from dealerships and going though the haggle routine (mainly because I’m not good at it).
I also plan to buy a used car.
So here I’m asking for you experiences specifically with CarMax .
To me (who has never shopped there, just looked at their web site) it seems like a good place to buy a used car. They’ve got no-haggle pricing, a 5-day money back guarentee, a 30-day warranty, and they say they promise to buy my pile of rust with wheels.
What do you all think of CarMax?
Any bad experiences, or did you later think you got a crummy deal?
The horror stories are always fun, so let’s hear them.
I sold my previous car there; didn’t buy one from them. I think that they’re pricey for used cars, but they did me a fair deal as far as selling mine. They are pretty low key and easy to deal with.
Love it, Love it, LOVE IT! Bought my last two cars there. I won’t buy anywhere else. No haggling. We went and test drove the car went home thought about it. Called the bank told them how much it was and they told us to come pick up a check. Then we called Carmax told them we wanted it gave our license number and insurance info and said we would be there in an hour. We got there they had had the car detailed registration stickers done and insurance arranged. We just gave them the check signed a few papers and my wife drove off in her new(to her, 2007 Accura MDX with 8K miles on it) car.
My wife and I have both bought a couple of cars from CarMax and had no problems. I’m a terrible haggler, so the fixed price is very appealing to me—but if you’re good at bargaining you may get a better price elsewhere. They didn’t offer quite as much on trade-in value as my wife was hoping, but it was within reason. We’ve never used them for warranty or other service, so I can’t speak to that.
A friend of mine complained of some run-around in getting a promised owner’s manual for his car after he bought one from them, but he eventually did receive it.
Sold them 2 cars, looked around but never bought from them. I agree with folks who felt their trade-ins were on the low side, and their prices on the high side. But IMO, the range was acceptable in terms of the ease of the transaction.
Wasn’t worth a few hundred more $ to me to have to hassle with advertising and dealing with prospective buyers. Hard to compare their purchase price with dealer trade-in if you are purchasing new, as trade-in is just another aspect of the deal to be negotiated.
My wife works for an auto auction and they buy a lot of cars from them. Most are program cars, rental cars that are turned in after a year. Some are abused some are not. I would make sure it has some factory warranty left on it and would consider buying a service contract. If you consider a service contract check it over carefully as they are not always what they appear to be.
I also had a good experience with them. I hate haggling and every typical car salesman I’ve ever talked with has left me with the feeling of being covered with a thin layer of slime.
I bought my '93 Prelude (in 1995) from their Richmond Carmax store. I also bought the extended warranty (even though I don’t have a crayon stuck in my brain). Lucky for me that I did because several fairly expensive failures happened over the course of the next 5 years and the ESP covered every penny, even the towing.
I wasn’t too shocked by this because I worked for their parent company (Circuit City) for ten years and they were famous for covering almost any sort of repairs with their extended warranties, even those that were clearly caused by abuse or neglect.
My husband and I have bought several cars from CarMax and have been completely satisfied with all of them and the buying experience. Haven’t had any issues with getting loans from USAA on their cars, either; with one, we called from the salesman’s office and got approval on the spot, and with another, we did the paperwork for CarMax’s financing (it was on a Sunday) and called USAA the next day and they bought the loan. I agree with Patty O’Furniture that the extended warranty is well worth it; we had to have about $1000 of repairs done on one car that cost us $75 out of pocket.
We traded in one car and actually got more for it than we expected.
I’m not doubting your word, but this is very difficult to understand. What explanation did they offer for such a huge discrepancy? (I presume the $14K was the trade-in value, and that you weren’t deeming it “excellent condition” when it was falling apart…)
CarMax supposedly uses Kelly Blue Book as their baseline, and IIRC the amount they offered for my wife’s car was slightly less than the listed KBB trade-in value, but certainly not $10K (70+%?)less.
CarMax is good for one thing only. It can help you determine what any given used car is worth. Go to CarMax, find the car you want, subtract about $3000 or more, and that would be most you would want to pay.
CarMax preys on people too timid to negotiate for thier own good. Makes them pay for thier weakness. Also, they have no “salespeople” who know the product and can answer questions. The “No Haggle” scheme makes them unnecessary. All they have to do is take orders, like a counter jockey at a burger joint.
We bought a 5-year-old minivan there. Turned out to be a lemon and IMO should not have been on their lot in the first place. Carfax showed a 62,000 mile discrepancy between the first and second owners.
I looked at CarFax when helping a friend buy a car, and was unimpressed. They refused to allow us to have the car inspected by an independent mechanic, saying that we could bring the car back within 7 days if we didn’t like it. Essentially, they said if we didn’t believe their assurances that the car was mechanically sound, we could purchase it, bring it to a mechanic ourselves, and then bring it back if something turned out be amiss.
Not gonna happen, dipshits.
The prices were also not that great, and the salespeople were not any less sleazy than anywhere else I’ve been.
Had a fine experience with them. They bought my old car for “Fair” Blue Book value which was surprising because the car was definately not in “Reasonable running condition”. It had major engine problems and would randomly die while driving it. Then again, I’m sure they just sold it As-Is at an auction somewhere.
Bought my ‘new’ car from them and got a much better price than I was finding at the other lots. Compared the pricing on-line and was happy with it. Really, I don’t have any complaints.
Was looking for a new 350Z about 2 years ago. My local CarMax is also a Nissan dealer so off I went. My only complaint is that the test drive is always acompanied by the sales dude and he calls the shots (go down here, turn left etc.). I also wasn’t allowed onto the freeway despite the fact that the dealership sits right on an exit to I95.
As stated, this was 2 years ago. YMMV.
We didn’t buy the car. Although the pricing was ‘fair’, I am a car negotiating god and despite getting a much better deal on the 350Z elsewhere, we actually ended up getting a great deal on a new car from a different manufacturer altogether.