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Smart Shopper Carmax - What's Your Experience?
762 messages, Last post on Nov 14, 2009 at 11:37 AM
You are in the Smart Shopper Forum. Your Hosts are kirstie_h & tidester
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I LOVE test driving cars, dealing with salespeople even the ones with bad attitude with very strong cologne that will make you sick. 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.
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Replying to: andeet (Feb 01, 2008 6:25 pm) |
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I'm considering buying a used Land Cruiser from Carmax. Here's the dilemna: 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.
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Replying to: bcb1 (Feb 05, 2008 7:42 am) 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 |
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Replying to: bcb1 (Feb 05, 2008 7:42 am) |
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| I leased an 07 CTS but just had a child. For family reasons I'd like to break lease for a Buick Enclave at the same dealer. Would they normally let me do that without a stiff penalty? | |
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Last Wednesday, I went to the good ole Carmax for a oil change and tire rotation. Service consultant asked me if I would spend extra $10.00s for 5k service and they will service the battery, oil change, tire rotation, brake check, check exhaust system, and check the chassis. I agreed. 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!"
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Replying to: todd80 (Jan 31, 2008 9:55 pm) 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! |
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Replying to: blkbr0tha (Jan 31, 2008 9:38 am) The sooner the better! 
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Replying to: andeet (Mar 21, 2008 3:53 pm) 
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