Exige S sold to CARMAX

[exarkun1178]

ive never heard of car max... are they regional?

[lotusforsale]

Originally Posted by exarkun1178

ive never heard of car max... are they regional?

Sorta:
http://www.carmax.com/dyn/companyinf...locations.aspx

[Icedog_16]

Originally Posted by Vampyre

If they offer more then dealers, why don't more people take thier cars to them?

The only other thing I could see is that by trade-in you do offset some of the sales tax on the new car as you're taxed on the difference. YMMV

[melloyjaguar]

I've had a good experience with them also. I went to the local Mini dealership and they just don't bother with trades. They sent me over to CarMax and they gave me exactly what I was expecting and I had a check within an hour. Simple. When we have customers that come here and we can't give them what they want for trade, I send them promptly to CarMax to get a quote. They usually come back with a check in hand. I definitely wouldn't buy or sell a Lotus there, but for other cars, they are fantastic.

[Seabiscuit]

I recently visited a Car Max. I was surprised at how helpful they were. It really is a great business model. I absolutely hate going to a normal dealership and would actually pay a little more just to avoid the stress of dealing with the vultures at most dealerships.

As the information available about the actual value of the car they are selling, and buying becomes readily to consumers (on a PDA!), I suspect that in a short period of time the old business model that most dealerships follow will disappear and cars will be sold more like CarMax.

Most car dealers are so ghetto in their approach to dealing with people.

[ace10]

if you don't mind paying more for a used car (in exchange for the "easier" buying experience) then carmax is a good place to go. their prices are generally not competitive as necessitated by their willingness to overpay for their inventory.

[Walnuts]

Originally Posted by ace10

if you don't mind paying more for a used car (in exchange for the "easier" buying experience) then carmax is a good place to go. their prices are generally not competitive as necessitated by their willingness to overpay for their inventory.

that's why you sell them your car then take the check some where else to buy your car where you can hagle.

[JWA]

My sister sold a few cars to CarMax, but still I was dubious until I brought my Scion xB there to see what they would give me for it. I owned the xB for 19 months, put 11,000 miles on it, and they offered me $185 less than what I paid for it brand new at full MSRP. That was at the very top of Bluebook excellent value at the time. They cut me a check and the whole process took less than an hour. It was somewhat surreal, actually.

[ILuv4REs]

I am guessing for a few reasons:

1) 20k Miles on an Exige S is an amount that would make selling that car very difficult, which is probably why the owner brought it to CM to begin with.

2) The old saying 'a bird in the hand, is worth two in the bush', is probably the mentality of CM for this car. It's likely that they bought it cheap enough to bring to auction and make a few dollars on it, rather than trying to retail it (see reason #3 & #4).

3) Trying to retail it would be difficult for CM. The salespeople, and typically the customers, at CM aren't usually equipped for 'specialty' type cars. It would be likely that a new perspective buyer would know far more about the car than the people selling it at CM.

4) Time value of money. Holding cars is expensive. The car business is all about rotating dollars into and out of cars, quickly! With such a small niche marketplace for this type of car, it's possible that it was held, or would be held, for a long time before a sale took place. So, get the money now, go invest it into more Camry's, Accord's and other cars that move money on the rotation game quickly.

5) Possibly damaged. If there was any sign of damage, CM would limit liability and avoid potential public issues by sending the car to auction than selling it to the public.

My 2 cents......

[tandemracer]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Motorist

So Carmax is like cheap/crappy/old/beaten cars? Didn't know.

Sometimes. They seem to have cars that are below that quality that would be available as CPO through other dealers.

I tried to buy a new daily driver there a few years back. Picked up a Saab 9-5 that looked to be in good shape. The next morning when I started it up a huge cloud of blue smoke poured out the back from oil leaking from the turbo. Luckily I was able to return the car so I picked up a MB E320 That also seemed on the surface to be in good shape. I had my mechanic check it out and there was a substantial amount of rust on everything under the car and he warned me to ditch this one too. I got my money back and went to the BMW dealer for one of their CPO cars and it has been perfect.

Funny thing is that a week after I returned the Saab I got a call from CarMax's repair shop asking why my car was brought back in on a flatbed. Turns out somebody else bought the car after I returned it and it had already died but my name was still in their records. Not saying that all of their cars are sub-par, just my experience with them has been poor.

[propagandhi]

Originally Posted by pugg57

that's why you sell them your car then take the check some where else to buy your car where you can hagle.

Or you get their offer and use it to bargain with the dealer that has the car you want so you can save on the sales tax (which is what I did). Having their offer sheet (which is good for 7 days or X miles) is a pretty nice bargaining tool. You can pretty much demand that a dealer match it or you are walking and surprisingly they will go for it more often that you might think.

Carmax offered me more than what my car was worth, especially since the rebates at the time were so aggressive it totally destroyed market for preowned. It wasn't in great shape either. They missed quite a few things.

There are very few scenarios I can come up with where I would actually consider buying a car from them. They are very overpriced on the majority of their inventory.

[paunch]

Originally Posted by propagandhi

Or you get their offer and use it to bargain with the dealer that has the car you want so you can save on the sales tax (which is what I did).

Unfortunately, paying tax only on the difference between the purchase price and the trade-in value is not the case in lovely Kalifornia

Makes you want to move to Oregon

[BrokenR1]

They just made a Carmax here two weeks ago. I listed my car for sale so I went by today for the heck of it and they offered me $23k. I've had the rear clam replaced and have Starshield/Touring/Sport but with Rota wheels, and 27k miles.

[fitfan]

i know a good bit about carmax - they won't sell cars with issues - so if the car has issues, they won't sell it retail, they kick it out to auction - they will not sell cars with frame repair, major body work, etc.. so that could be one reason. they are very strict on "clean cars" on the retail lot.

also - carmax does not make thier money on selling "cars", so they will take a hit here and there if it makes a sale that resualts in the profitiable "post sale" deal.

employees have first right, and discount, on wholesale - it will get picked up no doubt before gets out to auction if its a decent car.

carmax has very good "sale" customer service - pretty much a zero risk purchase.

they are national - but not in every city, owned by circuit city, and they have the same business model in that they don't make thier money on big ticket items in retail, its the services. contracts, financing, etc.. its a banking and post sales business.

other than some questionable managment issues - -pretty decent corp. based in richmond va.

[imoz]

How much do you think Carmax would offer for an 06 Exige?

[desmoworks]

Well I can only speak from my personal opinion, but I went to a car max with a friend last week and I'll never go to one again. Too much like wal-mart (which I hate) and all the people were so cheesy. They were setting him up for a low ball number from the second we walked in.

They kept talking about gas prices, the economy, saying they won't pay more for a car than they can pay at auction, etc... they offered him $5000 less than a dealer on a trade which was about $8000 less than an easy private party sale. Needless to say he put it up for sale via private party on ebay and the bidding is currently $4500 above what they offered with a couple of days left.

To me they are the sleaziest bunch I've seen in a while, but what do I know - it seems everyone else here likes them!?

[eliseowner2b]

Great! Now everyone on the board is headed down to CarMax to sell their Loti!

I sold them a VW with a blown engine and it only took 2 quarts of "NO SMOKE" to hide the problem. Cha Ching...Thanks CarMax!

[Jackie Chiles]

Originally Posted by eliseowner2b

Great! Now everyone on the board is headed down to CarMax to sell their Loti!

I sold them a VW with a blown engine and it only took 2 quarts of "NO SMOKE" to hide the problem. Cha Ching...Thanks CarMax!

Saved for future reference. Not sure I'd want to buy a car from you.

[Marlonius]

Carmax is a place for people that don't know what they're doing and fear the art of negotiating. But at Carmax there are those cases where Carmax ends up paying more than the market value of the vehicle being traded and that is because they check the availability of that particular vehicle in their corporations inventory. If they have an overstock of that model, make, year, they will hit your value pretty hard... If they have an understock they'll over charge you. They're not the "good guys" they portray themselves to be.

[dododge]

Originally Posted by desmoworks

it seems everyone else here likes them!?

For those of us who have zero desire to haggle or deal with a salesman, they're great. When I needed a second car to go with the Elise for weather/cargo situations, I was able to browse the CarMax national inventory, find a car I was interested in, see lots of pictures of it, and know exactly what it was going to cost -- all from home and without ever interacting with a person. I dropped off a check to have the car transported to the local lot (it was several states away, but again the database made that clear and told me the delivery charge up-front). When it arrived I went back for a quick test drive and handed them a check for the rest. The only "negotiation" was the almost unavoidable stuff such as "if you want an extended warranty, here are your choices of plans and prices".

I had poked around at some of the online car-buying services, but they all seem to end up being "fill out this form and we'll have a salesman at a local dealership call you with an offer". Screw that. Sure if I was buying something special or exotic I might want to go to a dealership and make a day of it (which I did for the Elise); but for everyday "I need a car" situations I want it to be like buying a book or DVD online, and CarMax is about close as you can get.