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Comments
south- north- west??? (state)...
And its Drivers Way not Drivers Choice
I did that once when I wanted to get rid of a car quick (convertible in winter). Just shopped it around to several local dealers and found took the highest offer (it was not Carmax).
Dennis
Interesting... I saw that Driver's Way website.. they look pretty cool. They probably dont have the marketing efforts of Carmax but (maybe) the same service???
I ran across a site called Ebuyfigure.com. Was curious if anyone is familiar with these guys- seems they can provide a guaranteed price on your car via internet. Some of there claims are 2-4k higher than KBB!!
Anyone seen this before? Seems pretty innovative....
Ok so you or your friend have a nice older car with a bit over 100,000 miles and KBB says its worth on trade-in value at 3212.00 (for example). Now before you go into Auction-Direct or CarMax and get all fussy about how smart you and your research are. Go back to KBB or NADA and type in 250,000 miles! Serious try it, it will say 3020.00 ! !
Its a major glich in both KBB and NADA...WHY you may ask. Its bottomed out and hardly worth the value of transportation itself, not your car.
When I worked at Carmax Id show this to some people and they would actually say "Wow my Car really holds its value when its old" ...there are alot of retards out there.
Now guess what is covered by this new auto term Lifetime Warranty?
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Of course, the same hold true with Carmax vs other dealers, the Carmax price is what it is, the dealer's price reflects a lot of negotiation room.
Dennis
Car buying can be a stressful situation as well- next to a home it is probably one of the biggest invstments a person makes in their life. I know for one- I do not like the haggle.. I like the quick and easy! lol
(That would probably say a lot about my ex-gf selection too-lol... ).. but anyways...
I see a need to keep my eyes open to other potential buyers/ seller services out there. The days of traditional car sales/ trades are over!!! yipppie!!
Carmax and Saturn dealers exist for for suckers, I mean buyers, like you
Seriously, most folks greatly over pay on EVERY car purchase. I know otherwise intelligent folks who do it all the time. Just too much trouble or they don't understand, or whatever. I even offer to do the work for them - find the car and get them a nice price, and they still would rather just wander in to some dealership and get ripped off.
There are deal brokers that you can pay to do the work, useless to someone like me, but it might be worth looking into for others. One was spamming the forums here recently, but there are other more legit brokers around. Some specialize in one make (BMW) or even one model ('vette) and others will track down whatever you want. There are also deals to be had via Sam's Club or Costco or other membership service - some of those are quite nice (others not so nice) and all involve no haggle. The same is true for buying via carsdirect.com . So no NEED to pay way too much just because haggling is too hard.
Of course, I depend on these folks paying too much - so the dealers can afford to sell me a car for little profit
Dennis
Oh well... now im fired up!
There is no time like the present. Maybe I will start to do some extra research BEFORE buying my next car- (just means alittle more time) but anything to keep some more $$$ in my pockets. After all I can't expect that G-dubya's stimulus check to buy anything significant! Ugh...
No offense meant, there a tons of folks that just want an easy deal. My deals are always easy and I never sit in a dealer's office for very long at all - and I think I get very good deals.
Use the Internet, e-mail, phone, and fax to sort the wheat from the chaff, be willing to travel to get a good deal. and don't argue/haggle with the dealer once you get there - if things are not right just walk.
The key to finding a good deal is finding a good dealer. When I wanted a new S2000, I found a Honda dealer that would price it to me for under invoice. All the local Honda stores would not know a good deal if it bit them. When I wanted an RX-8 I went to a couple of local places to test drive, but their price were not good - so I again went out of town and saved thousands. Heck, my local Infiniti dealer has a $500 doc fee, but I found that 2 1/2 hours down the road the Infiniti dealer has $0 doc fee. Guess which dealership I used for my G37? I saved $1,100 on my wife's Pilot by getting a deal well into the hold back at a dealer about 3 1/2 miles from home. Dealers here COULD do deals at these prices but I know they do not, so why waste much time haggling with them?
Most folks seem to think the dealerships are like McDonalds - all the same. They may LOOK the same but they all deal different. Trying to get a great deal from a bad dealer is like pounding a square peg in a round hole - just a waste of time and gets you mad.
Use the forums here and elsewhere and Internet tools to find the dealers who will deal, and most of your work is done. You get everything worked out before you step foot in the dealer's store - heck I once got a new 'vette from a dealer in WI sight-unseen, we did ALL the dealing via e-mail and overnight letter. Get all the numbers worked out, then just show up, inspect the car, test drive it, then sign the papers and drive away in the new car. Just as easy as paying full price, but a lot cheaper
Dennis
www.automobids.com
Check it out... NO hassle- no haggles lol...
Kind of same process you spoke of , but ONLINE. Saves gas and time!
I also found the carmax website to be a lot easier to navigate than other dealer's sites. It wasn't perfect, but I felt like the photos and the descriptions gave me a good enough idea of what I would be seeing in person before making the trip out to the lot.
I had my current car valued for a trade-in and was disappointed in the quoted figure. However, the price they gave me provided something for me to use as a reference when I had my trade valued at other dealerships. I always knew that if I found the right car at a dealership, but wasn't happy with the trade-in offer, I could take the car to carmax during the 7 day window and get cash.
Next time I'm in the market, I'm definitely going to check out their inventory. Haggling over the price just isn't worth my time.
Lil birdy told me to tell you to hold on to your bootstraps. There is going to be a new wave of changes happening in the marketplace in terms of how consumers buy and SELL their cars in the future!
Stay tuned- itll blow ya socks off!
bobst, "Stories from the Sales Frontlines" #10354, 3 Apr 2007 5:43 pm is one post to look at.
BOBST pretty much researchs to determine what he thinks would be the best low ball offer to make that might be accepted for a certain vehicle. He goes in and makes the offer, out the door offer including all fees, tax, etc. If the offer is accepted, buy the car. If it is not, then he leaves...only way to make sure the offer if refused is to leave... Next go to another dealer and up the offer slightly, repeat until a dealer says yes. If you get too many refusals from Dealer, then you may need to rethink how you determined the low price you came up with would be in a doable range.
Pretty simple
Research
Make offer for out the door price
Yes or no? Either you bought it or go to the next dealer. Repeat until done. DO NOT HAGGLE...just OFFER.
I think this Summer...I'm going to do a experiment. Go to 15 different Toyota dealers excluding Kenosha Toyota aka Carmax. Ten in Chicagoland area and the other five in Milwaukee area. I'm going to lie about me wanting to trade in my '07 Scion tC with negative. Act like I want to buy a '09 Corolla XRS. See how each sales person reacts, what type of sales tactics; basically seeing how far they will go. How they treat me as early 20's female with good paying job.
Trust me...I'm strong enough to say "No" every time.
See who puts a gun to my head and who actually "Consults" Then compare the difference between all the dealers including my two sales deals with Carmax.
2000 TLC, 90K miles, $19,5 from Carmax
2000 TLC, 88K miles, $17,9 from the local Ford store.
I like how clean the Carmax cars are, I like the no-pressure way they deal, and I really like how you can return a car within 5 days, no questions asked - if I end up buying from Carmax, that'll be the reason. But I just have a hard time justifying paying an extra $1500 just for the 5-day return policy.
Finally, the Carmax price may be "no haggle" but I would assume the Ford dealer has several thousand dollars in profit built into their price so expects a buyer to want to bargain down the price. So rather than a $1,600 difference you could be looking at a $2,500, $3,000 difference or more. More than enough to make up for the cost of a CarFax/AutoCheck account and paying $150 or something for a pre-purchase inspection.
Dennis
I got into the car and started quite nice. I went home cause I found out I left my wallet at home with my driver's license in it. (Don't like carrying around the wallet and my checkbook also left in the car while getting service. ) Drove 20 miles to Carmax and back with no license. Oops! Anyway, ran into the house grabbed my wallet and ran back outside to my Scion tC. Went to start it....nothing happened: No trying to turnover, no warning lights, my dash clock wasn't on when its on 24/7/365.
Called Carmax told them...They said it might be the battery. I decided to go to Autozone and test the battery. Battery passed their test. I put the battery back in and heard my warning ding for having the door open. So I started the car. It ran and I left the car running for ten minutes while I'm re setting the computer: power windows, sunroof. I decided to stop the car and try starting it again. Didn't start. So I missed work since I couldn't drive there. I'm thinking it was more serious problem like my starter.
Morning comes along, decided on spending 100 bucks for towing the car back. Called Carmax back...they are accusing me for their mess up. Almost to the point I yelled back and share some "wonderful" words. I still like this one..."Well you're the one who serviced my car! So you can't accuse me!" They were saying some like "Well 7 out 10 times its the owner's fault!" That totally "p"-ed me off almost to the point I yelled back "Look! I called in yesterday at work! And you have NO idea how "p"-ed off I am right now. I probably could kill someone" For being Toyota dealer too...before yelling at each other. I asked if its serious probably that I can get a loaner...they said "Oh we don't do that?" When my sister's Toyota dealer in Illinois offered her a free loaner???? When she had to leave her car with them for five hours. Her Matrix doesn't have a warranty nor was bought there??
The tow guy even thought it was unprofessional how they were dealing with me. And thought I had every right to be unprofessional back. I'm sorry if you're going to be rude; you bet I'm going to be rude back.
They found out the battery connectors weren't screwed in correctly. And I did sort of had the problem fixed but not to the car's "liking" lol They were confused about everything and even thought it was something more serious almost to the point; they were hesitating for me taking the car back. So they offered to not charge me for the work but make me pay for the towing. If I would know the service was going to be $10.50...I would of put them on the spot and said “No! I’ll pay for the service and you pay for my towing.” So they kind of stiff me.
Everyone around me thinks its BS, they didn’t pay for towing when they are the ones who originally messed up.
I based all the past service work by baseball terms: My last two services including this one are strikes. The other service back in May '07 when they yelled at me (I posted the whole event on this topic) was strike one. I'm officially going somewhere else!
Carmax of Kenosha, WI..."The sales department does excellent work (I'll admit, I seen some bad apples. But I personally dealt with the best ones) but the service department s*cks!"
I went to Cars.com last week to e-mail a traditional dealer about a Versa, all I wanted them to tell me is if the car had power windows. Unfortunately, I had to give them my phone number. Well, rather than answering my question, they wanted to know when I could come and drive it. God I hate dealers. I just said forget it. The whole reason I use the internet is for information! Traditional dealers hide their information and would rather you came in during office hours. No, the salesman doesn't get to decide that. I don't answer ads that say "call for price", either.
God bless Circuit City's Carmax, and others who will come along later and copy their model. I long for the day when the CONSUMER controls the transaction. Oh, they've been leaving messages on my phone, too. Imagine calling to ask me if I've decided on a car yet! When I've made up my mind, I WILL be the one to let THEM know. I buy on MY schedule, not THEIRS, and I don't care that it's the end of the month!
Furthermore, I don't care about getting the absolute rock-bottom price. As long as it's well below MSRP or Blue Book, and is a fair price, I'm satisfied. It's like do you buy from a department store or do you buy Target? I've been watching one car in particular at the local Carmax, and they do go down in price if they've been sitting there a while!
Anyway, just wanted to share my thoughts. I think some traditionals are starting to get the message, though, because I see a lot of "Silent Sunday" sales lately. So, change is coming to the car selling industry, and none too soon.
I want change!
The sooner the better!
I'm still dead serious about me NOT GOING BACK for service! I'll go back for parts cause their parts department never screwed up on my orders and if my sales consultant is still employed at Carmax down the road; I'll allow her to sell me another car if I was in that situation. I hate to admit this out loud but buying cars is very serious matter and its VERY HARD to trust anyone in that business. Since I've done two deals with this woman. She never screwed up, never took full advanage, never gave me BS sales pitches. I trust her.
But I'm not letting them touch my car anymore!
I'm looking for low-mileage late model upper-level sedans in excellent condition. I test-drove and inspected three contenders this past weekend: A Caddy, a Mercedes, and a Jag.
In each case, it appeared to me that Carmax had done very little to clean up the vehicles' interiors or recondition obvious flaws. The leather parts of the interiors on all were dirty, scuffed, and generally less than I expected. The vehicles were just plain dirty inside.
Is this typical? It does not leave me with a favorable impression of Carmax, particularly since they price their vehicles at and may times beyond kbb retail value.
I was wondering about their recon policies.
Problem is, when you pay all the money on a car,as carmax does sometimes, the car had better be perfect. Because you don't have a lot left over for recon.
Not if you want to make a profit on the car.
Dennis
They typically are paying retail or near retail for tradeins unless it is a really poor condition car or undesirable in some other way. Even the undesirable cars usually get a fairly large bump over our best realistic tradein values.
Carmax has to be competitive
-Car_rm
As far as the "recondition" process goes, they mostly just buy cream puffs and sell them for premium prices - so normally not much money has to be put into them to put them on the lot.
Somehow they have some folks "hypnotized" into thinking their cars are better than you can get elsewhere and for sure all those folks that don't like to haggle seem to love the place - if though you can show them how much they just over paid.
Dennis
I know otherwise smart people who buy cars from CarMax and me showing them how they could buy a NEW car for a little bit more or a similar used car for lot less seems to make no impression on them. Maybe someday folks will wake from their CarMax hypnosis and CarMax will either have to drop their prices or go under.
Dennis
Carmax will not go under anytime soon, they have too much of the market, and they totally stand behind their product. Face it, fixed priced cars is the same as buying a television set or refrigerator, plus no ine gives a 5 day unconditional return policy...If you can find a better policy just go for it!! Just my opinion!!!
I don't think they will go under either, too many folks just seem in a trance due to their no haggle prices and stuff like the return policy. No matter than folks are paying nearly NEW CAR prices for used cars, they still flock to the stores and hand over the money.
You can negotiate the price of your new HDTV - or you should - and explore online purchasing. Ditto to a lesser degree the new 'fridge. Only the foolish should agree to any inflated price on any major purchase if they can do better elsewhere.
Some folks love to pay extra for service - look at online stores like Zappos. Free shipping to you and if you don't like it free shipping back. Then you check their prices - in most cases you are REALLY paying through the nose for this level of "service". The only way you save is if you use them to try different items and return them all (for free) and buy elsewhere for less when you decide what you want.
The same is true for CarMax's 5 day policy - if you don't do your homework, don't test drive, and/or they sell you a lemon (that fails in the first 5 days) then you can bring it back. Otherwise, you are just overpaying for something you are not going to use. Maybe the trick is to "buy" from CarMax any kind of car you are interested in and just keep returning them all within 5 days until you decide which you like the best - then go elsewhere for a better price?
Dennis
I am from around Richmond though where Carmax started and even down there they always had a reputation of putting crazy money on cars.
It could be different in every area, maybe there is no good auction house they can buy from? I don't know. Since the quote process is free and fairly quick, nothing wrong with running a car by and see what they will offer for it - no matter where you live. It is "interesting" when you see their offer and then look up the same model, year, and mileage cars on their web page and see they get for them. I could offer a 5 day money back if I was making that much per car
Dennis
We were able to "negotiate" with Fitzgerald Auto Mall, a place very similar to Carmax with the 5-day return policy, no-haggle prices, etc. They won't negotiate on price, but they did bump up our trade on the FJ....so same difference.
Carmax offered about $800 less on the FJ. I test drove a 4Runner and a Land Cruiser there - the 4Runner was just plain dirty -- I'm talking mud under the seat when you flipped up the back seat! And it smelled really strange. Not what I was expecting at all from Carmax. The salesmen acted like I was crazy when I asked for a full detail and deodorizing process. He said he "might" be able to talk to his manager about getting that done.
Fitzgerald had a 4Runner that looked brand new - not a great bargain, but a decent price, low mile, Toyota certified, and they gave us more for the FJ in trade. Overall very easy to work with. So if you live in the D.C. and Baltimore area, Fitzgerald is worth a look. You won't find incredible bargains, but they are decent prices, no hassle, and was a reasonably pleasant buying experience.
I saw Glencoe (North of Chicago) Carmax had black '06 Scion xA back in the Summer of '06. So I drove down there by myself my (at the time) Silver Streak Mica '06 xA. I think they were asking about 12,700. At the time, I was dead serious about buying second xA cause my xA's payments were below 300.00s and I only had $300's monthly bill debt. I wanted the silver one to be my customized xA while this black one was my Daily Driver.
I had Polish background early or mid 50's man as the sales consultant. Who was hard to understand at first but I was able to pick up what he was saying. He let me view inside and outside of this xA. First thing, I noticed was a strong cigarette smell. That was sale killer. Interior looked okay but could use more cleaning cause I noticed the smoke reduce and outside looked brand new. Two things that made me laugh....One, the Sales Consultant allowed me to start the car. I did and the radio was blasting to rap. Second, because I'm early 20's and driving in xA. The S.C. thought I was making minimal wage until I said "I'm putting too many miles on my current cause I work down here in Illinois." Admitted out loud what company I worked for and the company is locally known to pay above minimal wage even entry level. He took me seriously all of sudden.
We bought a 2007 Yaris in July 2006 for 11K and decided to sell it off before a cross country move so tried Carmax just to get it over with. We paid 11K for this manual transmission hatchback with no options and it now had 35000 (yes 35 thousand on an '07!) miles, needed 30K service and some cosmetic issues that would run 500, probably new brakes.. They offered 8500, which wasn't too bad after looking through the various online guides.
I think 1K more was possible privately but we would have had to spend that much to get it up to snuff for sale. Looking at their sales for similar vehicles, I think they'll put it up for about 10.5 or so (which is hilarious considering I paid 11 and it's got 35K and is two years old), after repairs they'll make some but nothing outrageous (other Yarii, same specs, are up for 11 and change, but they don't have the mileage). Or maybe it will go to auction.
They also gave us a good deal buying another car from us a year or so ago (as judged by the real world tradein values forum) but I am guessing that car was also in high demand for some reason.
(I was betting they'd offer 6.5-7 on the Yaris!).
Now they did sell them an extended warranty it sounds like, but the buyer would have been a lot better off to buy something of higher quality. They could have saved money by purchasing a car at a lower price from another dealer or private party, but they still would (likely) have had lots of issues if they chose another VW.
Dennis
They didn't build your car, VW did.
All any dealer that sells used cars has to do is to make sure that the car meets applicable safety and useability standards when the car is sold.
If it breaks down later, that isn't the dealers fault.
Be happy you have an extended warranty.