CarMax - Pros / Cons

quote:

---

but you aren't really going to get a good deal from them

---

You will not get a good deal.

quote:

---

Do they offer a warranty?

---

Yes. Search Doug DeMuro Carmax Warranty.

quote:

---

How do they price their vehicles?

---

High

They only buy the best lease program cars!

I've never bought from them, but when I was last looking at buying their prices seemed pretty much in line with all the other dealers in town. I think the draw for them is their buying process isn't long and drawn out, nor do their sales folks pressure you. I think they're sales folks don't work on straight commission but rather their commission/bonus is based on total unit sales. But I'm not certain on that.

I like going there in my initial research to test drive cars I'm interested in. They basically give you the keys and let you take it without someone in the car with you.

quote:

---

somewhat limited selection

---

Not at all, they will ship cars from other sites for free if it is reasonably close. That's why I used them. I had a specific car in mind, none in the area, and they had one 200 miles away that they shipped for free. It looked good so I bought it.

They are definitely not the lowest price, but it's not terrible either.

Prices are inline with the car's blue book value. The service department sucks really bad and do not have a clue what they are doing.

Purchased from them twice and had no issues with the sales process. But the 2nd time really pissed me off and I'm at fault for some of it.

Bought my 4runner from them as it was a good price. Took it for a test drive and didn't notice some things until I took it home.

Car interior in the rear was filthy. Not too big a deal for me because I detail as a hobby and cleaned it up real well.

However what I didn't catch were that the radio had issues and the rear speakers didn't work. I get very busy at work and wasn't able to take it back, plus I had already ordered a new stereo and speakers anyway.

I got their warranty, and a month after buying the car had an issue with the fuel sensor in the tank. Took it to Toyota and the Carmax warranty paid for it. Wasn't a bad process at all.

My advice would be to really do a thorough check on the vehicle before driving off with it. A lot of this is on me for not catching it from start though.

It used to be that CarMax prices were lower than any dealership's used car advertised price, of course, if you were willing to haggle, you could probably get the car at a dealership a bit cheaper than CarMax, since they don't negotiate.

When I went through car shopping over the last few weeks, I noticed that no longer seems to be the case. Some dealers were advertising prices less, some more.

CarMax does seem to really focus on selling real good, low mileage used cars that are in great condition.

I think some dealerships are definetly starting to steal parts of their model, though.

Also, their financing isn't very good... so definetly bring your own. When we bought from them a few years ago, we had a credit union rate of 2.94%. We had them run the financing just to see... lowest was around 6%.

They charge higher prices because

1) people are willing to pay more money not to deal with scummy car salesman and the overall hassle of the car buying process from a dealership or third party

2) marketing and access to a nationwide inventory of cars

It’s appealing to me for reason #1 but I don’t know if it’s $2k appealing. So I end up looking around anyway and at that point I’ve negated reason #1

webycedivo