How does Carmax work?

[ballmode]

Anybody have experience in this?

I went to a huge lot over in the DC area and found all the cars blocked off to drive around. It seemed like you had to go into the dealership then out the back. Seems like a ploy to get you to talk to a car salesman.

Lots of people around here took their cars to get them serviced there as well.

Has anyone sold their car there before?

 

[Pariah]

Been to the local Carmax here a few times. Got a vehicle appraised that I was going to trade in somewhere else. One of the sales guys let me take the car I was looking to buy for a test drive while it was being appraised even though he knew I wasn't going to buy there. Also have a friend who bought a truck there. No complaints. The sales people at Best Buy here are far more annoying than at Carmax. You can walk right through the building most times to the lot without being bothered at all.

 

[MrA79]

I don't think I'd ever sell them a car, but if you aren't good at\interested in haggling on price they aren't bad. Nice thing is you can have stuff transported from any of their sites, so you can get pretty much exactly what you want if you're willing to pay transit.

 

[hans007]

i sold my car to them 3 weeks ago.

didnt want to deal with having to list my car on craigslist and have people "interested" , then do test drives, etc then try to haggle me down while having to own 2 cars. the carmax price honestly was fairly competitive with what i saw on craigslist minus the usual haggling. maybe i could have gotten another $1000 on craigslist maybe not. but i had sold a car on craigslist before (a much less expensive one , and it was already kind of shady the way it went)

That and my car (2010 Audi A4) was pretty expensive and had some minor reliability issues so well let carmax deal with it and not have some guy come after me when some minor issue comes up who has my phone number etc.

anyway, you go to carmax, they look at yoru car and give you a quote. you get to keep that for 7 days (and they dont seem to care if you put some miles on it in that 7 days, at least they didnt care that i drove from LA to vegas in my car and put an extra 750 miles or so on it, i even asked them this when they gave me the quote).

so 7 days later, i was able to get the car i was buying and just had the dealer of the new car pick me up after i dropped off my old car at carmax. you can drop off your car at any carmax once you have a quote.

it was actually really easy, they gave me a check after verifying i had the quote etc. the dealer i was buying a new car for , said on blackbook or whatever they use for auctions that they could only give me $1500 less than carmax (19.5 vs 21 in this car) and that even they sell their own personal cars to carmax.... so yeah i dont know seemed like an ok way to sell a car to me.

i ended up basically getting "good kbb trade in" vs "fair" which is what the dealer would have given me (i'd say realistically my car was "good" not "very good" but definitely better than "fair"). based on values in the area for my car, i really dont think the private party value is all that accurate, but who knows.

 

[boomhower]

I sold a car to them a couple years ago. Very pleasant experience and the price was very competitive. I was actually shocked how high it was and don't think I could have done a lot better private party.

 

[T2urtle]

Carmax at my local place. Their lot is blocked off. You can walk-in right past all of them into the lot to view yourself. Prices are set in stone. If your ready to check one out. Talk to a salesman( most likely they will attack you ). Find a salesman you want to deal with, young guy, hot chick, older guy, they are all there.

They told me anything aftermarket will count as " damaged" parts. Like lowering springs, diffrent wheels, intake or radio. They want close to stock as possible. They offered my $5k for my 05 g35x with 56k at the time when KBB was around $12k and they had one on the lot for $14k. Its just how they work and i understand. Its for some people but not for most.

Some want a NO HASSLE, one price, decent car. I think carmax gives them that. I'm sure they have lemons as well but they seem solid for a chain that big. I just think they overprice everything.