Carmax?

[ATM_Football]

Anybody ever sold a tahoe or car at carmax? How did their offer compare to the offer you would have gotten at a dealership or what you expected? Was it better or worse? I can decide if Im gonna take my tahoe to carmax or trade it in at the dealership so I'm looking for some insight. Thanks guys

 

[Rollin Thunder]

well i took my jeep to them which KBB'd at 12450.

They offered me 5k. I saw 02 tahoes on their lot for like 18k and they said that was cheap, go online find one with less miles from a local guy for 11k. They offer way less than the dealer. But it cant hurt to try as ITS FREE.

 

[ugachs24]

They're going to be incredibly low on trade in value and jack their retail prices way up, too.

I brought my '03 Z71 there when I was buying my '08 and they offered me $4200 below KBB trade in value. I mean it had over 115k on it, but they had a clone of it out on the lot for $8500 more than what they were offering me. They pissed me off and I walked out there door.

 

[orionkhan]

Depends. Depends on the vehicle. Depends on the dealership you try to trade in. Depends on the Carmax location.

I took my '06 Mitsubishi Montero to a local Chevy dealership when I was lookin' at a Suburban earlier this summer. They told me to take it to the Carmax down the street. They wouldn't even give me a price for it. Now this was earlier in the summer when gas out in SoCal here was well over $4.30/gallon. Carmax came in a little under KBB trade in value. I think they offered $17K and I was trying to sell for $19K. But I don't think I could have gotten more at the time. Had it listed for sale for a over a month without a nibble. I might still have it if I was trying to sell it privately.

I turned around and bought an '07 Yukon XL with 14k miles for $21,900 two weeks later. Got lucky. It was a lease turn in that didn't make it to auction. People out here were really freaked out about the gas prices. Still are to some degree.

 

[Alex33]

to the OP, you've got a PM

 

[Daryl]

Yes, definetely depends. We took my wifes Grand Caravan there back in June when we were initially thinking of dumping that for a Suburban. It's got low mileage, clean history and impeccably clean. They offered us $9K; KBB was a little over $11K. Two weeks prior to that, a GMC dealer offered us $85 for the same van on trade. The salesman said they sometimes tell customers to take their cars to Carmax instead of trading them at their dealership.

We ultimately decided to keep her van and ended up trading my Safari for a '07 Yukon XL with 14K on it. I had my Safari for sale for over a month with out one call. Granted it had 130K, but it was clean and ran like a top. We ended up trading it for the Yukon for less than what we initially wanted for it, but we bought the Yukon for a lot less than we planned to spend. So in the end, it was a wash. The deal was within the budget we had set, so we decided to go with it.


My experience with Carmax is that they're high priced. We found similar Yukons and Suburbans elsewhere for a lot less, with lower mileage.

 

[Gambler]

I've been seriously lowballed by them twice. I got much better trade-in values at the dealer. For my Grand Prix I traded for my tahoe (KBB 10k), Carmax offered me 6500 (approx). I ended up getting 9500 at the dealer. I had them offer me $50 (no joke) for my wife's old car after we got married, we ended up selling it for $1000 (privately). I will never even bother trying to sell a car there again. I might consider buying one there though.

 

[orionkhan]

Yeah, it all depends on numerous factors. One thing people should keep in mind is that KBB is not the bible of car pricing. Its nothing more than an estimate. And many times its dated information. A car's value is what someone is willing to pay for it. Period. You may want more. But if you can't get more, its not worth more.

Dealerships do nothing more than what we do when we go to buy a vehicle. They try to get it at the lowest price possible for a trade in. They're trying to work the best deal they can and take trade-ins as an incentive to us to buy a car in return. Carmax is no different.

One thing to keep in mind about Carmax is that they don't necessarily sell every car that they buy on their lots. Often, they turn them around and sell at auction. I think you can get a better deal from them if they think they can sell it on their lot. But that probably depends on markets conditions, inventory, the vehicle condition, etc.

 

[73shark]

Carmax will usually give you a better price for a 1-2 yr old vehicle that's clean than a dealer. But it all depends on the market.

 

[metro273]

I plan on buying my Tahoe or Suburban from Carmax. I hope their prices are decent...

 

[jnicks01]

Yeah, they will try and low ball you for sure. They wanted to give me more than 60% less than what I traded it to the dealer for. Trust me, the dealer did me no favors either, but much better than Carmax and fair enough not to have to deal with selling it on my own. Carmax tried using the excuse that due to gas prices, they cannot give you a fair value. Total BS.