The CarMax Car Buying Experience - No Fuss, No Muss, No Negotiating, Few Hassles

What's it like to buy a car from CarMax? Over the past decade, my wife and I have bought four cars from CarMax and accompanied relatives while they also bought a car at CarMax. Our vehicles have included a Chevy Cavalier, a Ford Explorer, a Toyota Camry, and a Toyota Highlander. All of the cars were used with less than 30,000 miles on their odometers. Our purchases were made a locations in Georgia and Northern Virginia. Overall, we've found the CarMax buying experience to be easy and straightforward.

Even before you step onto the premises, the CarMax buying experience is different. You can easily examine the entire CarMax inventory on-line at CarMax.com and get complete photos, reviews, prices, and options. Once you get to CarMax, you can't just saunter onto the lot. CarMax lots are secured by a metal perimeter fence. In order to look at the cars, you have to walk through the building. You are immediately greeted by a customer service representative. But, unlike the dreaded sales people at a conventional dealership, you can actually give them the brush off with ease. They'll simply wish you well in your browsing and let you know that they'll be glad to open any cars you like or take a test drive.

Once you are on the lot, you'll find the cars neatly arranged by category and make. For example, in the small cars, all of the little Hyundais might be clumped together next to all the little Hondas. The CarMax inventory is divided into two types of vehicles: CarMax cars and ValuMax cars. CarMax cars are typically newer with fewer miles. ValuMax cars have higher mileage (60,000 miles+) are older (6 years or older). The inspections and warrantees are different for the two types of cars. ValuMax cars typically cost less.

Each car has a uniform CarMax sticker on the window, with a basic listing of the car's features, and a non-negotiable fixed price that is lower than the Bluebook price for the vehicle. The sticker is easy to read, but provides a basic description of features. For example, the sticker might read AM/FM/CD stereo without revealing whether the car has an optional high end stereo system or other special stereo features.

Once you've selected cars of interest, you can show them to a sales representative and they will get the keys to let you check them out inside or take a test drive. For each of our test drives, the sales representative guided us through a short test drive over a pre-arranged course. While the test drive seems pretty reasonable, with a couple of our purchases, the smooth course and short test drive course hid a couple of rattles or handling characteristics. The test drive experience is reasonable, but you really have to pay attention to the car and the things you want to test rather than the sales representative.

While CarMax prides itself on selling carefully inspected used cars, you must still be alert for flaws in the vehicle. On one test drive of a Mazda several years ago, we found that the car had a recently steam-cleaned engine and that it was stumbling badly due to moisture in the distributor or a loose spark plug. We decided to pass on that car.

If you catch flaws before the car leaves the lot, you can get them corrected as part of the sale. On our recent Toyota purchase, we caught a couple of minor paint scratches and were able to arrange for CarMax to buff them right out immediately after the purchase.

Once you've decided on a car, you go back into the office to close the deal. However, since the price isn't negotiable and is very reasonable, you don't have to threaten to walk off or cool your heels while your salesman confers with the "sales manager." You also don't have to fight with a finance guy because you enter your own loan information on-line and apply for loan offers from three banks. While I think you are better off securing a loan prior to shopping, the handling car loan financing is fairly easy at CarMax.

The CarMax sales staff will offer you the option of buying an extended warranty, but they do take no for an answer. As a Circuit City company, they also offer a variety of auto electronics upgrades. While these were displayed prominently, the staff never pitched them to me. Of course, we bought well-optioned sensible cars that did not need any upgrades.

CarMax handles car trade ins separately from the purchase process. You drop your car off with CarMax and their technicians take a look at it and make an offer on it. While I have never traded in a car with CarMax, relatives who have traded in cars found that they received a very equitable offer for their used vehicle.

Vehicle selection and the completion of sales paperwork can go very quickly at CarMax. However, in my experience, the staff can take a little while to prep the car and deliver so that you can drive away. When we bought our Toyota Highlander, it took about 30 minutes to complete the sales paperwork and it seemed like another 45 minutes until the car was ready to drive off. I think that CarMax could speed this time up considerably by starting deal prep as soon as a salesperson and customer sit down to start on the sales documents. There is no reason that the two processes cannot run concurrently.

CarMax also has a little room for improvement in the service arena. If you find minor flaws in your used vehicle, they will courteously accept it for service to repair the issues. For more complex issues, they often send vehicles to local new car dealers for the brand. We found that it was often more productive for us to establish our own service relationships with local new car dealers.

Overall, CarMax offers a simple, transparent, stress-free buying experience devoid of high pressure sales tactics and underhanded tactics. If you want an experience with no negotiations, no fuss, no muss, and few hassles, I would strongly recommend CarMax as an alternative to traditional new and used car dealers.