Advice for selling car to CarMax to buy Tacoma

I sold a car to CarMax a little less than a year ago, and got a quote from them for my last car that i got rid of to get my Tacoma.

The car that I sold to them was my wifes Acura MDX that i know i would have got more money for had i sold it private, but to be honest i didn't want to deal with the selling it and it wasn't too far off what i was expecting for it.


My last car was an Audi A4 USP that they offered me $10k for (the KBB trade value at the time was $13,500), so i walked out. I ended up trading it in for the truck somewhere else, and got a lot more for it that way.

CarMax is going off of the auction prices, and not KBB. They will look at the average selling price at the auctions and offer you something close to that.

Also, both times they asked me if i had made any modifications to the suspension and/or motor because i believe they will not a buy a car that has had modifications done to the suspension or motor. (luckily i put it back to stock before going there ). With that in mind i would recomend putting your car back to stock before going to sell it to CarMax, and that will also allow you to sell your mods to make up for the low ball offer they are likely to give you.

 

I have a 2002 GTi that I took to CarMax back in 2004 so I could get an idea of what they would buy it for. Your car looks as clean as mine does and they totally insulted me. Mine's black, modded with suspension, wheels/tires, chip, exhaust and was detailed to the nine's. It's not some ghetto bean-cruiser. The yahoo comes back from inspecting it and whispers to the sales guy, "it's a little rough". So instead of $11k he throws down $8, which in KBB terms means 'poor' condition, needs paint, parts etc. so he got the middle finger and I walked. Then he chases me back out to the front door where I'm waiting for the car to driven around and attempts to apologize, saying a car like that would sit around for 60 days cuz no one wants those cars anyway and it would wind up at an auction, blah blah blah. Needless to say, I'm glad I kept the car and also have the Taco. Hope you can do the same.

 

I had an 05 4Runner that I was trying to sell for $10,000.00. Couldn't sell it for whatever reason. Took it to CarMax and they cut me a check for $10,500.00. What can it hurt to go get a bid?

 

Totally agree with this! Worst case, they don't give you a good enough offer and you've wasted an hour.......

 

In my experience, you will probably not get full value from CarMax -- they offered me $750 for my Thunderbird, it was in great shape and low miles, so I decided to sell it via private party ads and got $1200 for it. Try selling your VW in the online classifieds or local private party newsprint ads, sure it may be a little more "hassle" than giving it to carmax for whatever they toss you, but I think it's worth getting several hundred bucks extra, or more.

 

give me 14k and your car and i will trade you ...

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/buy-sell-trade/91533-fs-2006-trd-off-road-dc-va.html

 

Figured I would get more from a VW dealer for a 2005 Touareg than on trade with a Toyota dealer so did a straight buy with Toyota. I then went to a local VW dealer who indicated Carfax showed a "moderate accident" so they could not buy it. (It was a $3,000 fender bender, no frame damage) Went to CarMax and got more than what I had expected from the VW and it was within $2,000 of what was showing as a probable retail sale price. I was pleased with the Carmax experience.