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For this example keep these variables in mind...
Y > Z > X
Also keep in mind that this is entirely hypothetical. That is why I am using variables instead of real numbers.
Let say you got a car that you know is worth X and it is worth X because it has had a little body work and just does not drive straight.
The reason you noticed the body work is cause the paint is not 100% right it looks a little off say on the back right quarter panel. After seeing the paint you take a close look at the panel gaps in that region and notice they are a little off compared to the rest of the car.
Now you decide to pop the trunk to take a look at the back of the quarter panel. After removing the trunk mat and taking a look around the spare tire area you see some sloppy welds and mismatched panels.
The car got hit in the back end hard. It had a clean carfax but had obviously had some work done in the past and there is a good chance the current owner does not even know about it.
With all of that in mind you need to take this car for a good drive to see if it drives straight. The car just does not drive 100% right. It is not horrible but there is enough vibration and the back end does not track as well as it should.
If the car was perfect with not body work good tires and brakes it would be worth Y. This car also needs tire and brakes all around so it would be worth Z if there were not body work issues.
Because of the body work issues it is really worth X.
Just for giggles you have someone drive it down to Carmax and see what kind of number they put on it. They only catch that the car needs tires. The guy doing the appraisal is just not as experienced as he needs to be and misses everything else.
They put Z+300 dollars on the car.
The best you could do before going to carmax was X and now you are very close to Y which happens to be just a few hundred less then the owner was looking for. Now instead of being thousands of dollars apart you are only a few hundred. You can make that few hundred up somewhere and close a deal.
Once the deal is done you just take the trade back to Carmax show them the appraisal slip and wash your hands of the questionable trade.
Flat out message to me from Carmax was that my business didn't matter to them and that if I didn't like it, I could take the car back. End of story, no compromise.
Yet when it comes to the price on my car, they had no problem changing the "no haggle" price to make it $601 higher.
That wasn't very honest of you not to tell Carmax the problems the cars had.
I'm thrilled they are in town...they do a lot of advertising and charge big prices.
Yet, they continue to expand and do good business?
If you didn't like the price, you shouldn't have bought the car. If you liked the price, then it's a good price for you, no matter what the same car was selling for before in a different place in time.
But if you really can't get over it, sell it back to them and go buy a different car. I just don't get what all the drama is about.
Nordstroms does big business and charges big prices and continues to expand also...your point is what? I didn't mean it was a bad thing...actually its a great thing for us. They will move retail used car avg. prices higher in our very competitive market. I love the idea of higher profits.
No it's not. Thanks for clarifying.
your point is what?
Well, less volume for your dealership with the competition. Overall, I don't see how it could be benefical. I can see buyers going to you for the lower retail on used, but it seems you would lose more in the way of overall sales. Higher margins wouldn't be able to compensate for less volume would it?
We actually had their F&I guy call us directly trying to get the Pay off for someone's land Rover.
He was like well this is land rover of blah blah where Mr. Blah bought his Land Rover why can't you give me the Pay off.
Our sales manager was talking to the guy recognized the name of the customer and asked to speak to him.
He asks the customer, "Mr. Blah does the guy sitting across from you look real young and a little clueless."
Mr. Blah says, "Well Bob yeah he does a little bit."
Bob says, "Well good then we don't have much to worry about from them. I can't give you the pay off but if you call this number they can give it to you."
That is what I have been doing with the fleet vehicles ... Why not get their quote before offering it to the employees ...
I've walked Carmaxs lot recently. While the number, "apparent" quality and variety of available vehilces is impressive, their prices sure aren't.
1. I was not looking for a part time job there you must have me confused with someone else.
2. My salesmanager called him the F&I guy since he was working on loan particulars. I don't think he ever actually called him self an F&I manager or associate.
3. I was standing in the office as the phone conversation went on so if you are going to call me a liar just come out and say it.
4. Several times I have had to have the customer with me in order to obtain a Payoff if the particular fiancial institution has very strict privacy regulations.
5. The whole point of the story was that the guy working at carmax was an idiot for calling a local dealership trying to obtain a payoff when it makes much more sense to call the bank the guy has the loan with. The guy at carmax was just lucky that our customer fianced with LRCG instead of some third party that we did not have the number for.
I think it's a bit short-sighted to judge the entire companies employees based on this one conversation of which we are only getting your side of the story for.
My jaunticed attitude is due to a previous car buying experience where "the switch" was pulled on me just as I was about to write the check. ("Oh, no, we've been quoting you the RX8 with the cloth seats!" Yikes!) That was a burn that took me a long time to get over.
I've been looking for a low mileage Toyota Mr2 for months. They're hard to find. Toyota designing a car without a trunk was a stupid blunder, so they only sold about 5,000 a year until dropping the car mid-2005. Carmax had one in Chicago which was an '04 - great, red -great, black leather - perfect and with only 11.5K miles. This is the kind of car some boomer buys to tool around in so this didn't get driven a whole lot in two years. It was priced slightly lower than most I've seen for this year. My trade-in was an '04 Acura TSX with 9.5K miles. New, they both would have sold for about the same price, (the TSX slightly higher, but I got invoice) but two years later CarMax appraised the TSX at $22K, higher than their asking price for the MR2 at $20,998.
The way the numbers worked out, in spite of paying CarMax to ship the MR2 to Atlanta, I actually drove away swapping the TSX for the MR2 with a check for $835 in my pocket. I still can't believe it.
Could I have gotten more for the TSX if I sold it privately? Perhaps, but in Georgia, sales tax on the car purchased is decreased by the valuation of the trade-in. (7% of 20.9 minus 7% of 22K = zero)) So by trading the car to CarMax, that was worth an extra $1510 or so. Selling the car privately, I'd have to get at least $23,500 and my AutoTrader ad for $23,890 met with almost no interest for two weeks.
Could I have gotten the MR2 for less? I don't see how. Being so scarce, who knows when one just like it would have shown up in Atlanta.
So the deal was good. They didn't try to back off of the TSX offer. They got the car in from Chicago a lot sooner than they promised. And I actually came away from the lot with a check. How cool was that?
The only downside was that they took so long to prep the car, I couldn't wait to get the hell out and overlooked what looked like a flat glob of hardened cement on the body just in back of the left rear wheel. Dunno what the hell it is, but hopefully I'll be able to get it off. No owners manual, which kind of pisses me off since someone who only drove the car 11.5 miles in two years would be likely to still have it. But CarMax is supposed to re-imburse me on that.
If the car I bought wasn't so scarce, I don't think I would have paid CarMax's price for it. If the state of Georgia didn't have that tax credit deal, I certainly wouldn't have taken $22K for the Acura. Things just seemed to work out in my favor on this one.
The main advantage of buying from CarMax is that they have such a deep selection of cars drawn from all over the country. I don't think I could have found an MR2 like this any other way. With a low mileage Toyota and two years on the warranty, I don't think I have anything to worry about.
The comment about the registered just a couple of days ago was in reference to only posting in the carmax thread and possibly just being someone corporate at carmax trying to spread some good posts around.
Our sales are ok April is a historicaly very bad month for us usually our worst and this april was no exeption. It was the best april we have every had but still our worst month of the year so far.
May has been ok so far and yes we only have four people in our sales department up untill last week. We just hired a third sales guide so now we have a New car/Centre manager and a Used car/F&I manager plus three sales guides.
I am in New England.
Ok so back onto carmax stuff...
The newly opened local carmax has a LR3 listed for just under 37,000. The mileage is listed at 16k but no options are listed. There is a VIN however and since I have access to Land Rover's corporate network I can stick in the VIN and learn everything about this car.
It was sold almost exactly one year ago and at the time would have had a MSRP of about $46,670 and and invoice of about $42,530.
They are listing the KBB price of about 42,000. We all know KBB is junk though so we can just ignore that.
The thing is there are still a few new 2005 LR3's around on Land Rover lots. By looking in the system I can find one of those with the exact same options. There are actually several out there although we have not had an 2005 LR3s since January.
If I had one of those cars on my lot if someone offered me anything north of $37,500 I would take it right away. With a little work you could probably get someone down under $37,000. If it was one of the retired service loaners that had 6,000 or so miles on it they might take an offer as low as $34,000.
Makes Carmax's no haggle price look a little silly.
A question that's a little off topic...
Why did you trade a nearly new TSX with only 9.5K miles for a Toyota MR2?????
That's a fair enough question and the short answer is that as nice as the TSX was, it's a boring-assed car to drive.
The long answer is that I'm was on my second 91 MR2 both of which I'd driven as a daily driver for almost ten years. Given Atlanta traffic and the degree of road-rage I indulge in daily, I thought a mindless, comfortable, automatic sedan would be a good choice.
I just couldn't get used to having the TSX. Front wheel drive felt heavy and I couldn't hear the engine enough to shift the manumatic transmission. It also used premium gas and got less mpg than the MR2 and had a far more jittery and firm ride than it had any right to. Plus the car is just too damn big when you're used to a 2 seater.
Keep in mind, the MR2 was nearly new as well so it was a pretty good swap as far as I'm concerned. I have no regrets, driving my new MR2 is a blast and I'm enjoying the top down a lot more than I thought I would. The car is definately a keeper.
Have you checked your local Ford dealers prices??? They might be less...in our region carmax is $1500-2000 more than traditional new car dealers for readily available used vehicles like the Escape Plus you can get a Ford factory extended warranty...
As far as the warranty, I spoke with the Carmax salesman and told him that I found Ford ESP warranties for cheaper than they were quoting. He told me that they offer their warranties through AON at cost and he would advise me to go with the Ford warranty. I think I will take his advice. Does anyone have a site to recommend for purchasing authentic Ford Warranties?
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What does it cover, rancid popcorn & rovig chickens (excluding bird flu!) :P
Bottom line - make sure you know what your payoff is so you don't get ripped off!!!!
tidester, host
If your last payment has not been on record long enough to be "bounce-proof" they basically add it back to the payoff. Carmax mails the entire check to your finance company. It isn't like they put $500 in their secret ill-gotten dealer profit bank account. Your finance company would cut you a check for any overpayment. I've sold three cars to them, and had this work out that way all three times.
Bottom line you have to know you numbers where ever you go so that you don't get a lousy deal.
Maybe I am making more out this - but bottom line is before you go car shopping you need to know your numbers b/c the dealer and salespeople want you to pay the most for thier car and give the least for yours.
for one thing nobody is paying $500 interest over 10-15 days.
so you get a contract that includes 10,500 from your previous loan, although after the payment you already made
your balance should be 10,000.
they already know, or are taking a chance(not really), you sent in the payment.
they hold the payoff request for a few days and send in the post payment balance(10,000). your obligation is paid off.
do you ever find out, if you didn't know the balance at the time of the transaction?
it's been a few years since i traded in a vehicle that had an outstanding loan balance. that means i have a short memory and am still paying on my current vehicle that had a trade in balance rolled into the current loan.
CarMax is a business and a very successful one at that (Fortune 500), that success has to come from somewhere - higher margins. It has its negatives - slightly higher sales prices and I am not sure about the warranties. But I believe people that buy extended warranties aren't too into cars, maybe they should look at a cheap new car that has a long manufacturer warranty instead.
Positives include convenience, you can "import" the specific car you want from an area that has less rust than where you live.
I live in Cleveland and just about every used car here has quite a lot of rust. I found the precise car (model,trans., even color) on Carmax for a few hundred under KBB and from a state where it hardly ever snows. Yes there are extra costs that negate the savings - transportation and document fees. If I dont end up buying it, I lost the transportation cost, it's a risk.
Just my opinion.
PS. If they screw me over, this may all change! :P
If you don't mind overspending $2-3k, go ahead. My most recent "find" was a 2001 Taurus SE with 48k for $10,900. WOW! A car waiting for a sucker to happen.
As for the rust issue ... my current ride from Toledo did not develop rust until ten years.
Dealers in my area are selling 2006 Taurus SES with teen miles for $12,000-12,750. 2001's are selling for $6000-7000.