Experiences with CarMax?

Hello fellow Tacoma enthusiasts! Looking to SELL my 2020 TRD Sport to CarMax with what seems like a super good offer. Anyone here ever sell to them and how was your experience?

 

Since I live in California and there is zero benefit for me to trade in vehicles I usually shop around Carmax and then throw the number in the dealer’s face. I don’t understand the carmax business model but they tend to be very generous.

 

What SH10151 is saying, if it wasn't clear, is that California and eight other states don't give you sales tax credit when you trade in a car.

For example, if Carmax offered me $20K and the dealer offered me $18,400, it would be the same thing. If I took the 20K to the dealer I would have to pay 8.7% sales tax (AZ) on the full price. If I trade and get 18.4K I pay sales tax on sale price minus 18.4K. 8.7% of 18.4K = $1,600. Works out to the same bottom line.

 

Very true. In my case sales tax on the difference between my trade and my new rig would be $1055. To buy it outright tax in NJ would be $3374. So the better offer would need to be 2K or better for me to be ahead. My CarMax offer is $3400 higher than my trade offer, hence the better deal.

 

Sold my 2022 Tacoma TRD OR to Carmax, it was straight forward. Received $40,000 on the spot after verifying odometer and no damage (8min inspection).
They’re still giving good money but check out Carvana as well. They quoted me $55,500 on my RRaptor (just for giggles, nothing else I’d trade for currently).

 

I've bought three cars there and traded in one car there over the years. All were positive experiences.

 

Former coworker used to work there. she said the more stock your vehicle is the better. she said they would rip custom bumpers etc and order stock parts.

I sold a Honda CRV and they gave me more than private party sales were offering. Plus they cut you a check and have notary on site.

 

Even with sales tax credit I still came in ahead with selling to Carmax versus trading in with our last 2 vehicles.

 

Sold my 718 Cayman to CarMax and got $5k more than the Porsche dealer offered. They also bought my trashed Subaru outback for what I felt was an excellent price considering it was trashed from duck hunting.

 

Very easy to sell to. I haven’t had bad experiences buying from them either.

 

Most dealerships who can't flip a trade-in on their used lot have to offload via auction broker like Manheim and pay listing, storage, arbitration fees as well as logistics costs and employee wages to deal with the trade-in.

Not as commonly known, but CarMax internally operates one of the largest dealer-only auction services, which is where they offload cars deemed not fit for their lots. But it also means all their auction service overhead is baked into their company, and typically able to offer purchase/trade-in premium over other dealers.

Throw it in the face of a dealer all day, but they are just being polite and not saying "take your crap over to CarMax so we don't have to deal with it."

During COVID, dealers lowballed trade-ins based on CarMax, Carvana and AutoNation offers. The folk who traded in non-desirable cars out of convenience, the dealer had dedicated runners who turned same day and dropped the trade-in off at the highest buyer of those three. My source: guys I know who worked at Chevy and Honda dealers.

 

Both times I've done business with Carmax were hassle-free.

 

Car dealers have a new and old inventory and they got used to screwing people on trade-ins so when somebody who deals with exclusively used inventory and is aggressive about getting cars to sell starts making better offers, dealers start throwing a hissy fit that you don’t need to shop around. But they absolutely need your trade so they can shove a few more grand of profit claiming that they are “hurting so bad” by taking in your “worthless” car.

In reality, the average person did not have as good of a quick option to unload a car besides trading it in because they would still have to deal with online marketplaces like eBay until Carmax, Carvana, etc came along and made it so you could have three or four legit competing offers in less than 24 hours. Carvana will even come to your house.

My wife was trying to trade in an old JGC that was in one accident and the Jeep dealer said how “worthless” the car is and how it’s going “straight to auction” so I said we’re going to take it Carmax and immediately the guy says that he’s going to meet the Carmax price within 500 bucks. I didn’t want to hassle so that’s what we did.

It feels like they are saying one thing and doing another.

 

I sold on carvana, and the whole process from getting the offer to getting paid was less than 24 hours

 

IMO if you want to sale your vehicle CarMax is an excellent choice if buying not. When buying you will pay full retail although you will have a haggle free experience if you don’t mind paying for it.

 

Just sell it to Carmax if people are being cheap and giving you lower offers.

Sold my 2010 C6 to Carmax all within 2 hours - I only spent about 20-30mins there cause I left the car with them while they did their appraisal.

Got a call to come in and sign over the title and release of liability and got a check from them at the same time.

 

After selling the last few vehicles that were semi-unique privately? I would never want to sell something more ubiquitous. I am so tired of dealing with fucking weirdos and shit house offers from Craigslist. And the fact that CL is dead and it's now all FB marketplace is even less appealing. I wholesaled a couple vehicles due to age and miles that Carvana/Carmax wouldn't touch. I don't want your half broken quad and a slightly used mattress. I'm not playing Fallout.

 

Craigslist ads here in the Bay Area are either scammers or people trying to rob you at gunpoint or sell you stolen shit.

 

These 'business' models are simply created to create any kind of 'movement' in any kind of 'market',
sustain the 'business' even at a small or reasonable loss, and then sell-out to some conglomerate that
thinks they can do better.

The original 'owners' will hold a majority of the stock, ( if issued ) but they must wait a certain number of
years before selling to avoid manipulation. This is what happened to the internet bubble. Kids were creating
sites and issuing stock, hoarding it, just waiting for the day they could sell. It so happened these 'dates' all came
around the same time and these kids sold millions upon millions of their stock.... cashed in so to speak, and the
internet bubble just went up in flames.

It can still be done but it takes a bit more finesse than it used to. I missed out on millions upon millions back in the day.
Actually had an audience with son-of-schwab ( Charles Schwabs son ) in a tall building in San Francisco to pitch an idea
that would have been worth 100's of millions but he didn't understand what it was about.

Consider this: Microsoft bought Hot-Mail for 400 million back in the 1990's.... trust me, 400 million in the 1990's is like
billions in today's dollars.

 

Carmax is probably the easiest and safest place to sell a car. You walk in get an appraisal, if you like the price, they'll cut you a check. The appraisal is valid for a couple days, after that you gotta get it reappraised. The appraisal is not contingent whether you buy a car from them or not.

Now if you want to make the most out of that appraisal, you can turn around and try to sell it private party but you'll be dealing with tire kickers and low ballers. If you get lucky a flipper will pay a couple of grand over carmax but you gotta be careful about receiving payment, do it at the bank make sure payment clears before you sign the title and handover the keys. Good luck!